Political Heat

Rights are protected for ALL Americans, not just specific religious beliefs Following the Supreme Court ruling that established the right of same-sex couples to receive equal marriage rights across the country, Gov. Scott Walker was deeply upset. Calling the decision a “grave mistake,” Walker expressed that he would fight on against the ruling, and supports the push for an amendment allowing states the right to discriminate against gay and lesbian households. Walker also made a lengthy statement about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: Recognizing that our founders made our Constitution difficult to amend, I am reminded that it was first amended to protect our “first freedom” — the free exercise of religion. The First Amendment does not simply protect a narrow “right to worship,” but provides broad protection to individuals and institutions to worship and act in accordance with their religious beliefs. It’s true that the First Amendment provides those protections...

The struggle for marriage equality has been a long one -- and it's not over yet I've been in favor of marriage equality for a long time.  Ten years ago I wrote for my college newspaper, the UW-Milwaukee Post . I was an opinion writer, focusing on national and local political topics that I felt needed to be discussed. Among those issues, I frequently wrote about the need to allow same-sex couples the right to marriage benefits. In November 2005 I wrote: Denying homosexuals the right to marry is denying their pursuit of happiness...While religious conservatives have arguably pursued their happiness -- by not allowing gay couples to be recognized by a secular state as married -- their pursuit has destroyed the possibility for [same-sex couples] to pursue their own happiness. The following year the state of Wisconsin passed a ban on same-sex marriages. In the run-up to that, I wrote columns urging people to vote against the ban. In March of 2006 I wrote: To allow...

Two grim predictions on the effects of repealing the 48-hour waiting period to buy guns A week after a horrific shooting in Charleston, South Carolina left nine dead, Gov. Scott Walker signed away the requirement to allow a 48-hour waiting period before any individual could purchase a gun in the state. He signed the law repealing the ban, as well as another law allowing retired law enforcement officers to carry guns on school grounds, in spite of the violence last week, because (in his words) waiting on signing or drawing back from the signing ceremony “would have given people the erroneous opinion” the bills “had anything to do with what happened in Charleston.” That makes it better? I can make two predictions based on the repeal of the law requiring a 48-hour waiting period. Sadly, both of them are pretty grim. The first: Wisconsin’s suicide rate will go up . Statistically, waiting periods during the Brady Law helped prevent at least some suicides from occurring during ...

More changes related to attitudes on race and gun ownership are needed in the wake of recent societal violence The removal of the Confederate Flag from various sites, businesses and state grounds is a huge milestone for our nation. A symbol that has sustained a long history of being associated with hate and racism is finally being removed, and the importance of its departure should not be overlooked. But let’s be honest with ourselves -- the Confederate Flag was but a small part of what drove a man to kill nine people in a house of worship this month . Racism will continue to exist, and violence towards minorities will only escalate, unless we challenge ourselves to open our minds and our attitudes towards others. We cannot continue down the path we’re going. When we find that our nation has a sizable number of its citizens who are flagrantly against a sitting president based on the color of his skin, or when racial divides separate our understanding of a racially motivated ac...

State growth from 2010 to 2014 was 60 percent slower than national average, worst among bordering states Quarterly figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out this week -- and the numbers once called the “gold standard” by the Scott Walker administration are showing that his policies have stifled Wisconsin’s job growth . From December of 2013 to December of 2014 -- the fourth year of Gov. Walker’s tenure -- the state ranked 38th in the nation in job creation , with just 35,759 total private sector jobs created in that time. The final year of Walker’s first term also marks an important milestone: in this year, the governor’s pledge of 250,000 jobs, which he promised to create in 2010 (helping to win him his current seat), was due. And how did Walker stack up? It’s clear Wisconsin (under Walker) is failing in job growth compared to elsewhere Of the 250,000 jobs he promised, Wisconsin only garnered about 51.7 percent of that number, or just under 130,000 jobs. To so...

Instead of fixing problems at WEDC, legislators want to destroy the agency that exposed legitimate problems Scott Walker’s flagship jobs creation agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, has had many noticeable and embarrassing problems since it was first put into place . Many of the issues, including excessive and questionable loans to companies that have donated large sums of money to Gov. Scott Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, have made it abundantly clear that the WEDC is in dire need of oversight. The Legislative Audit Bureau, a nonpartisan government board that has overseen state agencies since 1965 , brought to light many of the controversies and problems associated with the WEDC. To reward this exemplary work, to ensure that the LAB continues to oversee excessive and egregious spending of taxpayer dollars, the Republicans in the state legislature... plan to completely dismantle the agency . Wait, what? Two Republican state representatives, David ...

Stats don't support Walker's premise that the state is a "leader" under his watch The latest reports from the Gov. Scott Walker administration try to paint a rosy picture about jobs in the state. And a recent editorial by Walker (published in New Hampshire) tries to showcase the state as an example of what he can do for the nation as president. But are Walker’s policies really making us a leader in jobs? The stats don’t hold up to the governor's words . For every 1,000 jobs that were already in place before Walker’s first budget was passed in June 2011, Wisconsin has created 44 more jobs. Contrast that to the states that border us and you can see why some people might not take Walker seriously: Wisconsin is well behind the national average on that metric: for every 1,000 jobs already in the U.S. in 2011, 69 jobs were created. Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois and Iowa also beat out the Badger State. In other key measurements Wisconsin is also slip...

Whoever wins deserves both our support (and criticism, when necessary) in the years to come In the race for Democratic Party Chair this weekend, I’m choosing to endorse...no one. Each of the candidates, in my mind, provides something positive to the party. Even those with limited direct experiences with the DPW have something to give, as most of the state voters who identify with Democrats share similar histories. All-in-all, whoever wins needs our support. Personally, I think that whoever wins will lead the party in a proper direction. I do support one person more than others, but that reason is based on my own history with that person more than anything else. In 2009, I interned with the DPW in Madison for a brief three-month period. I got to work a little with Joe Wineke, who was a jovial but effective leader of the party in those years. Reeling off of recent victories in 2008, the party seemed to be in a good place at that time. I think we’d be in a good place with Joe...

Reasonable gun legislation won't ever be passed with Scott Walker in office Today is National Gun Violence Awareness Day . Gun violence affects us all, even if some of us don’t readily admit it. When there’s a spike in violence, it hits a community both personally and psychologically. The cycle seems endless: after one act of violence occurs, another seems to inevitably pop up before we’re able to even start grieving for the first loss. It doesn’t have to be that way -- and it doesn’t have to be pro-gun vs. pro-regulation, either. Both sides can contribute to lower rates of violence. For those in support of expanding regulation for gun laws, the mission is pretty self explanatory. We need comprehensive reform to limit the number of weapons that show up in offenders’ hands. That includes instituting waiting periods, requiring background checks for all purchases, and pushing for an assault weapons ban on certain guns that are quite literally overkill. But gun rights a...