Yearly Archives: 2021

(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is taking another shot at Dane County’s emergency order, which places all sorts of limits on businesses and bans crowds of more than 10 people.

WILL on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Dane County court challenging the county’s Emergency Order 10. This is the second lawsuit WILL has filed against the county’s emergency order. The first case last year failed in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,

“This lawsuit is substantially similar to an original action WILL filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court in November 2020,” the group said in a statement. “The Court voted not to grant WILL’s original action, 4-3, without addressing the merits of the case, but four Justices indicated the claims had substantial merit.”

WILL is arguing, once again, Dane County’s board must vote on the emergency order and closures. WILL’s lawsuit says the county’s public health department does not have the constitutional power to issue such sweeping orders on its own.

“Dane County’s health department has enacted some of the strongest restrictions in Wisconsin without any express sanction from local elected officials,” WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg, said. “This lawsuit asks the court to rein in the ability of local, unelected health officers to unilaterally issue sweeping restrictions.”

While the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against WILL last year, the court did leave the door open to another case.

Justice Brian Hagedorn, who was the swing vote in the last case, wrote at the time WILL”s lawsuit asks “important statutory and constitutional questions that deserve judicial scrutiny.”

Dane County enacted Emergency Order 10 in November of last year, and has since moved on to Emergency Order 12. That order keeps the same restrictions in place.

In addition to limits on bars, restaurants, and other businesses as well as gatherings, Dane County’s emergency orders limit both school-related and private sports teams.

WILL is suing on behalf of two parents who say the emergency order’s ban on sports in Dane County is harming their children.

“Recent research from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health found that ‘participation in sports is not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 among Wisconsin high school student-athletes,’ based on a survey of 207 schools in Wisconsin that allowed sports during the fall,” WILL’s lawsuit states. “Another study from UW Madison, of soccer specifically, surveyed 124 clubs from 34 states, serving over 90,000 soccer players, and found only one case of COVID-19.”

WILL filed the case in Dane County court on Wednesday.

(The Center Square) – President Joe Biden took the oath of office Wednesday to become the nation's 46th president, ending four years of Donald Trump's administration and marking the beginning of a push for progressive policies in Washington D.C. that could have a widespread impact on taxpayers.

"This is America's day," Biden said in his first comments after becoming president. "This is democracy’s day, a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to Biden. Minutes before Biden was sworn in, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor administered the oath to Harris.

"The American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us," Biden said.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have vowed to reverse course on a number of Trump-era decisions. That includes rejoining the Paris Climate Accord to combat climate change; ending funding for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and easing other strict immigration enforcement measures; revoking Trump's permit allowing construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada through the U.S., which would have increased capacity to process billions of barrels of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas; among other new directives.

Biden, a Democrat, takes over as Democrats hold control of the U.S. House and the Senate is evenly divided with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, though Vice President Harris holds the tie-breaking vote.

Biden also has proposed scaling back some of the tax cuts contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which reduced federal income taxes on individuals and businesses across the country.

This story is developing and will be updated.

The controversy first erupted when community members raised concern over a thin blue line flag shown in a tweet touting officers who broke up...

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday vowed that "we will be back in some form" after leaving the White House for the final time as president.

He wished in the incoming administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris "great luck and great success," adding, "I hope they don't raise your taxes, but if they do, I told you so."

Biden and Harris are to be sworn into office a little after noon eastern Wednesday.

Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base as he was about to depart to his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Trump cited his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, record stock market prices and economic growth, and his judicial appointments as among his administration's successes.

"What we've done has been amazing by any standard," he said.

Trump acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge, and paid respet "to the incredible people and families who suffered so gravely from the China virus. It was a horrible thing that was put into the world."

(The Center Square) – President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the country's 46th president Wednesday during an Inauguration Day ceremony unlike any other.

With social distancing and crowd-size limits the rule of the day during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of attendees has been scaled back significantly over health concerns.

Streets around the U.S. Capitol are blocked off, a security perimeter of 4.6 miles has been fenced off and the National Mall has been closed, all aimed at reducing crowd size.

Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, will be sworn in shortly after noon eastern before a mostly television audience. John Roberts, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, will administer the oath of office, as is tradition. Harris, who will become the first woman and the first Black vice president, will be sworn in by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina on the high court.

Biden then will deliver his first address to the nation as president.

Unlike previous transitions of power, President Donald Trump plans to return to his home in Florida hours before the inauguration takes place. Vice President Mike Pence will be on hand though, as will former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

There will be no parade following the ceremony from the Capitol to the White House, and there will be no traditional inaugural balls because of the pandemic. Instead, Biden, Harris and others will participate in a TV event called "Celebrating America."

Biden aides say he plans to sign about 100 executive orders on his first day in office, including one that will have the U.S. rejoin the Paris climate accord and another ending a travel ban on predominately Muslim countries.

When Google-owned YouTube suspended Donald Trump’s ability to post videos last week, it joined Facebook and Twitter in blocking the president, and many Trump supporters, from their platforms. Conservatives and others have denounced the moves as censorship. But the decisions by tech companies to refuse service to those they do not approve of – including the president of the United States – also raise concerns about national security.

The Department of Defense uses software created, delivered, and maintained by many of the same high-tech companies now engaged in shutting down online speech. If the titans of tech can pull the plug on public communications tools people have come to rely on, some observers fear, they might do the same to the Pentagon in response to a military action deemed unacceptable by, for example, San Franciscans.

Something along those lines already happened with Project Maven, a major Pentagon initiative using Google algorithms to identify drone targets. The software was well under way when, in 2018, thousands of Google’s workers protested their company becoming a defense contractor.

"We believe that Google should not be in the business of war," began an open letter from Google employees to company boss Sundar Pichai. They demanded that the company create a “clear policy” stating that it and its contractors never “build warfare technology.”

Bowing to this pressure from its own workforce, Google has stepped back from high-profile military projects. The company has been noticeably absent from the scramble among such firms as Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle to win the contract for the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. A 10-year deal providing cloud computing to the Department of Defense, JEDI is worth billions of dollars.

The Pentagon could rely exclusively on established defense contractors that are not squeamish about the business they’re in. But officials have been eager to work with Big Tech, where they expect to find the top talent that will gain and maintain an edge for the U.S.

That talent is proving to be touchy. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, now has a small union less interested in winning workers’ pay and benefits than in projecting ideological might. “We will use our reclaimed power to control what we work on and how it is used,” the union’s mission statement reads.

It isn’t just external political pressures that have led Big Tech companies to de-platform Trump and his supporters; the pressure also comes from within.

“We will ensure Alphabet acts ethically and in the best interests of society,” declares the company’s workers union, confident in its own ability to discern the best interests of society.

Google isn’t the only conscientious objector. Microsoft did pursue the JEDI contract – over the objections of workers who published an open letter of their own.

“Many Microsoft employees don’t believe that what we build should be used for waging war,” the letter protested. “When we decided to work at Microsoft, we were doing so in the hopes of ‘empowering every person on the planet to achieve more,’ not with the intent of ending lives and enhancing lethality.”

'Software as a Service'

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, studies military procurement of technology. He says that tech employees are less likely to object to selling to the Pentagon “as computing becomes more like a commoditized service.” Developing generic software that can be used by anyone, including the military, may be less objectionable to Big Tech workers than crafting bespoke war-fighting code. For example, Clark says, “Microsoft sells Office 365 to DoD and has sold Office to the military for decades. Cloud computing and AI are becoming similar generic services.”

But Clark notes there is a difference between how a product such as Microsoft Office has traditionally been sold and the new cloud computing model. In the past, the purchaser would buy copies of the software, whether on discs or other media, and that software would be installed onto customers’ computers. How the customers used the software was generally beyond technology companies’ reach.

The new model is “software as a service,” says Gregory Sanders. He is a fellow and deputy director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In the new model, the product isn’t housed in customers’ computers, but rather in the technology companies’ own servers – in the cloud. It is convenient and allows customers to draw however much computing power they need, not unlike electricity. But if software lives in the cloud, access to the software is regulated by those who control the cloud. Big Tech has shown it can take away software from unpopular customers – and that its judgment of who deserves its products and who does not can change dramatically.

Take Amazon Web Services’ top government sector sales executive, Teresa Carlson. She enraged the rank-and-file when she promised AWS’s “unwavering” support for police, military, and intelligence customers. That was in the summer of 2018. Things were very different two years later. The May 25, 2020, death of George Floyd led to nationwide protests against police. Reacting to the rioting, Amazon announced it was “implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology.” That technology, called Rekognition, had been made available through the cloud.

There are reasonable debates to be had about what technologies governments should have access to and how they should be used. But what if the military comes to rely on technologies such as the cloud only to find that in a crisis those technologies are shut down or disabled by companies responding to the ideological demands of their own employees? These “security of supply considerations” are risks “the Department of Defense thinks about a lot,” Sanders says.

Internal ideological revolts have roiled companies beyond the tech giants, and are becoming a common cause of conflict between labor and management, even when management shares labor’s woke values. In June, staff at the New York Times rebelled against the editorial page for publishing an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton. The Arkansas Republican had advocated enlisting the military to help quell rioting. Editorial page editor James Bennet was pushed out and six months later his deputy resigned as well.

The Hudson Institute’s Clark says that if a tech giant withdrew access to services it had agreed to provide to the military, it would likely have to pay penalties for breach of contract. Such fines might make little difference to the bottom line of Big Tech. But the loss of cloud capabilities in the middle of a conflict could be disastrous for warfighters.

Sanders says the Pentagon could always invoke the Defense Production Act “if a company pulled out of a service provision in a crisis environment in a non-orderly manner.” As the Congressional Research Service puts it, the act “allows the President to require persons (including businesses and corporations)” to “prioritize and accept government contracts for materials and services.”

That might keep tech companies from leaving the government fully in the lurch in a crisis, but it isn’t a guaranteed strategy for success.

“The quality of work you get when compelling an objecting vendor wouldn’t necessarily be the best, so DoD wouldn’t want to invoke those authorities needlessly,” Sanders says.

Big Tech has proved willing to shut down service and shut out customers who become unpopular with Silicon Valley. That should be a red flag for government agencies that are considering housing their capabilities in the cloud – do they want to be constrained by the tech industry’s morals of the moment?

(The Center Square) – Florida U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy will introduce a bill to revise the federal background-check process to bar QAnon believers and those who participated in the Capitol insurrection from receiving security clearances necessary to hold government positions.

Murphy’s bill, the Security Clearance Improvement Act of 2021, would ask applicants seeking security clearances whether they have been “a member of, associated with, or knowingly engaged in activities conducted by organizations or movements that circulate conspiracy theories and false information.”

“A security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” tweeted Murphy, a Winter Park Democrat. “If an American participated in the Capitol attack – or if they subscribe to the dangerous anti-government views of QAnon, which has been linked to that attack – then they have no business being entrusted with our nation’s secrets.”

QAnon conspiracy theories have been weaved from cryptic postings on anonymous message boards since October 2017 from "Q," who claims to be a U.S. intelligence official with a Q-level security clearance.

Murphy, a third-term congressional representative who sits on the House Armed Services and Ways and Means committees, is a former national security analyst with the U.S. Department of Defense.

As someone who conducted federal security background checks, Murphy said “it is highly unlikely” anyone who believes "Q" “will be found by investigators to have shown the conduct, character and loyalty to the United States prerequisite to holding a national security position and viewing classified information.”

Murphy’s proposal also precludes participants in the Capitol insurrection Jan. 6 from holding security clearances.

“Any individual who participated in the assault on the Capitol or who is a member of the conspiracy movement QAnon should be required to disclose this fact when applying to obtain or maintain a federal security clearance,” she said.

According to Murphy’s office, the bill requests the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to add a question to Section 29 of the 130-page Standard Form 86 (SF-86) questionnaire that queries applicants whether they have been “a member of, associated with, or knowingly engaged in activities … that circulate conspiracy theories and false information.”

The SF-86 background check is for first-time applicants and renewals for security clearances to assess an individual’s “behavior, activities, and associations” to determine whether the individual is “reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and loyal to the U.S.”

“Armed with this information,” Murphy said, “the U.S. government will be in a better position to make the discretionary decision about whether the applicant is ‘reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and loyal to the U.S’ and thus deserving of a security clearance.”

If adopted, several of Murphy’s Republican House colleagues, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, could be among those barred from holding security clearances because of their association with QAnon.

Greene has dismissed the shooting that left 17 dead at Parkland’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day 2018 as a “false flag” attack on Second Amendment rights.

Boebert, like Greene, elected to her first term Nov. 3, is among congressional representatives facing internal scrutiny for allegedly leading “reconnaissance tours” before the assault.

Boebert called the “reconnaissance” allegations and Murphy’s proposed security clearance prohibitions, as attacks by Democrats “to exhaust my time and my resources to get me to back down. What they don’t realize is these attacks are only solidifying my base and adding more support. The people know I’m here for them.”

(The Center Square) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to distance himself from President Donald Trump and on Tuesday blamed the president in part for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Opening the Senate as it returned before Wednesday’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, the Kentucky Republican senator praised Congress for continuing its work through the riot, which he said was incited in part by Trump.

“The last time the Senate convened, we had just reclaimed the Capitol from violent criminals who tried to stop Congress from doing our duty,” McConnell said on the floor. “This mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the President and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”

Before the Capitol riot, McConnell had urged senators not to challenge the Electoral College certifications, calling the election the will of people.

Following the riot, McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, resigned as Trump’s Secretary of Transportation.

McConnell called November’s Senate elections that divided the body evenly between Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to seek common ground, while remaining respectful.

“There are serious challenges that our nation needs to continue confronting. But there will also be great and hopeful opportunities for us to seize,” McConnell said. “Certainly November’s elections did not hand any side a mandate for sweeping ideological change. Americans elected a closely divided Senate, a closely divided House and a presidential candidate who said he’d represent everyone.

“So our marching orders from the American people are clear. We are to have robust discussions and seek common ground. We are to pursue bipartisan agreement everywhere we can…and check and balance one another respectfully where we must.”

Deputy Sheriff Adam Gibson and K9 Riley were shot and killed in the parking lot of the Cal Expo and State Fair facility following a vehicle pursuit of a parolee. Deputies...

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s largest dairy group wants to keep milk as milk, and wants to make sure the state’s environmental rules for large farms are settled.

The Dairy Business Association on Tuesday released its 2021 legislative wish list.

“The DBA’s legislative priorities reflect the complexity of the dairy community,” DBA President Amy Penterman said on Tuesday. “We urge the governor and legislators to put the pieces together as they move their agendas forward and shape the next budget.”

The Dairy Business Association is Wisconsin’s largest dairy group, and dairy is one of Wisconsin’s largest industries. Penterman said dairy farms in the state generate billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

Topping the Dairyman’s to-do list is a balancing of the state’s environmental regulations.

“We can have a system that saves time, relies more on private industry, and focuses on continuous and quantifiable improvement,” DBA government affair director John Holevoet said Tuesday. “Increased [environmental regulation] fees and more staff are often offered as solutions to the program’s problems. We are not opposed to either of these things, but only if they are part of a package of broader improvements to the overall program.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ administration has taken a hard look at environmental regulations and dairy farms, with an eye toward regulation over the past two years, including an increased focus from the governor’s office on water quality standards.

Holevoet said that water quality is on the table, but there needs to be a balance.

“Last session’s water quality task force bills were just the beginning of the discussion,” Holevoet said. “Among other aspects, we need more funding for groundwater mapping, well testing, the non-point program, and farmer-led watershed conservation groups.”

The DBA also wants $7.8 million per year for the Dairy Innovation Hub with the University of Wisconsin System and flexibility in the UW Extension program.

Holevoet said dairymen in the state also want truth-in-labeling laws.

“The plant-based industry uses terms like milk, cheese and ice cream to ride on the marketing coattails of dairy farmers and processors,” Holevoet said. “Customers are being misled and farmers and processors are being treated unfairly.”

(The Center Square) – About 1.6 million Illinoisans with a Facebook page who joined a class-action lawsuit could get about $350 in the coming months as part of a settlement.

The checks are from a $650 million settlement that alleged the social media giant violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act.

One out of every five eligible Facebook users filed a claim before the Nov. 23 deadline. Christopher Dore, partner at Edelson PC, said the turnout was high for a typical class action lawsuit.

“There were 1.6 million claims filed, which is really remarkable for a class-action,” he said. “Often in class actions, it’s in the single digits.”

The figures were released last week during a final approval hearing in California federal. The payouts could still get tangled up further in court.

“If there are no appeals, we hope that checks would be distributed in the next two-or-so months after that. If there are appeals, it becomes a little bit more unpredictable and, unfortunately, could extend out many more months after that,” Dore said.

Those who qualified aren’t necessarily Illinoisans but could be former residents. To qualify for the class action, you had to be one of the approximately 7 million Facebook users that had a profile after June of 2011. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans have left the state, most commonly heading to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, or neighboring states. They would qualify as long as they lived in the state for at least six months during that near-decade window.

Dore said the estimated payout is still in line with their initial estimate of between $200 and $400 but was slightly lowered after a last-minute rush of Facebook users seeking class participation just before the deadline.

The suit was initially filed in 2015 by Edelson, claiming Facebook’s facial recognition feature was taking biometric data from users without their express permission, a central tenet of BIPA.

Illinois’ law is unique in that it’s the only one of its kind that allows for private action, whereas other states rely on their attorney general to file suit.

Fines for breaking BIPA start at $1,000 per instance and can be upgraded to $5,000 if it can be proven that the accused purposefully broke the statute.

(The Center Square) – After a slow start with coronavirus vaccinations, the state of Wisconsin is flinging open the door for the next round.

Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm on Tuesday announced that anyone 65-years-old and older will be able to get the vaccine starting next week.

“Older adults have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and prioritizing this population will help save lives,” Palm said in a statement. “Wisconsin systems and operations are ready to vaccinate more people.”

Wisconsin has been among the slowest in the Midwest to administer its vaccine doses. As of Tuesday, DHS reported doctors and nurses have given-out 248,185 of the 473.300 doses that have been shipped to the state. That’s just over 52% of available doses. Wisconsin has been allocated over 779,000 doses, but many of them have not yet been shipped.

Palm said Wisconsin receives about 70,000 first-dose vaccines per week, so she added it will take some time to vaccinate the 700,000 people 65 and older in the state.

“The amount of vaccine we get from the federal government will determine how quickly we can get these groups vaccinated. Our partners in health care, pharmacies and local public health are ready and up to the task,” Palm said.

Wisconsin has taken its time, and faced criticism for, deciding who will be among those to get the vaccine next. The state’s Grocers’ Association last week blasted DHS for leaving 60,000 grocery store workers off the list while including people in jail and prison.

Palm said DHS’s vaccine subcommittee will decide who will be included in the next round of vaccinations later this week.

The news of a new, more open vaccine list is welcome at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, on Tuesday said it was about time.

“Just last week, my colleagues and I sent a letter to DHS Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm to tell her to ‘get out of the way’ so that our local healthcare providers and public health agencies could deploy vaccines to the most vulnerable members of our communities,” Marklein said. “I am thankful that she heard our call and is allowing our local hospitals and healthcare providers to save lives.”

Marklein said, however, there is no need to wait to get the vaccine into people’s arms. He said part of DHS’ order allows doctors and nurses to use extra vaccine doses on eligible patients before the vaccine expires.

“They can begin right away!,” Marlin added.

(The Center Square) – Betsy DeVos abruptly stepped down as Secretary of Education in the wake of the unprecedented tumult at the U.S. Capitol. How should we summarize her legacy? Despite the limitations of her office to truly effect change, she clearly made a bold mark for a life-changing cause she deeply believes in – school choice.

DeVos finishes as one of the longest-serving Cabinet members in the waning Trump administration. During her term she endured more than her fair share of vitriol, mostly fueled by union leaders who carried grudges over her political support for school choice at the state level.

As of February 2017, when DeVos was sworn in, 25 states combined to provide vouchers, tax credits or savings accounts to nearly 400,000 students whose families used the extra funds to choose private education. Throughout her tenure, DeVos sought to expand such opportunities to even more students, regardless of where they lived.

President Donald Trump originally campaigned on providing $20 billion for school choice. Families in need of educational alternatives awaited a more detailed proposal, even as some supporters raised reasonable questions about the dangers of overreach and entanglement that could come with federal dollars.

No plan of that size ever materialized in the Republican-led Congress. Federal lawmakers eventually unveiled a smaller bill to create Education Freedom Scholarships, but only after union-friendly Democrats regained charge of the House. While that ultimately doomed the initiative, DeVos never shied away from the role of champion.

As proposed, Education Freedom Scholarships would not have touched dollars from the federal treasury, which would have brought restrictive strings for families and schools. Instead, their proponents sought to encourage charitable giving for student needs through a $5 billion pool of tax credits. The idea was to let states set the parameters for who could use the dollars and how, with the federal government granting remarkably broad latitude.

Smaller-scale efforts to enhance parental choice had a mixed record during DeVos’s tenure. Thanks to a broader federal tax reform law, families can now use tax-exempt dollars in a 529 college savings plan to cover private K-12 tuition costs. Some states offer further tax benefits, which can make it easier to afford more education options. While some families can take advantage of the 529 strategy, others lack the financial resources to do so.

Students from lower-income families still face lingering obstacles to greater opportunities, and they could benefit from changes in federal funding patterns. Two rounds of coronavirus relief, totaling nearly $70 billion, have been approved for elementary and secondary schools. Congress has channeled all the money through the same old broken formula, which disproportionately favors students in larger districts over smaller districts and charter and private schools.

To her credit, DeVos fought in court, albeit unsuccessfully, for virus relief funds to be shared more fairly with students in nonpublic schools. Going forward, though, policymakers should direct some share of the next massive federal aid package to families who lack access to in-person instruction or need support for at-home learning expenses.

DeVos’s greatest work may have been to speak out consistently and forcefully on behalf of the primary role parents play in directing their children’s education. In particular, she defended the educational choices of poor and minority families.

“Any family that has the economic means and the power to make choices is doing so for their children,” DeVos said, rebuking “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl for her inaccurate charges about Michigan charter schools. “I’m fighting for the parents who don’t have those choices. We need all parents to have those choices.”

Over nearly four years leading the U.S. Department of Education, DeVos has ruffled more than a few feathers. As she steps down, the battles over educational choice will continue, especially at the state level.

Opponents of choice can be expected to define those debates much as they have sought to frame her agenda, in terms of competing forms of schooling: district vs. charter, or public vs. private. But DeVos insisted that such an approach is misplaced.

“Instead of dividing the public when it comes to education, the focus should be on the ends, not the means,” she said. “Adults should stop fighting over students and start fighting for students.”

On Jan. 14, 2021, the United States judicial system took a powerful stand for property rights and the rule of law. Ten years after Venezuela’s socialist regime stole hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of investments from Canadian mining company Crystallex, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware ruled that Crystallex is entitled to reclaim their due. Crystallex is now one step closer to selling shares of Citgo, which is owned by the despotic regime, in order to be compensated for its loss of property.

The court rightly rejected Citgo’s plea to conduct the sale itself, concluding, “Venezuela … has had every opportunity to pay its legitimate, Court-recognized debt to Crystallex, including before, during, and after the arbitration…[but instead] made Crystallex undertake a decade’s worth of extensive and expensive efforts to collect on its judgment…” This language sends a simple, powerful message: theft will never be tolerated. Despots and strongmen the world over ought to take note.

At the heart of the court’s ruling lies a tragic, complicated backstory that speaks to the perils of socialism and expropriation. As even occasional followers of the news know, Venezuela is currently run by the ruthless and vindictive dictator Nicolás Maduro.

A decade ago, the nation’s leadership was no less harsh but temporary prosperity masked terrible government policies. Hugo Chavez’s regime came to power in 1999 and rode a surge of oil demand through the 2000s that filled government coffers and created illusory economic success. Chavez’s plan ensured that regime officials would profit off these temporary gains as much as possible via nationalization and bribe payments from companies fearing expropriation.

When oil proved insufficient to fuel growth, the regime set its sights on another lucrative sector: gold mining. In 2008, Fox News reported the impending takeover of “the nation’s largest gold mine, operated by Canada’s Crystallex International Corp., as President Hugo Chavez gradually brings mining operations under state control.”

Several years earlier, Crystallex had been given the right to operate out of the Las Cristinas mine. Unfortunately, after Crystallex had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment, community development, and mining operations, Chavez’s government promptly ripped the contract to shreds in 2011 and sold off the rights to another company.

Yet, Crystallex wasn’t ready to simply write off its losses and kowtow to the predatory Chavez regime. In 2016, after several years of litigation, the World Bank’s international arbitration facility in Washington ruled in favor of Crystallex and against Venezuela for $1.4 billion, which accounts for the value of the investment, plus interest, lost by the company. Venezuela was now obligated to repay Crystallex for cancelling its contract, yet this was easier said than done.

Chavez’s successor Maduro wasn’t willing to cough up the money that his mentor stole. Fortunately, international arbitration rules concerning awards against governments recognize that states can be stubborn; consequently, the rules allow companies holding awards to pursue state-owned assets located abroad.

And finally, after a string of costly lawsuits, Crystallex is closer to reclaiming what was stolen from them. Now, the Treasury Department must stop its unilateral and unfounded blockade of Crystallex’s property rights and allow the sale of Citgo to proceed in the name of justice. Once confirmed, President-elect Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen has an opportunity to make this situation right by directing her Office of Foreign Assets Control to immediately allow Crystallex to proceed with its claim.

It is troubling that a favorable judgment for the mining company took such a long time. A smaller company may not have had the wherewithal to get their day in court. Fortunately, Crystallex’s legal win creates a powerful precedent that can readily be deployed whenever a despot resorts to theft. The U.S. has a long, proud track-record in standing up for freedom and putting despotic regimes in their place. On Jan. 14, the Third Circuit reaffirmed that property rights cannot be usurped by despotic regimes. We hope that Biden’s Treasury Department agrees.

(The Center Square) – President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday will look far different from those in recent memory due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and a violent outbreak at the Capitol two weeks ago.

The number of attendees has been scaled back for health precautions, and some 25,000 National Guardsmen will be on patrol. Streets around the Capitol are blocked off, a security perimeter of 4.6 miles has been fenced off and the National Mall has been closed, all aimed at reducing crowd size. There also will not be a parade following the ceremony from the Capitol to the White House.

Members of Congress, who normally get dozens of tickets to the event, will get just one guest ticket each this year. Incoming and outgoing Cabinet secretaries and Supreme Court justices are also expected to attend.

National Guardsmen assigned to the security detail in the capital are undergoing additional background screenings, although Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said Monday there is “no intelligence indicating an insider threat.”

At the same time, the security presence at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan will begin to loosen. New York City Police Department officials said streets around the building will reopen to vehicle traffic and a communications center inside will be dismantled.

President Donald Trump plans to leave the White House early Wednesday morning and arrive at his home in Florida before Biden is sworn in at noon. On his final full day in office, Trump plans to issue close to 100 pardons, although it is unclear yet if that will include himself and his family. White House staff say they are also trying to persuade Trump to continue the tradition of presidents leaving a hand-written note in the Oval Office for the successor.

Biden aides say he plans to sign about 100 executive orders on his first day in office, including one that will have the U.S. rejoin the Paris climate accord and another ending a travel ban on predominately Muslim countries.

Biden also said recently that he wants to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. It is currently $7.25. The Congressional Budget Office said such a move would result in 1.3 million jobs being lost.

Country singer Garth Brooks is expected to perform as part of the swearing-in ceremony. Brooks told reporters it is not a political statement but rather that he supports Biden’s call for unity. Brooks said Biden’s wife, Jill, called him personally to extend the invitation.

Police Officer Brandon Stalker was shot and killed at about 6:30 pm during a barricade involving an arson suspect. At approximately 2:20 am the front doors of the historic Rosary Cathedral...

In its final days, the Trump administration is seeking to disrupt the way progressive activists increasingly impose their will on big business: through banks controlling the loan lifelines to the economy.

The Fair Access to Financial Services Rule (FAFSR), just finalized by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), aims to prevent lenders from blackballing businesses in industries opposed by the left by requiring banks to demonstrate that their loan decisions are “based on quantitative, impartial risk-based standards,” rather than political or reputational concerns.

FAFSR is a response to successful pressure campaigns waged by environmental groups and congressional Democrats, which culminated in every major American bank refusing to finance drilling projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), despite such drilling being authorized by President Donald Trump in 2017.

Bryan Hubbard, an OCC spokesman, told RealClearInvestigations that the rule codifies longstanding OCC guidance on banks’ obligation to provide equitable access to their services, and will ensure that banks are not “terminating entire categories of customers.”

The rule has been published in the Federal Register, though it may prove short-lived. Many Democrats oppose the measure, and they will have 60 legislative days to disapprove it by a simple majority vote, as provided under the Congressional Review Act.

The Arctic drilling conflict highlights the power of progressive groups to intimidate, cajole, and partner with corporate powerhouses to advance their agenda – often beyond legislative confines. Through boycotts and other pressure campaigns, progressives have sought to push corporations to adopt their social and cultural values on issues ranging from climate-change policy to gun control. Firearms dealers, oil producers, payday lenders, and workers in other controversial industries have had their access to capital stunted by these campaigns, which are often aimed at the circulatory system of the economy – the banking industry.

Oil companies had spent decades working through Washington channels – engaging in lobbying, writing white papers, and, of course, offering generous campaign contributions to sympathetic legislators – to obtain permission to drill in ANWR.

The debate over drilling in the nation’s largest wildlife reserve has raged since portions of the 19-million-acre area were first set aside under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960. Twenty years later, President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which expanded the size of the reserve but opened up a coastal plain (the so-called 1002 Area) to oil exploration, subject to prior congressional approval.

That authorization has proven elusive, as preserving ANWR became a cause célèbre among environmentalists.

In December 2017, however, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included a provision written by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski authorizing oil exploration in the 1002 Area. The Republican lawmaker speculated that the project could generate “$60 billion in royalties for [Alaska] alone.”

As the required environmental review process moved forward, opponents took action.

In January 2020, Senate Democrats sent a letter to all major American banks, requesting that they “stop financing . . . oil and gas drilling and exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” in order to better “prepar[e] the U.S. economy to weather the growing impacts of the climate crisis.” The letter echoed themes found in later pressure campaigns waged by such environmental advocacy groups as the Sierra Club and Greater Good.

The banks fell quickly in line. In February, Wells Fargo announced that it would not “directly finance oil and gas projects in the Arctic region, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).” Citigroup declared that it would “not provide project-related financing for oil and gas exploration and production in the Arctic Circle.” By Dec. 1, every major American bank had announced its refusal to finance drilling in the region, despite congressional authorization for development.

In response, Murkowski and Alaska’s other members of Congress sent a joint letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in June, urging him to take action. The delegation highlighted how the banks in question were using “reputation risk” – the risks associated with public disfavor brought by financing politically and morally controversial projects – as a justification to deny Arctic drillers access to capital.

“By denying financing under the guise of reputation risk,” the lawmakers wrote, “these [banks] are discriminating against America’s interests, our economic recovery, and our workers, all while utilizing significant federal support and benefits.”

The regulation proposed by the OCC aims not only to end this standoff but also to ensure that other businesses “involved in politically controversial but lawful” industries are not excluded from capital markets.

Hubbard of OCC emphasized that banks receive federal deposit insurance and are given “the privilege of a national license to operate,” a license that he claims imposes on banks certain obligations. Banks have a duty, Hubbard said, to provide proportionate access to financial services, even for clients involved in legal but politically controversial industries.

(The Center Square) – There is another call for lawmakers in Madison to gut an emergency order and mask requirement from Gov. Tony Evers.

Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, on Friday said the governor once again overstepped his authority when he extended his emergency order until mid-March.

“The time has come for the Wisconsin Legislature to stand up for civil liberties and put an end to the excessive actions of Governor Evers to control the people of this state with unending Covid-19 emergency declarations,” Nass said in a statement.

Gov. Evers on Friday added 60 more days to his emergency order and mask requirement. By the time the order expires in the spring, Wisconsin will have been under a mask requirement in one form or another for nearly a full year.

Nass is asking the State Assembly and the State Senate to officially cancel the governor’s order.

“I will be offering a joint resolution that would immediately end the new emergency declaration and any orders issued from it. Wisconsin law allows the duly elected members of the Legislature, by joint resolution, to end any emergency declaration,” Nass said.

Gov. Evers has officially issued three emergency orders dealing with the coronavirus.

“The people of Wisconsin have been living with Covid-19 for almost a year now,” Nass said. “They are more than capable of determining for themselves and their family what steps are appropriate in their daily lives without the heavy hand of Evers.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the governor’s Safer at Home order back in May. That ended the first mask requirement in the state. The court has yet to rule on challenges to the governor’s emergency orders; specifically whether the governor or the secretary of the Department of Health Services has the power to extend the orders indefinitely.

Nass has asked for lawmakers to act before. But Republican leaders at the statehouse have been reluctant to call for the legislature to override the governor. There’s no indication Nass’ latest request will go anywhere.

Among all the bad policy coming out of Springfield, Ill., let’s celebrate the occasional glimmer of good sense.

But first, some background:

Illinois’ legislature passed legislation on policing and related matters last week in the dead of night. The 764-page bill passed the state Senate at 4:49 a.m. after being introduced and distributed to the members at 3:04 a.m. Only a few legislative insiders could have possibly known what was in the bill before voting; the rest of the legislature, first seeing the measure upon its introduction, voted blind.

Only after the Democrat majority passed the bill are we learning what’s in it – and there’s little that’s good.

The legislation has been assailed as radical and anti-police for good reason. Consider, for example, this nugget from page 50: Under current law, a complaint filed against a police officer is required to be supported by a sworn affidavit from the person filing the complaint and provides that anyone filing false information shall be referred for prosecution. The bill eliminates both the requirement for the sworn affidavit and referral for prosecution for false complaints.

This and other provisions declare open season on law enforcement. Weakening law enforcement further in a state already riven by soaring crime rates unleashed by lax prosecution of basic criminal laws will make Illinois a more dangerous and less attractive place to live.

But, one provision in this bill reflects an idea that needs to be constantly reinforced: Government should help its citizens, not hurt them.

I have argued elsewhere that Illinois government has become predatory – that it focuses on raising money to serve the people in government instead of focusing on serving the general public. A predatory government weighs heaviest on those who earn the least. Examples of predatory policies include the myriad fees, fines, rules and gotchas imposed – and the absurd penalties applied for minor infractions of this web of rules.

A young friend of mine, a high school graduate working his way into a skilled trade, would drive to visit his girlfriend. He earned about $13 an hour. Sometimes, he didn’t have money in his pocket for tolls and he didn’t have credit to get the transponder that would cut his toll costs in half.

Let’s pause for a moment: People with credit (i.e., those with more money) pay lower tolls on the highway than people with poor credit (i.e., those with less money). Why not charge folks who need to stop and pay cash the same amount as the folks who can drive through the toll with transponders?

Back to my story: My friend did not pay about $30 in tolls. Shame on him -- but note that the tolls that are small for many were more than he could afford on a daily basis. His minor infraction, which he ignored because he didn’t have the money anyway, turned into $2,500 in fines, as well as a suspended license — which led to the loss of his job — before I got involved.

While the Illinois Tollway authority has since then significantly reduced some of its penalties, government for people with low to moderate incomes is often Kafkaesque: a small mistake in dealing with government or error in judgment leads to cascading consequences that bear no proportion to the original mistake.

While not unique to Illinois, this is particularly true there because of the state’s financial crisis. Making government work for ordinary citizens is a secondary concern for leaders obsessed with finding money to fund the over-promised, under-funded public pensions.

The folks running our government, who campaign on imposing a $15 minimum wage on small businesses, have legislated a system of taxes, tolls, fees and fines that lower income residents can’t afford. And, as in the case of my friend and others, our government routinely forces people into debt and out of jobs in its search for revenue.

Is “safety” a reason or just a rationale for red light camera tickets? Are high highway tolls and gas taxes fair to those who make less? These and other petty revenue collection devices that then require enforcement hammer the less well-off. A bankrupt state that forces its own citizens into bankruptcy is a predatory state.

The good news in this bad bill is that motorists would no longer lose their licenses as a consequence of unpaid red light and speed camera tickets. That’s a small but important win for the people of Illinois, but what of the tickets themselves and the exorbitant penalties and fees that accompany this policy? Why not abolish these as well?

We need a thorough rethinking of all aspects of our government. We need leaders looking for ways to help people rise instead of holding them down or shaking them down.

PS: The young friend of mine I mentioned above recently moved to Texas. Why? He aspires to start his own business some day and he believes it’s easier to do that in Texas than in Illinois.

Wisconsin came in 13th highest on a new ranking measuring migration growth among the states based on one-way U-Haul truck traffic leaving or entering their borders last year.

California displaced Illinois as the state with the biggest net loss of U-Haul trucks in 2020, the moving company reported. And Wisconsin was ranked 41st in U-Haul’s 2019 migration growth study.

Both Texas and Florida had the most net gains in U-Haul truck traffic from 2016 to 2019 before they were displaced by Tennessee in 2020, the company said. What makes Tennessee attractive is its business-friendliness and low taxes, according to U-Haul.

Those states with the most migration growth are ranked based on net gains of one-way U-Haul trucks entering the state vs. trucks leaving their borders during a calendar year. More than 2 million one-way trips are logged by U-Haul every year, the company reported.

The annual ranking tracks truck traffic moving among its 22,000 truck- and trailer-sharing locations. U-Haul sees the data as a gauge of which states are attracting residents from outside their borders.

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U-Haul Ranking of Migration Growth Among States

2020 RankState2019 Rank1Tennessee122Texas 23Florida14Ohio75Arizona 206Colorado427Missouri 138Nevada 249North Carolina310Georgia 1611Arkansas 2312Indiana913Wisconsin 4114Oklahoma 1415South Carolina416West Virginia2217Utah818Kentucky 3719Montana 2620Minnesota 1521Kansas 1822Alabama 623New Hampshire 3124Iowa 3025South Dakota 2826Vermont 1027Delaware 2128Virginia 3929Maine 3330Idaho 1131Mississippi 2532Nebraska 1933Wyoming 2734Alaska 1735Rhode Island 3536Washington 537North Dakota 3238Washington, D.C.3839New Mexico 3640Michigan 4841Pennsylvania 4642New York 4343Connecticut 3444Louisiana4045Oregon 2946Maryland 4547Massachusetts4748New Jersey4449Illinois 5050California 49

Source: U-Haul International Inc.

“One form of freedom governs another just as one limb of the body does another.”

– Karl Marx

“Section 230” is a buzz word that has been bandied back and forth lately between the new left and conservatives in Washington D.C. It is a statute to shield internet companies from legal entrapment. It allows people to freely post most anything on the internet, from intimate stories about their lives, to political issues. So why all of the fuss over 230 lately? If it protects Big Tech from liability for content uploaded to their social media platforms, then why should there be any controversy over it at all?

Section 230 was passed in 1996 to assist internet startups. With print media censoring more news, Congress viewed the internet as a new free speech forum. The law was an olive branch to internet providers so they could remove lascivious content considered harmful or not proper for the young. In return, they would provide an open public uncensored forum for all social and political discourse. The internet would become a true haven for free speech on political, social and intellectual topics.

For the past four years, Section 230 transmuted from a harbor for free speech into a gift for big tech companies to circumvent the first amendment, and censor “free speech” for political gain. What legally is the privilege to expurgate lascivious content “only” has been judicially contorted by the courts to unintentionally provide Big Tech bulletproof immunity from all arbitrary censorship.

Section 230 is a gift that keeps on giving to Big Tech-owned social media platforms to engage in viewpoint discrimination at an unprecedented rate. Mega broadband corporations openly and freely abuse Section 230 daily, by determining what news, information and perspectives we can access, read, hear and post. The FCC has turned a deaf ear to abridgements of our rights to free speech.

“One sign of Napoleon’s greatness is the fact that he once had a publisher shot.

– Siegfried Unseld

A small number of Big Tech giants are now controlling the flow of most information in our society, “aided by government policy.” The left defends this practice claiming these private companies are exercising their First Amendment rights. Yet their argument is overtly flawed. They conveniently ignore that these companies agreed to abide by a law passed as a “privilege” to “allow” free speech.

Within hours after the Oct. 14 New York Post article on Hunter Biden and emails discovered on a laptop appeared on Twitter, users received a dubious message if they tried to share the story: “The link has been identified as harmful.” Facebook banned the story completely. Ultimately, social networks demoted it to “questionable news” until their fact-checkers verified it after the election.

Liberal Big Tech giants hoped by blocking the story they would stop people from reading it; which is an example of their arrogance. Nonprofit and small “fair and honest” social news sites had the story posted within hours. The Blaze, Epoch Times, News Max, Franklin and other truth-seeking for-profit and nonprofit news sources were informing millions of readers about the truth and the facts.

The Post called this an act of “modern totalitarianism, carried out by Silicon Valley dweebs.” The article ended up being the most-debated news story in the nation for weeks and is still a top story in the legitimate news today. Congressional leaders vowed to extract anti-conservative testimony on bias from Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, and other “Big Brothers” at Facebook and Twitter.

Big Tech has gifted unlimited power to censor all information in our free society by the government. If Google suppresses content, it does so for 90% of the global news market. When Twitter banned the critical news about the Bidens a month before the last election, it totally reshaped the national news narrative. Facebook admitted they use their resources to influence voters and the elections.

The ultimate impact these companies have is shaping independent thought by limiting our access to truthful reporting. This dictates consumer behavior, compromises election integrity and controls and censors freedom of speech. By forcing their liberal politics on society, they empower tyrannical rule within our free society.

“Take away freedom of speech and liberty dries up.”

– George Orwell

Georgetown University law professor Rebecca Tushnet wrote, “The broad leeway given to Internet companies represents power without responsibility." One Fox reporter said, “The original purpose of 230 was to facilitate the development of free speech forums, not to censor freedom of speech.”

Only one case of abuse of the Section 230 privilege has been prosecuted. Backpage.com, well known for its adult personals, has been charged by an Arizona federal grand jury over alleged prostitution and child abuse. Major digital-rights groups spent years defending their right not to take down child abuse posts.

Section 230 has turned into a Teflon shield, not to protect internet free speech, but to censor it.

Michael Beckerman of the Internet Association openly admits Section 230 “is not blanket amnesty for internet censorship,” but only mentions their obligation to monitor “sex trafficking.” And, he says, without Section 230 protections, providers would resort to more free speech censorship, not less.

This is the type of warped logic that has allowed Big Tech to censor free speech around the globe.

Cato said, “Patience is a virtue and a vice.” When Twitter and Facebook, along with Tiktok, PayPal, Discord, YouTube, and Google, banned Donald Trump, celebrities of all stripes and all free world leaders condemned every U.S. Big Tech CEO!

”Beware the fury of a patient man.”

– John Dryden

A CNN reporter tweeted, “When five companies control all online speech, this is a major problem.” Fox News host Greg Gutfeld scorched social media and the far left. “What makes us different from you is we don't play favorites like you do, we are outraged about your double standards.” He went on, “Americans do not need lectures from hypocrites or liberal media pundits on anything we do!”

Leftist Emily Ratajkowski, a "woke" celebrity who backed Socialist Bernie Sanders in 2016 and in 2017 praised Planned Parenthood, also defended Melania Trump after a New York Times reporter called our first lady a "hooker." She said. “They insulted our entire nation!" She attacked Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for believing that they had the “absolute power” to block Donald Trump’s accounts.

France’s Bruno Maire said, “Digital regulation should never be done by any digital oligarchy.” Germany’s Angela Merkel agreed, “Banning any elected president or anyone from the right to free speech by any corporate executive of any digital company is very problematic to our free world!”

Unprecedented power by tech industry giants threatens our republican self-government. Congress must amend Section 230 to outlaw all censorship of legal, ethical, social and political discourse on internet forums. This must apply to everyone who operates public internet access controlled by the FCC, or they will lose their license.

“The real, radical cure for the censorship would be its abolition; for the institution itself is a bad one, and institutions are more powerful than people.”

– Karl Marx

Tony Evers failed to meet the moment on everything that 2020 threw at us. Last week, when he addressed the state of the state,...

During the first nine months of 2020, state tax revenues in Wisconsin came in at 8.2% below the same period a year earlier, the 13th greatest decline among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Tax Foundation.

Comparing just the second and third quarters of 2020 with the same period a year earlier, the state tax revenues in Wisconsin were 13% lower. This time period reflected the first six months when the coronavirus pandemic was in full swing in the United States.

Nationwide, state tax collections from January through September were down 4.4% – or a total of $37.4 billion – compared to the 2019 revenues, the Tax Foundation reported. Local revenues, however, were up $29.8 billion in 2020 over the same period in 2019, revealing the stability of local tax sources such as the property tax and, in some cases, the sales tax, the study found.

A total of 10 states recorded higher revenue collections during the first three quarters of 2020, while such revenues were down by double digits in nine states during the same period.

The Paycheck Protection Program, as well as $535 billion in federal aid to state and local governments, helped to maintain employment levels and income tax revenues during the pandemic, the Tax Foundation study concluded.

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State Tax Revenue Changes in First 9 Months of 2020

RankStateQuarters 1 to 3 of 2020Quarters 2 & 31Alaska-25.80%-28.70%2Connecticut-25.40%-36.90%3North Dakota-22.70%-37.40%4Hawaii-16.70%-26.00%5Washington-15.60%-27.00%6Iowa-13.60%-20.70%7Massachusetts-12.60%-19.40%8New Mexico-11.70%-14.40%9Michigan-11.60%-3.30%10Maryland-9.30%-15.00%11Wyoming-9.00%-8.50%12West Virginia-8.50%-11.90%13Wisconsin-8.20%-13.00%14Florida-8.00%-13.80%15Texas-7.20%-11.80%16Oklahoma-7.00%-9.20%17Arizona-6.30%-7.80%18Rhode Island-6.00%-11.10%19New Jersey-5.70%-9.50%20Oregon-5.00%-4.00%21District of Columbia-4.50%-7.50%22Minnesota-4.20%-5.70%23Nevada-4.20%-8.00%24Pennsylvania-4.00%-7.10%25Utah-3.90%-9.10%26California-3.60%-6.90%27South Dakota-3.10%-7.30%28New York-2.70%-7.00%29New Hampshire-2.30%-5.40%30Louisiana-1.90%-4.20%31Missouri-1.60%-4.20%32Virginia-1.50%-4.00%33Mississippi-0.90%-3.10%34Colorado-0.80%-3.00%35Indiana-0.60%-3.70%36Kansas-0.50%-5.70%37South Carolina-0.40%-3.30%38Delaware0.00%-1.30%38Ohio0.00%-2.60%40North Carolina0.10%-1.10%41Kentucky0.40%-2.20%42Maine1.20%-0.90%43Georgia1.60%-0.30%44Tennessee2.30%-1.50%45Montana2.90%-0.70%46Nebraska3.20%0.10%47Vermont4.40%1.50%48Alabama4.50%3.60%49Arkansas6.40%6.80%50Illinois7.80%3.20%51Idaho12.20%10.20%

Source: Tax Foundation

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s public health boss is heading to Washington, D.C..

The incoming Biden administration on Monday announced Andrea Palm will become a deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Palm has been the secretary-designee at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services under Gov. Tony Evers.

The governor on Monday thanked Palm for her time, and her role in Wisconsin’s coronavirus response.

"Andrea Palm is a public servant through and through,” Gov. Evers said in a statement. “She's been a critical part of our administration and a consummate professional who has done an extraordinary job helping lead our state during an unprecedented public health crisis.”

Palm worked in Washington, D.C. as part of the Obama Administration. This is a return to the nation’s capital for her.

Palm will leave Wisconsin with a complicated legacy.

Republicans at the Capitol have been unhappy with Palm for how she’s handled the state’s coronavirus efforts. There was some talk at the statehouse of not confirming Palm as DHS Secretary.

Former DHS Secretary Karen Timberlake, will serve as interim secretary starting next week. Timberlake headed DHS under former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

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(The Center Square) – Lost amid the national headlines of a second impeachment pf President Donald Trump last week was a transition of power at the state level that deserved barrels of ink and far more pixels – not only in Illinois, where it occurred, but across the country.

Illinois state Rep. Michael Madigan lost his bid for what would have been 40 years in legislative leadership when Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Hillside) on Wednesday was voted in by his peers along party lines and became the first Black Speaker of the House in Illinois history.

The Madigan story is a cautionary tale that should be written into U.S. history books to inform future generations about how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On his way to establishing a U.S. record for tenure by a legislative leader, Madigan, an old-school Chicago Democrat, ruled with one-sided leadership that, over 38 years, ran a once-proud state – unchecked – into irreparable financial ruin.

Madigan was a king who steamrolled the state’s solvency for the benefit of the cogs in his machine and to retain his power. His reign was ended only after Illinois House Democrats no longer could risk supporting him. And even then, Madigan hung around in contention to retain his role last week with 50 of the 60 supporters he needed for another turn at the wheel.

A federal corruption probe into ComEd isolated Madigan as the dealmaker who traded patronage jobs for favorable legislation and rate increases to help the energy producer survive its struggling nuclear power plants. Two of his cronies, and two former ComEd executives have been indicted.

Madigan, who neither has a cell phone nor an email account, hasn’t been charged with a crime. A grand jury continues to investigate. If anyone benefited from the chaos wrought by COVID-19, it was Madigan, who shaved off about 70% of the legislative calendar in 2020 and kept the entire legislature at bay and off the job arguably to shield himself from public scrutiny.

But, even here in Illinois, news of Madigan’s ouster from leadership barely registered with most people – and in some markets didn’t even make the front page of newspapers.

Therein lies a fundamental problem that isn’t on its way to being repaired. We don’t teach civics in our public schools. Kids don’t know the difference between a state representative and a U.S. representative let alone know who represents the districts where they live. These same people grow up and become adults who complain about government but cannot connect the dots between government expansion and the fundamental reasons their tax burdens are twice the size of neighboring states.

We have raised generations of mopes who are barely equipped to rage against their washing machines let alone bad government.

There are no term limits in Illinois. Madigan became chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois and became not only the pivot in Springfield but the kingmaker who funded campaigns and sent a steady stream of lackeys there to do his bidding.

His House rules called for him to unilaterally call the bills that were to be voted upon and none that he didn’t want. That made bipartisan legislation impossible and effectively neutralized the minority party Republicans for nearly four decades.

The Madigan Rules were akin to playing basketball against the Harlem Globetrotters with one exception: In basketball, the team that is scored upon, by rule, gets the ball and the chance to in-bound it after each basket. Here in Illinois, the game is make it, take it.

And Madigan did of plenty of taking, mostly from taxpayers who will feel the pain of his leadership long after our children’s children are eulogized by their children.

Under his leadership, the state’s finances cratered. Costs exploded. Billions of dollars were borrowed at crazy, near-junk rates. Pension systems were raided to pay for anything and everything except pensions. Estimates of the unfunded pension obligations created under his leadership range between $137 billion and $250 billion – a hole that may never be filled and continues to grow deeper despite tax increase after tax increase.

The truth is that all government is local, and local government has far more influence on the lives of Americans than the federal government. Worse, state government is a murky mystery for far too many.

The Center Square has written more than 600 stories about Madigan over the past three years alone. Our reporters chronicled his unbalanced budgets, the #MeToo scandals that were unresolved by an inspector general (because he cleverly omitted having one and the claims expired), the gerrymandered maps that he drew, and a litany of other political shenanigans that would require a forest of trees to lay out in full.

Some of that drama finally ended last week. But rest assured there will be decades of drama here still to come.

When asked if his plans for his new role, the newly ordained Welch, whose committee passed on an opportunity to investigate Madigan in December, said that he’d, “possibly make a lot of changes.”

Welch also praised Madigan's tenure.

After all, Illinois is still Illinois.

* * * *

ILLINOIS

New Illinois House Speaker Emmanuel “Chris” Welch is the first Black speaker in Illinois House history, taking the gavel away from Michael Madigan, the state's most powerful politician. Until Wednesday, Madigan held the spot for all but two years since 1983. In a statement closing out the 101st General Assembly, his last as Speaker of the House, Madigan wished Welch “all the best.”

Policing in Illinois could look different after a sweeping criminal justice bill was passed by lawmakers in Springfield. House Bill 3653, which passed by a 60-50 vote, will change use-of-force guidelines, require body cameras for every police department in the state, end cash bail, and strip collective bargaining rights relating to discipline from police unions. The Senate passed the bill in the early morning hours of Wednesday by a 32-23 vote.

* * * *

Elsewhere in America...

TENNESSEE

Tennessee will be the first state in the nation to receive federal Medicaid funding in a lump sum. Gov. Bill Lee signed a 10-year TennCare block grant authorization into law Friday after the Tennessee Legislature passed it last week, giving the state more autonomy on administering its Medicaid program. The federal government currently funds a portion of TennCare’s costs, regardless of fluctuations each year. Under the block grant, however, the state would receive federal funds in a lump sum, providing for more flexibility in managing the funds. State officials believe the block grant also will result in cost savings for the program.

NORTH CAROLINA

Wilmington residents David and Peg Schroeder sued the city after it enacted a short-term rental ordinance that capped the number of properties that can operate as rental homes in the same area. The couple sought legal help from the Institute for Justice and won its case when a New Hanover County Superior Court judge declared the ordinance "void and unenforceable." Wilmington officials, however, have continued enforcing the policy and delayed revisions to it by at least three months.

FLORIDA

State Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, filed legislation last week that would require social media websites to provide individual and business users notice that the website has suspended or disabled a user’s account with some recourse available to restore the account. Burgess characterized the bill as an “innovative and timely piece of legislation” that “originated from numerous constituents facing issues by these monopolized monster social media companies right in our own backyard.”

VIRGINIA

A Mason-Dixon Polling and Strategy poll released last week showed a majority of Virginia residents supported measures to provide financial support for parents who opted to enroll their children in alternative education systems while the state's schools remain closed. The poll found that 61% of registered voters would support giving parents a portion of the state’s K-12 funding to use for home, virtual or private education if public schools remain closed for in-person classes. And 51% of respondents supported Gov. Ralph Northam giving new federal relief funding for education directly to parents for purchasing education technology and materials, private school tuition and home education.

PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania lawmakers dismayed by Gov. Tom Wolf’s apparently limitless power following his declaration of a state of emergency are moving closer to amending the state constitution to put a check on that power. Lawmakers tried other tactics to constrain Wolf in 2020, including passing bills targeting specific orders, but he vetoed those bills – even when they passed on a bipartisan basis. Now, if the Legislature approves the constitutional amendment, voters will get a chance to weigh in on the issue.

NEW YORK

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivered a State of the State address spread over the course of four days and capped it with a proposal to spend tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure building in what he called a “new New York.” Among his goals are revamping Penn Station, Pier 76 and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City in a $51 billion investment that he says would create 196,000 jobs.

NEW JERSEY

State lawmakers in the Garden State are moving toward the creation of a commission that would focus on the high number of rules and regulations in the state that can serve as a drag on the economy. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association has come in favor of the creation of the commission, saying it would make the state “more responsive to its residents, more accessible to people and small businesses that do not always have the opportunity to impact government, and more transparent to all taxpayers.”

OHIO

Ohio took a step toward criminal justice reform when Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that favors treatment over jail time. The legislation, applauded by both Republicans and Democrats, requires judges to hold a hearing if a defendant applies for intervention and claims drug or alcohol abuse was a factor leading to the crime.

INDIANA

Overflow crowds of concerned citizens filled the hallways of Indiana’s Capitol as the legislature held a hearing on a bill that would stop employers from making people get a vaccine as a condition of employment. The bill, introduced by Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, adds a freedom-of-conscience provision to Indiana law, affirming the right of citizens to opt out of vaccines for pretty much any reason.

KENTUCKY

A special committee created to review an impeachment petition against Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has given him until Jan. 22 to respond in writing to the claims against him. Meanwhile, the committee has also received a similar petition against a state lawmaker. Committee Chairman state Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, sent the formal invitation to Amy Cubbage, Beshear’s general counsel, in a letter dated Thursday.

LOUISIANA

A New Orleans social worker has sued Louisiana Department of Health leaders, arguing that denying her a license violated her constitutional rights. Ursula Newell-Davis, founder of Sivad Home and Community Health Services, is not challenging the need for the license itself, but the state’s “facility need review” policy, which requires certain types of providers to show their services are needed before they can get a license to practice and receive taxpayer dollars through the state’s Medicaid program.

TEXAS

Texas state lawmakers convened last week to begin the 87th Legislative Session. The legislature is expected to address the state’s $1 billion 2020-2021 biennial budget shortfall, police funding, and a long list of other measures in less than five months.

ARIZONA

In the wake of a ballot initiative giving Arizona one of the nation's highest top marginal income tax rates, Gov. Doug Ducey announced in his state-of-the-state address that he plans to ask lawmakers to cut income taxes. The lame-duck governor said he wants to "think big" in terms of lowering the state's tax burden and restore Arizona's reputation as a destination for people seeking an affordable place to live.

COLORADO

Colorado lost its bid to be the permanent headquarters to U.S. Space Command on Wednesday, a move the state’s leaders say is politically motivated and will cost taxpayers. Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs – where the Space Command has been temporarily headquartered – was one of the six locations being considered, but Redstone Arsenal in Alabama was selected “based on factors related to mission, infrastructure capacity, community support and costs to the Department of Defense.” Space Command would have accounted for an estimated $104 million in earnings and $450 million in economic activity in Colorado.

WASHINGTON

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee unveiled his latest capital gains tax proposal as part of his 2021-2023 proposed budget last month, which would tax the sale of stocks, bonds, and other assets at a rate of 9% on capital gains above $25,000 for individuals and $50,000 for joint filers. Opponents of a capital gains tax argue that it stands little chance of holding up in court and note that new taxes are unnecessary when state revenue is forecast to be relatively strong for the near future.

Chris Krug is publisher of The Center Square. Executive Editor Dan McCaleb and regional editors J.D. Davidson, Derek Draplin, Cole Lauterbach, Delphine Luneau, Brett Rowland, Jason Schaumburg and Bruce Walker contributed to the column.

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