Monthly Archives: October, 2021

(The Center Square) – There’s no shortage of Republicans who say the head of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission must resign.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday led the chorus of Republicans yesterday who said WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe must resign following claims from the Racine County sheriff the commission broke state law last year.

“People’s trust in Wisconsin’s elections has been tested. Many Wisconsinites feel elections are not safe and secure, and now the Racine County Sheriff’s investigation found clear violations and law-breaking within the Wisconsin Elections Commission,” Vos said. “Clearly there is a severe mismanagement of WEC, and a new administrator is needed. I am calling for the resignation of Meagan Wolfe as Elections Commission Administrator.”

Vos said there are a series of “red flags” that cannot be ignored.

State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, R-New Berlin, said not only does Wolfe need to go, but any and all staffers involved in the Racine case need to be fired as well.

“I am calling for the immediate dismissal of Meagan Wolfe as the Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator as well as the WEC staff who gave advice to break the law and members of the Elections Commission who voted to break the law. Those actions are the very definition of malfeasance in office,” Sanfelippo said Thursday. “And if the Wisconsin Attorney General continues to refuse to uphold the law then he should resign, too.”

Wolfe has not responded to the calls, or to the claims from Racine County’s sheriff.

The chairwoman of the WEC, Ann Jacobs, did respond on Thursday.

“To put it simply, we did not break the law,” said Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, an attorney from Milwaukee. “In fact, without action from the Commission, many residents in Wisconsin care facilities could have and would have been disenfranchised and not able to vote in the 2020 elections.”

Gov. Tony Evers rebuked Vos and the Republicans over their criticism of Wolfe.

“Elected officials can – and often do – disagree on plenty. But what is beneath the offices we hold and the responsibility entrusted to us is using our platforms to publicly and baselessly disparage and singularly belittle public servants,” the governor said. “Speaker Vos’ comments are unbecoming of his office and the people we serve. It’s my expectation – and one Wisconsinites share – that elected officials in this state treat others with civility and respect. The speaker’s behavior today fell woefully short of those expectations.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services is stonewalling requests for answers about booster shots in the state.

The Center Square has repeatedly reached out to DHS with questions about the number of boosters administered, how booster shots are being counted, and whether people in Wisconsin will be considered “fully vaccinated” after two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, or if they will need a booster.

DHS has not responded.

Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute for Public Policy, which has tracked coronavirus and vaccine numbers in the state since the beginning of the outbreak, says DHS’s silence is telling.

“Rather than be transparent and open with the public they claim to serve, DHS is, once again, refusing to answer some basic questions about a major policy change that taxpayers deserve to have answered first,” Healy told The Center Square. “We were told not that long ago by President Biden and others that if we all were vaccinated, the masks would go away, life would return to normal and we would not get Covid. Now, a short time later, [they are] telling us that a booster shot is needed.”

Wisconsin is offering booster shots. And DNS is asking people to get them.

“With three COVID-19 booster dose options now available, our national medical experts have given us additional tools to help stop the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant and slow the spread of COVID-19 in communities throughout Wisconsin,” DHS Secretary-designee Karen Timberlake said in a news release last Friday. “We ask that eligible Wisconsinites be patient as it may take time for everyone who needs a booster dose to get one.”

DHS is silent about how many booster doses Wisconsin has received, how many booster doses doctors and nurses have administered, and how many booster doses the state hopes to deliver.

All information for first and second doses is available at DHS’ website.

Healy has been critical of DHS in the past, and reported on data changes at the agency over the past year-and-a-half. He said this is just one more example of not following the science.

“The public is right to expect our public servants to be forthright and honest, not push a pre-conceived narrative in an attempt to force us to do something,” Healy added. “If our public servants cannot or will not answer a few basic questions, it begs the question, what are they hiding?”

(The Center Square) – The White House announced Wednesday new plans for the “potential authorization” of COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5-11, saying they have enough vaccinations ready and waiting for the federal approval.

The White House prep suggests they expect favorable federal approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) despite hesitation from health officials earlier this year.

“We expect the FDA and CDC’s decision on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 in the next couple of weeks,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said during a White House teleconference Wednesday. “First, on supply: We have secured vaccine supply to vaccinate every child ages 5 through 11. And as soon as the vaccine is authorized by the FDA, we will begin shipping millions of doses nationwide.”

Pfizer submitted the trial data and asked for FDA authorization in early October. The FDA Advisory Committee is expected to meet next week followed by a CDC Advisory Committee recommendation, expected in early November. These timelines are subject to change, and no official approval has been announced.

“The start of a vaccination program for children ages 5-11 will depend on the independent FDA and CDC process and timeline, but our planning efforts mean that we will be ready to begin getting shots in arms in the days following a final CDC recommendation,” the White House said. “These steps will be critical in ensuring that we are staying ahead of the virus by keeping kids and families safe, especially those at highest risk.”

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said her agency would still recommend masks for vaccinated students in schools.

Child vaccination has raised questions from critics who argue the vaccination needs more testing and is not worth the risk because COVID-19 infections for children are almost never fatal. Mask and vaccine mandates in schools around the country have become a divisive issue with little end in sight.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said the administration will help coordinate a nationwide campaign to address these concerns and help get health care providers, schools, and parents onboard with the vaccination efforts.

“We’re preparing a national public education campaign that will meet parents where they are with the information about the vaccines,” Murthy said. “We will work with schools to send letters home to parents who will convene doctors and health clinics and support them in delivering vaccinations as soon as they have conversations with families.”

(The Center Square) – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, 84, has died after complications from COVID-19.

Powell’s family issued a statement Monday announcing his passing and thanking others for their support.

"We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment,” Powell’s family said in the statement, adding that he had been fully vaccinated. “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American."

Powell served as Secretary of State in former President George W. Bush’s administration, helping it through the response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the following wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of Colin Powell. He was a great public servant, starting with his time as a soldier during Vietnam,” Bush said. “He was such a favorite of Presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.”

Before his time as the first Black secretary of state, Powell served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just one of many distinguished positions he held in his career. According to NBC News, Powell also had myeloma, a type of blood cancer.

“God Bless Colin Powell and his family today,” said former Navy Seal Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas. “May this exemplary public servant Rest In Peace.”

(The Center Square) – Not every parent in Fall Creek schools wants their kids to be forced to wear a mask in school. But very few parents are happy that an outside political candidate is trying to use their school to make a point.

Brian Westrate has two kids in Fall Creek Schools, which is just a few miles outside of Eau Claire. He is one of many parents who are upset that progressive candidate and Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Banstad is using a local mom to press a federal lawsuit that would require all kids in the only school building in the district to mask-up.

“There have certainly been a few people who’ve said ‘I wish they were wearing a mask,’” Westrate told The Center Square. “But to date, those people have also disagreed with the lawsuit.”

Fall Creek mom Gina Kildahl, who is Westrate’s neighbor, filed a federal lawsuit in Madison earlier this week to force the school district to require masks for all students. Fall Creek currently allows students to choose whether to wear a mask.

Kildahl says her son caught the coronavirus in school. While he wears a mask, her lawsuit says other students don’t. Kildahl’s lawsuit is the latest to be paid for by Banstad’s political action committee.

“There are three legitimate ways to deal with it,” Westrate explained. “Open enroll your student somewhere else, move, or run for the school board. But suing to try and use the force of government to conform to your belief is not a legitimate option.”

Westrate said that the lawsuit is being driven by and paid for by someone who is not from Fall Creek, which he said is really frustrating parents in the district.

“Had a movement within our community organically developed. Call them ‘Fall Creek Citizens for Masking.’ And they come up with a nice logo, and start having meetings at the town hall, and six months later they raise enough money to file the lawsuit. Okay. That’s at least a legitimate community discussion,” Westrate explained. “But to have a wealthy guy from across the state, who doesn’t know anything about our community, to sue us, that’s different.”

Bangstad has said that he wants to find a judge who will order all schools in Wisconsin to order all students to mask-up.

Westrate says that crosses a line.

“He is a bully and this is blackmail. This is legalized blackmail,” Westrat said. “When someone who has more money files a lawsuit knowing that the person they are suing can’t afford to fight it, and as long as you choose a demand that is cheap enough, you’re basically using the courts to blackmail someone into doing what you want. And that’s what’s going on here.”

(The Center Square) –The agreement to suspend fewer Black students in Milwaukee Public Schools has led to more students feeling less safe in their schools.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty released a report on Wednesday that looks at the impact of the 2018 agreement between MPS and the Department of Education.

WILL found:

Suspension rates declined in Milwaukee after the MPS agreement. Reduced suspension for African American students resulted in lower reports of safety.Suspension rates for other student groups change in a more “normal” manner.Black students suffer the most because of the changes.

WILL Research Director Will Flanders and Policy Intern Amelia Wedward authored the report.

They two say when school suspensions fell in Milwaukee Public Schools after the district agreed to change its policies to align with former Pres. Obama-era thinking on race and school discipline, the number of students who said they felt less safe in school increased.

“When suspension rates for African American students fell, the share of students reporting that they feel unsafe in their school’s hallways went up,” the report notes. “[Because] African American students are heavily concentrated in schools with other African Americans, other African American students bear the brunt of lax discipline practices.”

Approximately 80% of MPS's student body is Black.

The research says the connection between suspensions and safety for Hispanic or other races of students is different.

“It is important to note that this is not a story about African American students disrupting learning for students of other races. In many cases, other African American students are the ones most harmed by disruptive classroom environments,” the researchers note.

Instead, WILL says the data suggests schools need to focus on school safety in addition to their other goals with changing school discipline.

“Rather than helping to create a safer environment for students, students appear to feel less safe in schools where suspension rates for African American students are declining,” the report states.

“If differences in suspension rates along racial lines are not the result of overt racism, as the data here suggests they are not, the natural result of reduced suspensions is fostering an environment where other students will have more difficulty learning; and, perhaps even be afraid to come to school. After a year of learning loss, we cannot afford to lose another year to misguided discipline policies under the false narrative of disparate impacts.”

(The Center Square) – Gas prices nationwide have skyrocketed even as the Biden administration considers new energy regulations, raising questions about the energy markets and the federal government’s role in protecting consumer costs.

In Manhattan, gas prices have hit nearly $5 per gallon, while more than 40 states are experiencing gas prices over $3 per gallon. GasBuddy reports the national average for gasoline is at $3.25 per gallon, well above the prices the same time last year.

Prices have risen nearly eight cents in the last month alone.

“Now in a single day, American drivers are paying over $400 million more for gas than they were last year,” the company said.

The Biden administration has been mulling additional oil and gas methane emissions regulations that would hit producers, and the states that rely on their tax revenue, particularly hard.

Industry insiders have laid the blame for rising energy costs at the feet of President Joe Biden, citing increased regulations.

“High gas prices are the direct result of supply and demand,” said Daniel Turner, executive director of the energy workers advocacy group, Power the Future. “The Biden administration made the supply the direct target of their assaults from the very first moments after his inauguration when he targeted the Keystone Pipeline. Since then, multiple regulations on fracking and land use, a weaponized EPA and Department of Interior, have all punished the production of fossil fuels. As a result, oil, gas, and coal, have all doubled in price.”

Among his first acts after being sworn in, Biden revoked federal permits for the Keystone Pipeline. The 1,700-mile pipeline was to span six U.S. states and carry about 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast, creating more than 10,000 U.S. jobs.

Others say COVID-19 hangups have contributed to the rise in energy costs as well.

Gas prices affect other consumer costs as well, making other goods more expensive, including food, the price of which has risen significantly this year. Transporting goods to market relies heavily on oil and gas, and when those costs rise, most goods become more expensive.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in September that the energy index rose 25% in the previous 12 months while the food index increased 3.7%.

“The high costs of fossil fuels are passed on to consumers,” Turner said. “That’s why gas is so expensive at the pump, but also durable goods, food, electricity, clothing. Expensive energy produces more expensive goods, and punishing the energy industry results in a de facto tax on America’s middle and working class who pays more just to live.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended the president’s role in the prices earlier this month, saying the White House was monitoring the situation, talking with OPEC and had taken steps to address it. She went on to say that climate change issues are more important.

“Certainly, we all want to keep gasoline prices low, but the threat of the crisis – the climate crisis – certainly can’t wait any longer,” she said.

Republicans have leveraged the heightened energy costs against Democrats. In many states, energy production jobs rank as a top campaign issue.

“Remember when Biden cancelled the Keystone pipeline on his first day?” said Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. “Now Americans are paying the highest gas prices since 2014.”

(The Center Square) – The top Republican on the Wisconsin Assembly’s election committee says the special investigator looking into last fall’s vote doesn’t speak for her.

Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, on Monday released a statement saying she opposes any deals with the mayors of the so-called Wisconsin Five, and is not a part of former Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman’s investigation.

“The current subpoenas have not been approved by the Assembly’s Campaigns and Elections Committee,” Brandtjen wrote. “I do not approve of the current list of subpoenas to the five Wisconsin Mayors, as this provides immunity to them in any trial or criminal proceedings.”

Brandtjen has been running her own investigation through her committee since January. She too is focusing on the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life. And she too wants answers from the mayors of Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha.

“Mayor [Eric] Genrich of Green Bay allowed a non-profit group to operate central count, provided this non-profit group keys to central count, and issued a city ID to a partisan operative from New York,” Brandtjen explained. “He has committed dereliction of duty and should be held accountable. Providing him immunity after all the time it has taken to uncover his actions will not serve justice.”

Gableman said in a YouTube video over the weekend that if Wisconsin’s election laws weren’t broken last year, then local election managers certainly stretched them to nearly the breaking point.

"There is also evidence that ambiguities in the law were expansively interpreted, so much so, to potentially undermine ballot security measures," Gableman said.

Gableman has the backing of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who’d signed-off on his subpoenas. Vos has not signed-off on subpoenas that she’d like to issue.

Brandtjen also wants to expand her investigation into a full forensic audit of November’s vote.

“Justice Gableman has recently defamed the Arizona Audit as ineffectual. If he had read the report, he would have realized they discovered 17,000 duplicate ballots, 23,000 mail-in ballots from people who no longer live at the listed address, and 9,000 more mail-in ballots received than sent,” Brandtjen added. “We are not questioning how many ballots were counted; we are questioning the number of ballots that may be fraudulent.”

(The Center Square) – Ten years after Act 10 became law and changed what Wisconsin school teachers can include in their school contracts, Democratic lawmakers in the state continue to try and roll it back.

Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, and a handful of Democrats this week introduce what they are calling the Collective Bargaining for Public Education Act.

“Wisconsin’s public education sector has a unique and critical role to play in our state. To ensure the effectiveness of these institutions, we rely on highly qualified individuals and their talents to move our state forward,” Larson said in a statement. “The legislation we have introduced establishes the right of employees of school districts, CESAs, technical college districts, and the UW System to collectively bargain over wages, hours, and conditions of employment.”

Republicans, under Gov. Scott Walker, approved Act 10 as a way to curb the skyrocketing cost of teacher salaries and benefits. Act 10 limits teacher contract negotiations to salaries only. It also requires teachers to pay more toward their healthcare and retirement.

Estimates say Act 10 saved taxpayers in Wisconsin $14 billion over the past decade.

“Government has used the tools of Act 10 to control costs, saving taxpayers billions and billions of dollars,” CJ Szafir with the Institute for Reforming Government told The Center Square. “To reverse that - and require collective bargaining - would require a massive tax increase on hardworking Wisconsin families or gutting public programs. There's no other option and Democrats need to be honest about those trade-offs.”

Szafir says Act 10 is now popular with people in Wisconsin because it saves them money and gives them choices. He says Democrats at the Capitol can’t accept it.

“Wisconsin's public schools are struggling to educate children in reading and basic civics. We have one of the worst racial achievement gaps in America,” Szafir added. “Instead of focusing on these core problems, the bill is trying to relitigate lost battles of 10 years ago in the hopes of exciting Madison progressives. This plan is a clear giveaway to union bosses and special interests at the expense of the taxpayer.”

(The Center Square) – The latest proposal at the Wisconsin Capitol to find more affordable housing in the state focuses on red tape, builders, and young people.

A handful of Republicans on Thursday introduced their housing reform plan. Among the proposals is a focus on cutting red tape, giving developers and builders tax credits to build new homes, and pushing local communities to allow more homes to be built.

“We need to look into regulations,” Rep. Rob Summerfield, R-Bloomer, said at a statehouse news conference. “Local communities also need to look to see what they can do to help.”

The number two Republican in the Assembly, Rep. Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said the lack of affordable homes is driving up the price of homes, particularly first homes.

“Wisconsin’s media age for first time home buyers is now 33,” Steineke explained. “Wisconsin is running a migration deficit with individuals ages 20-24. Wisconsin also has the lowest homeownership rate for households aged 25-34 and 35-44 than all neighboring states, except Illinois.”

Steineke is a realtor himself.

He said the lack of homes is hurting the state’s effort to keep young workers and young families in Wisconsin.

“When you have younger kids that are coming out of college and getting their first jobs, and they’re unable to afford their first home because of rising prices and the lack of available housing it’s a serious problem.

Mary Duff with the Wisconsin’s Realtors Association said it’s a problem not just in high growth areas like the WOW counties or the Fox Valley.

“This is a shortage that’s coming from multiple angles,” Duff said Thursday. “We’re lacking new construction, we’re lacking the ability to develop lots. “

Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol, including Gov. Evers have proposed their own affordable housing plans. Those proposals, however, focus on helping people pay their rent, or helping people find apartments in high demand areas.

There’s no word when the Republicans plan to vote on their new housing plans.