Vos violated the ADA

Respect is optional; the ADA isn’t

Vos flouts Americans with Disabilities Act in dust-up with Anderson

Wisconsin state Rep. Jimmy Anderson, D-Fitchburg, has substantial physical disabilities and is confined to a wheelchair. He is still able to speak, think and act as the representative of his constituents. In order to carry out his legislative duties, Anderson has repeatedly asked Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to allow reasonable accommodations for his disabilities such as being able to participate in those legislative committee meetings where he is a member by phone instead of in person. Vos repeatedly denied Anderson’s requests until last week, even though the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the requested accommodations.

Vos offered Anderson a watered-down affirmative answer last week, but coupled it with changes to Assembly rules consolidating more power in the Republican majority, providing less input from the Democratic minority and increased opportunities to limit Gov. Tony Evers’ veto power. Anderson rejected the accommodations offered to him because they were coupled with these new rules.

Under the new rules, the Assembly now can take unlimited votes to try to override an Evers veto. The old rule only allowed one override vote. The new rules also prevent the Democratic minority from caucusing when surprise bills or amendments are introduced on the Assembly floor. In addition, the speaker now has the power to limit the time allowed for debate and to convene a surprise floor session to vote on bills even when a number of lawmakers are absent.

Needless to say, the response from Democratic Assembly members was quick and scathing.

Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, released a statement in response.

“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the Speaker would pass on the chance to do the right thing for the right reasons. The effort to tie accommodations for Rep. Anderson to rule changes that silence the minority and undermine the governor is an insult to every single voter. It means that voters aren’t represented equally in the legislature, because some representatives are allowed less of a voice,” Neubauer said.

“Disability accommodations should never be a political process and changing the rules in the Assembly to water down the Governor’s veto and silence the minority — these changes undermine our democracy and each person’s right to equal representation in Wisconsin, regardless of party or ability,” she noted.

Assembly Democratic Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, also criticized Vos’ actions.

“The decision to not allow these basic accommodations without attaching an unrelated power grab is unnecessarily cruel, anti-democratic, and leaves a permanent stain on this legislature. Not every decision has to be political, but it is to Robin Vos. No single legislator has been more damaging to this institution and to our democracy,” Hintz stated. “It’s clear Republicans don’t want us to debate the issues. They don’t want to address the challenges facing our state. Instead, Republicans are solely focused on ways to consolidate their own power and stick it to Governor Evers.”

“Apparently Republicans are not capable of the simple decency of accommodating their colleague without attaching rule changes that have literally nothing to do with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The fact that throughout this process none of Rep. Anderson’s GOP colleagues reached out to him to offer even their minimal support tells you everything you need to know,” Hintz concluded.

Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, also weighed in on the controversy.

“AR 12 ties disabilities accommodations for a member of the Assembly to other rule changes that consolidate power of the majority party, including allowing unlimited attempts to override a veto and giving sweeping new powers to the Speaker.

“Accommodating individuals with disabilities serving in the Legislature is an issue of basic respect and should not be treated as a political matter up for debate. Yet, Speaker Vos has spent months denying our colleague, Rep. Jimmy Anderson, and his constituents the respect they deserve.

“Speaker Vos’ petty refusal to provide the same reasonable accommodations to our colleague that we would expect and require of any employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act has been a mind-boggling embarrassment to himself and our entire institution. Now his motive is clear — He was unwilling to do the right thing unless there was something to be gained for himself and his caucus.

“Republicans have treated what should be nonnegotiable — accommodating the full participation of individuals with disabilities — as a negotiation. Their refusal to act on Rep. Anderson’s request for reasonable accommodation without getting something for themselves in return is nothing short of shameful.

“Instead of holding ourselves accountable to the same standards under the Americans for Disabilities Act that we require of all other employers in the state, Republicans have used this as an opportunity to hide their naked power grab and change the rules for their own benefit. Speaker Vos and Assembly Republicans shamefully put themselves first in a flagrant act of disrespect for our colleague and other individuals with disabilities,” Subeck said.

When we thought that our society was better for the contributions of those less physically able, Speaker Vos shows we still have miles to go before we have a truly inclusive democracy where the contributions of all are welcomed and honored.

Farewell Famiy Farms

Farewell to the Family Farm
Trump Abandons Farmers

The Trump Administration just told Wisconsin’s family farmers to get bigger or go out of business. Wisconsin family dairy farmers, already facing steep competition from large corporate farm operations, are leaving their fields, selling their herds and going bankrupt in record numbers rather than grow themselves out of work. Wisconsin has lost over 1,000 dairy farms in the last two years.

On Monday, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue addressed the World Dairy Expo in Madison. He said family farm survival depended on their getting bigger in order to catch up with the large corporate operations. “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” Purdue said. This not the first time Purdue has put small farmers down. He recently called farmers “a bunch of whiners” at Minnesota Farmfest.

In a press conference after the Expo, Jerry Volenec, a dairy farmer from Grant county said, “What I heard today from the secretary of agriculture was there’s no place for me.”

The Wisconsin Farmers Union strongly condemned Purdue’s remarks in a press release. WFU President and third-generation dairy farmer Darin Von Ruden runs a 50-cow organic dairy farm in Westby. He noted that the “bigger is better” mantra has not panned out well for rural Wisconsin in recent years. 

“The mindset that has been pushed on farmers to continually grow is ultimately pushing them out of business as overproduction forces market prices down,” Von Ruden said. 

Farm losses have accelerated in recent years, ripping farm communities apart. The loss of revenues in rural areas is reaching their Main Streets causing banks to close along with post offices and grocery stores, Von Ruden noted. 

At the press conference, Von Ruden said, “When there’s no money in the farming community it doesn’t stay in that farming community and so it disappears and the local community disappears.” “We need to look at something that will benefit all of our rural America, not just corporate rural America. 

Democratic Representative Ron Kind noted that the Trump administration’s Market Facilitation Program that was supposed to help struggling family farm operations has, instead, favored large corporate farms. Kind wrote to Purdue complaining that the top one percent of large farms received an average of $183,000 in trade aid while the bottom 80% received under $5,000. He also told Purdue that 82 large farms received more than $500,000 and 95 percent of all payments went to the top 50 percent of farms. 

The Market Facilitation Program was developed in response to the Trump trade war with China when China responded to Trump imposed tariffs with tariffs on American farm exports that hit small farms, including those in Wisconsin, especially hard. 

Rep. Kind’s letter to Purdue asked the Secretary to make sure that the next round of payments to farmers harmed by the trade war went to those actually harmed by it. Kind noted that $38 million of the last round of payments went to addresses in American cities indicating they were made to corporate farm owners and not family farmers. 

The facts are grim for farmers. “Between July 2018 and June 2019, the number of farms that filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy rose by 13 percent over the previous year,” according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Loan delinquency rates have reached a six-year high. And nearly 13,000 farms disappeared in 2018 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” the Federation noted. 

Politico reports, “Farm exports in fiscal 2019 are down nearly 7 percent from 2018, exacerbating one of the toughest periods for agriculture since the 1980s farm crisis.”

Finally, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, “The fallout continues as farmers, on the cusp of spring planting, decide whether to invest in seed, chemicals, fertilizer and other supplies needed to raise the crops they feed to their cattle. More than 300 Wisconsin dairy farms shut down between January and May, including 90 -three a day- in April alone.”

Family farms are the backbone of Wisconsin’s rural economy. If we continue to lose these farms and their surrounding communities to the corporate mega operations that sell cheap and take their profits home, some to foreign countries, and continue to invite retaliatory tariffs on farm exports in a needless trade war, we will all suffer