Elections Matter

 Elections Matter

 

There are three referenda questions on your ballot in the November election. I support two out of the three. 

 

I support the referenda providing capital improvement funds for Moraine Park Technical College. It will allow construction of new and upgrades to existing facilities which will put people to work and stimulate our local economies. It will allow MPTC to add new programs and training which will have long term positive impacts to our communities and provide options to new high school grads and others. Passing this one is a no brainer. 

 

My support for the so-called Anti-Crime referenda is based solely upon the addition of clinical social workers and plain clothes deputies trained to deal with the mentally ill. The criminal justice system has long been the dumping ground for those suffering from mental illness whose behaviors spiral out of control. 

 

My work as a criminal defense lawyer often involved dealing with the consequences of untreated mental illness. In the 1970s, courts across the country ruled that people with chronic mental illness could no longer be kept locked up in mental institutions when they could be treated successfully in community based mental health facilities on an outpatient basis. The rulings caused many of the in-patient facilities to close. 

 

Unfortunately, legislatures and local governments never stepped up to fund and provide the community-based treatment programs the chronically mentally ill need to become successful in their communities. Insurance companies limited or stopped providing coverage for in-patient treatment and limited out-patient services as well. 

 

As funding dried up, local communities like ours closed their in-patient units and cut back drastically on out-patient services. There are few places remaining in Wisconsin that will take people who desperately need in-patient mental health care, especially those without insurance coverage. We used to have an in-patient unit at the old St. Joseph’s Hospital in West Bend. It closed many years ago and the county has never moved to provide a new one. 

 

In a recent meeting with the Washington County Democratic Party, Sherriff Martin Schulties agreed that the absence of an in-patient unit in the county has put a huge burden on his department. He acknowledged that the addition of social workers and plain clothes deputies will help but is not the final solution to the problem. He said that every police chief in the county misses having an in-patient unit and treatment services to help the mentally ill. 

 

Hopefully, the information gathered by the social workers and deputies who will respond to mental illness calls will provide sufficient information to convince our county board to take proper care of those with chronic mental health issues. If the county does not act further to address mental health issues, the new additions will just amount to putting a band aid on an out-of-control cancer. 

 

The third referendum on our ballots has to do with elections. It proposes to ask the legislature to begin the process of amending the Wisconsin Constitution to make the election process uniform across the state as much as possible. 

 

I have worked as a poll worker in both the Town of Barton and, more recently, in the Village of Kewaskum. I have been a poll observer in the City of West Bend and Germantown as part of election protection for the ACLU and the Democratic Party. I know from first-hand observation that municipal clerks and poll workers put aside their political leanings and work very hard to make sure that the rules are followed and that every legitimate ballot is counted. 

 

Trying to make the casting and counting of ballots uniform across the state is a fool’s errand. Large metropolitan areas like Milwaukee, Appleton, Madison, Green Bay, and others require different staffing levels and greater technological support than smaller and more rural communities. In the end, all the ballots will be counted correctly everywhere if local communities are free to work within set procedural boundaries to get the job done as local conditions and populations require. 

 

The election referendum is on our ballot to satisfy the dwindling number of election fraud conspiracy theorists and should be rejected by the voters. 

 

This election, like all elections, is important. Voting is how we participate in our democracy.

 

Let's Talk Politics

Let’s Discuss Politics

Our current political discourse sucks. 

 

For months, we have been bombarded with hyper negative attack ads on TV and social media which do nothing but whip up anger and fear among those who unfortunately rely upon those sources for their world views. The result is more parroting than thoughtful, reasoned analysis.

 

I grew up in the era where Walter Cronkite read the evening news on CBS and people stopped to listen to what he had to say. He was trusted by his viewers as were most of the other network anchors. The Federal Communications Commission had a rule called the Fairness Doctrine which mandated that those with federal broadcasting licenses had to be as objective as possible when reporting on the issues of the day. They had to give all the sides of an argument equal time to present their case to the public. Political debates were more robust and nuanced then. This was long before the rise of the internet and the creation of Facebook, Twitter and their ilk. 

 

The Fairness Doctrine and objectivity are out the window with current broadcasting and social media. We now have a Wild West of lies and misrepresentation when candidates buy time to pitch themselves to the voting public. There is little debate and less opportunity for ordinary folks to sit down, one on one, with candidates to discuss what matters to them. 

 

Newspapers have struggled to keep up their important role informing the public. When we moved back to Wisconsin in 1979, Milwaukee had two major papers. Madison did as well. The morning and evening editions provided different opinions on the news, letting the readers choose what to believe. There were multiple smaller papers aimed at specific communities that covered more local interests and viewpoints.  The Sunday papers were full of well written, in depth news and opinion pieces. Now the news is found in snippets sandwiched in between pages of ads. Once competing papers have merged and the merged ones bought up by national chains which have let local news slide. 

We now have handlers telling the candidates what to say and what to avoid when speaking publicly. Messaging is coordinated by people whose identities are never disclosed and heavily influenced by anonymous contributions from sources with specific axes to grind. It has become increasingly difficult to parse out where some candidates truly stand on the issues of the day or if they have hidden agendas to spring on us after the election is over.

 

Those who pride themselves on being “independent” have their work cut out for them trying to get to a decision on which way to cast their ballot. The internet promised Information age has truly let them down as well.

 

We have been reduced to competing messages about what should be important to likely voters. Is crime in the streets a real concern? Does it win out over reproductive freedom and a woman's right to choose? Is the economy headed towards a recession or can we afford to fix the devastating impacts of climate change? Do we take care of those who cannot take care of themselves or are we a nation of personal responsibility? Are we a Christian nation or one where all religious beliefs are tolerated? Are Caucasians the superior race or just one of many? Is it OK to love someone with whom you share similar gender attributes or who have different skin tones?

 

The upcoming election cycle has put some of these issues in stark relief and made the choice of who gets your vote a little easier. Unfortunately, we have had to ferret out these things from a mass of negativity and to dig far deeper than necessary to figure out where the candidates really stand.

 

It would be great if we had a system like the one in Canada where election campaigns are limited to six weeks and spending is limited. It would be much better if Election Day is a national holiday.

 

Political Speech

Political Speech Should Remain Free in Public Spaces

 

There certainly has been a robust discussion in our community about the display of a swastika over an image of the Democratic Party donkey symbol on a flag or poster at the Washington County GOP booth at last Saturday’s West Bend Farmers Market. 

 

The leadership of the County GOP blamed it on a “overzealous volunteer” and sought to distance themselves and their group by rightfully condemning the display and claiming it was not approved by the party leaders. Unfortunately, the condemnation did little to tell those who use symbols of hate and genocide that they are not welcome in their organization. The person who made the display and those who permitted it to go up in their booth obviously felt right at home doing so. 

 

The Downtown Association, which runs the market, also condemned the display, and took the extraordinary step of refusing to rent booth space to all “political” organizations in the future because of the display. 

 

West Bend Mayor Chris Jenkins weighed in condemning the display and threatening to impose prior restraints on future speech at the Market.

 

Social media posts on the local GOP Facebook page and an online poll by this newspaper elicited comments condemning the display while others deflected the complaints by claiming Democrats do the same thing or outright supporting the display as somehow making a true statement about Democrats. 

 

The display and community reactions to it bring us back to the marketplace of ideas concept embodied in the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

 

Our founders believed and enshrined in the First Amendment the notion that public spaces were the place for a robust debate about the issues of the day and subsequent decisions by the United States Supreme Court have upheld that principle throughout our history with only limited exceptions. One being along the lines of “you can’t falsely scream FIRE in a public theatre.”

 

Attempts by governments to impose prior restraints on public speech in public places have been consistently rejected by the Court. Banning all political speech from public streetcorners and the public square have also been uniformly rejected. Discriminatory application of speech bans that favored one side of the debate over others have also been rejected consistently. 

 

The underlying principle is that while public speech is and should be free, even when it reaches into controversial areas, the public exposed to that speech is free to reject the message and the messengers as they see fit. That is what happened on Saturday at the Market when members of the public, expressing their rightful outrage at the display, caused it to be removed before the Market closed for the day. The backlash on local GOP social media exposed the display to further condemnation within their organization and will, most likely, cost their candidates votes in November as some members of the GOP and independents who lean right reject both the message and the messenger. They will join the exodus of those who believe the GOP majority on the U.S. Supreme Court went way too far in overturning Roe v. Wade’s protections for limited abortions. 

 

This brings us back to the Downtown Association’s decision to ban all “political” organizations from renting space at future markets. While uniform in its application, it prevents political speech by those whose public speech and displays have not crossed the line into universally condemned hate speech symbolism. 

 

The Democratic Party of Washington County has also had a booth at the Farmers Market this season and for many others in the 12 years we have had our office at 132 N. Main St. at the end of the public street used by the Market. I don’t believe there have been any credible complaints about the content of the materials displayed at our booth. We are being banned from renting a booth for the transgressions of others not connected to us other than we both are involved in politics. It is not fair to punish us and bar our message because others choose to cross the line of publicly acceptable speech.

 

The Association’s decision also will impact other groups with booths at the Market which choose to try and influence public policy through political action. Think about Veterans advocacy organizations, environmental groups, insurance companies, telephone companies, and others who lobby for legislation and provide financial support to political candidates. Under the Association’s decision, they, and the rest of us who speak about politics, will be limited to speaking on street corners or in Settlers Park or walking through the market handing out literature.

 

I for one support political speech limited to the confined space of a rented booth at the market where people can stop and engage or merely walk by. Let the public be the judge of the content of the messages on display and make their support or opposition known at the time or later at the polls where it really counts.