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.