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.  

Tell me what you’re for

 Tell Me What You’re For

Not What You’re Against

 

Many years ago, I worked with a former union organizer at the Credit Union National Association in Madison who had a motto that has stayed with me ever since. He often told me, “Tell me what you’re for, not what you’re against.” I try to remember this as I organize and work with folks who want to make the world a better place. 

 

Generally, I am for ideas and legislation that benefit working people and their families.

 

A prime example of what I am for was recently passed by Democrats in Congress and signed into law by President Biden. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed both houses without a single Wisconsin Republican legislator’s vote. 

 

Here’s what the new law does for us. 

 

It extends subsidies that help make the Affordable Care Act coverage more affordable. The subsidies were set to expire at the end of this year and the new law extends them through 2025. For those who were set to lose ACA coverage when the subsidies expired, you get to keep your health insurance.  The Act will save the average middle class family of four in Wisconsin $6,259 on their yearly premiums. 

 

The Act also reforms Medicare to lower prescription drug costs for those who have Part D coverage. Seniors with Part D coverage will have their out-of-pocket prescription drug costs capped at $2,000 per year and their insulin copays capped at $35 per month. The Act gives Medicare the ability to negotiate prescription drug costs with pharmaceutical companies which will drive costs down for consumers. 

 

The new Act contains the largest ever national investment in the fight against climate change, speeds up private companies’ transition to clean energy technologies, expands domestic manufacturing of clean energy products and boosts American energy independence.

 

The Act provides $80 billion in financial rebates to homeowners who buy clean energy products, such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and other more energy efficient products. They can get $8,000 for a heat pump, $4,000 for an upgraded breaker box, $2,500 for upgraded electrical wiring, $1,750 for a heat pump water heater, $1,600 for insulation, air sealing and ventilation, $840 for an electric stove and $840 for an electric clothes dryer. 

 

The Act pays for these measures and helps reduce the deficit by making large corporations pay their fair share of the tax burden. There will also be a 1% tax on stock buy backs to help reduce corporate executive pay boosts. The Act does not raise taxes on small businesses or on Americans who earn less than $400,000 annually. 

 

Closer to home, Governor Evers popular Main Street Bounceback Grant Program continues to deliver for local small businesses, especially those damaged by the pandemic. Recently, Evers and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation announced an additional $25 million investment in the program, bringing the total to $100 million. The program has helped over 6,200 small businesses across all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties have been approved for $10,000 grants to help them move or expand into vacant spaces. More businesses can still apply for this assistance.

 

Funded largely by federal American Rescue Plan Act, Evers’ Main Street Bounceback grants have helped our economic recovery, lower our state’s unemployment rate, increase Wisconsin exports, open more new businesses and attract businesses from other states. 

 

I support these government programs that use tax dollars to help us all grow and prosper. They are positive examples of government in action that must continue as we dig out from under the COVID cloud. I fail to understand why Republicans in Congress or here in Wisconsin oppose these efforts to help us all grow. 

 

Democratic legislators we send to Washington are getting it done. Send more Democrats to Wisconsin’s legislature and still more positive things will happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate Labor

 Celebrate Labor

Collective Action Brings Change

 

Another Labor Day weekend is here to celebrate all the accomplishments brought to us all by the American labor movement. Most will enjoy the extra day off from working for someone else by spending time enjoying family, friends, and the fruits of our labor. We should take some of that time to recognize what collective action has accomplished.

 

The American labor movement grew out of the excesses of the robber barons in the coal, steel, garment, auto and transportation industries around the turn of the last century. Workers came to realize that if they banded together and came up with a list of demands, their employers would rather negotiate and meet those demands than suffer the consequences of a strike when those that produced their products withheld their labor. No labor, no product, so sales, no profits. 

 

Over time labor unions brought us all safer working conditions, living wages, 40-hour work weeks, overtime pay, fringe benefits like employer paid health insurance, paid vacations, sick leave, family leave, workplace safety regulation and enforcement, the weekend, paid holidays and many others. Unions, collective action, helped level the playing field between workers and employers and helped build a strong middle class. 

 

I worked my way through college and law school with a good paying union job. I was a proud member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 251 in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1970s. I put in long hours, often well into the morning, helping to put on shows at the Dane County Coliseum for traveling companies of rock and roll performers, folk singers, Ice Shows, Auto Shows, political events, and others. My union brothers taught me what I needed to know and how to do it safely. If issues arose with the roadies, our business agent was on hand to iron them out. I took UW college classes in technical theatre and got to help put on the Bernstein Mass in New York City with our lighting instructor under the watchful eyes of the brothers and sisters of IATSE Local 1. 

 

Before I finished college, I joined VISTA and trained as a community organizer. I was posted to Houston, Texas where our team helped organize poor people of color to make the Houston Public Schools more responsive to their needs. We put together alliances with other community groups, and organized voter registration drives. I came to understand that individuals are essentially powerless, but groups of like-minded folks are not. Organized groups have the power to put pressure on decision makers and public officials to bring about change. 

 

After law school, I came to realize that community organizers owe a large debt to labor unions and their organizing strategies. We both utilize the same techniques to achieve mutually desired goals. We both recognize the power of collective action. 

 

Organized labor has long had a home in the Democratic party. Other organized groups have found friends and alliances in Democratic party efforts as their platforms are often aligned. Groups advocating for civil rights, opposing unjust wars, promoting reproductive freedom, same sex marriage, and universal suffrage have all found success working together with Democrats to achieve their goals. We have learned that we get more done if we work together. 

 

This explains why big business and their political allies work so hard to destroy the power of collective action. Wisconsin’s Act 10 is a perfect example. Teachers were organized and their statewide union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), had become a powerful ally of the Democratic party working to get more resources into local public schools and paying teachers well. They helped advance other Democratic party objectives. WEAC opposed a darling of the right, school choice and the now failed voucher system which stole funds from public schools and paid them to unaccountable charter and religious schools. When Scott Walker and the Tea Party took over state government, they dropped the Act 10 bomb which stripped organized teachers of much of their power. Unfortunately, we have now seen the result in underfunded public schools, demonized teachers bolting from their careers, local school boards strapped for resources and parents wondering how their children will continue to learn. 

 

So called “Right to Work” laws have further diminished worker power and made it harder to organize workplace unions. 

 

In today’s labor market, workers are once again feeling some sense of their collective power. Whole new sectors of our economy are seeing union growth. Witness the 200 Starbucks coffee shops that are now staffed by union members. Recent polling shows the approval rating for unions and union activity continuing to rise, surpassing post-World War II levels. Workers are demanding higher wages, living wages, and withholding their labor until their demands are met. There is not a shortage of people willing to work. There is a shortage of employers willing to pay workers what they are worth and recognize that labor produces the product, not the employer. 

 

Celebrate Labor Day and join a union. If your workplace does not have one, start one. There is power in collective action.

 

 

 

Choices

Our November Choices are Clear

Democrats move us forward

Now that the partisan primaries are behind us, the clear choices for the November elections are on full display. 

The Republican victors showed the hard right turn in the GOP platform still motivates the base of the former president’s cult. Tim Michels rode the delusional “Big Lie” and the former president’s endorsement to victory in a slash and burn campaign which will provide endless material for the Evers campaign to use against him. Independent ads are already highlighting Michels’ shifting positions on who might run for President in 2024, where he really lives given multimillion dollar homes in Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin, the fact that his children attend school out of state, and his legislative priorities if elected. Michels’ support for Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War anti-abortion statute which criminalizes a woman’s ability to control her own body shows just how out of touch he is in a world where generations of women have enjoyed that right. 

Senator Ron Johnson continues to amaze with his suicidal positions on ending Medicare and making Social Security discretionary or means tested. He too continues to question our election integrity, the government’s response to COVID and consistently votes against wildly popular measures like allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and lowering the price of insulin for people with private health insurance. Johnson remains convinced that the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol was no big deal. Don’t forget the tax breaks for his wealthy donors and his own company when the time comes to vote.  

In stark contrast, Governor Evers is running for re-election with a proven track record of getting things done over the obstruction of the GOP controlled legislature. Biden’s Build Back Better program is pumping federal funds into schools and communities helping them repair the damage brought on by Scott Walker and the Tea Party. Evers is fixing Wisconsin roads at a record pace with more to come. He is helping to revitalize rural communities by helping family farmers and local businesses grow. Evers has made it very clear that he will do all that he can to support women’s rights to bodily autonomy and reproductive healthcare.  

Tying Governor Evers to President Joe Biden has been part of the GOP campaign since it began. Biden’s approval ratings are low, but his record of accomplishments since the election is staggering. Gas prices are coming down. He has helped secure passage of historic legislation to repair our ageing infrastructure. He just signed into law the most comprehensive bill to address climate change ever providing tax credits for solar and electric vehicles and funds designated to reduce carbon emissions. That bill also lowers premiums for health insurance purchased under the Affordable Care Act, allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, and caps the amount seniors on Medicare must pay out of pocket for medications at $2000 per year. The bill is paid for by closing tax loopholes through more vigorous enforcement and raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. Biden rallied our allies to join in the defense of Ukraine and has pumped money and equipment into the fight to help Ukrainians defend themselves from Russian aggression. He appointed a well-qualified Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. He too stands tall for protecting a woman’s right to control her own body and enjoy comprehensive reproductive health care. 

Mandela Barnes pushed through a hard-fought principled primary to become the Democrats nominee to take Ron Johnson’s Senate see this fall. His background and family history are much different than Johnson’s. Barnes’ father was a union factory worker and his mother a teacher. Barnes understands the struggle middle class working families face and will join other progressives in the Senate to address those concerns. Barnes supports unions and their efforts to level the playing field for working people. He supports efforts to beat back the effects of climate change and to protect our environment. He believes corporations and the very wealthy should pay their fair share of the tax burden. He is a strong supporter of the right to choose and the LBGTQI community. 

Our choices in November are clear. If you want to see Wisconsin and the country move forward, you need to help Democrats win every election in which they run. Staying home is not an option as the cult of the former president will pull out all their tricks to put their candidates over the top. Democrats have an office in West Bend and active groups supporting Democratic candidates in Germantown, Cedarburg, and the rest of the WOW counties. Volunteer your time, send candidates money, talk to your friends, family, and neighbors. 

The time to act is now. 

Hopeful

Hope Encouraged

Stars are aligned

 

My wife and I worked the Washington County Democratic Party booth at our County Fair last Saturday. Several interactions we had there buoyed my hopes for a Blue wave in the November elections. 

 

The first came when a middle-aged women came up to our table and declared she was an independent voter who would be voting for Democrats in the Fall based upon a single issue, abortion rights. She was appalled at the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and believes Democrats should do whatever is necessary to protect a woman’s right to choose. 

 

The second came from several women, walking by with men, who turned and gave us a thumbs up as they passed. I took that to mean they approved of our positions supporting reproductive health care and women’s rights to bodily autonomy. 

 

The third involved a young man in his late teens with a younger sidekick who stopped by and asked what issues we would choose to turn someone from a Republican into a Democrat. As we discussed the issues of equality, same sex marriage, reproductive healthcare, gun control and others, he was joined by several other teen boys who started to troll us and disagree with some of our positive comments. He turned to them and chastised them with “be respectful.” It turned out that his father is a Democrat and his mother a Republican, so he was exposed to both parties’ positions in discussions at home and he was still making up his own mind. Not sure if we convinced him, but the discussion was refreshing.  

 

I came away from these interactions more hopeful than I had been before coming to the Fair.

 

Then came the vote on the proposal to amend the Kansas constitution which would have stripped abortion protection from that state’s constitution, and I was overjoyed. By a lopsided majority, Kansas voters choose to continue protecting access to abortion services in that otherwise reliably red state. That vote mirrored recent polling showing a solid majority of American voters favor making abortion services available, even after the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

 

Finally, I fully support the young women here in Washington County who stood up and organized to rally in support of their rights to reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. They effectively used social media and their own networks to bring folks together to stand up for their rights to equality and against efforts to turn them into second class citizens or livestock. These women did not come up from the Democratic Party or Persist but erupted spontaneously when their own freedoms became threatened. 

 

These strong determined women will be surely joined by their allied men, parents and grandparents who fought to establish women’s rights in the first place. They will be joined by the LBGTQI community, people concerned about governmental intrusion into their sex lives and the use of contraceptives, and those who marry who they love without concern for racial differences or gender identity. These folks too see their freedoms on the chopping block as long as the current majority of the Supreme Court remains in place. This new coalition will sweep away those who want to turn America into a theocracy which denies them basic human dignity.

 

These disparate but connected events strengthen my belief that politicians and judges making decisions should not make women and others angry by taking away the ability to control their own bodies and live their lives enjoying personal freedom.  

 

To all of those aggrieved and standing up I say, Onward, I’ve got your back. 

Never Again

Never Again

We must defend Democracy

 

The U.S. House Select Committee investigating the insurrection on January 6^th presented compelling evidence on Thursday night showing clearly that Donald Trump violated his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution when he refused to do anything to stop the violent insurrection at the Capitol for over three hours. 

 

Trump summoned the mob to Washington D.C on January 6^th and sent them to the Capitol to “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying the election he lost. During the uprising, Trump watched the violence perpetrated by his supporters on Fox News from the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office. 

 

As soon as the mob breached the Capitol security perimeter, close advisors, members of his own family, and senior White House officials all told him he needed to go on television to condemn the violence and tell his supporters at the Capitol to stand down and go home. He refused and fueled the fire further by tweeting how his own Vice President was a coward for not stopping Congress from certifying the election results. He only made calls to his allies in the Senate and Rudi Giuliani, his election conspiracy lawyer. His final statement on January 6^th told the insurrectionists they were good people and he loved them. That statement only came when law enforcement reinforcements were being dispatched to quell the violence after orders from Vice President Pence. Even after the violence was over and the rioters had gone away, he could not bring himself to condemn what they had done or admit the election was lost. 

 

The nation heard evidence that Trump had every opportunity to stop the carnage and chose to do nothing, hoping his supporters would be successful in stopping Congress from certifying the results of the election. Not only did he choose to say nothing to his supporters, he also chose not to call in any help for the besieged Capitol police officers who were trying to protect the Capitol and members of Congress who were there fulfilling their constitutional duties. 

 

The first duty of every President is to defend the Constitution and the branches of our government that document created.  His oath required him to defend the processes for the peaceful and orderly transfer of power after the elections created in the Constitution. Trump’s choice to do nothing to stop the violence violated his oath and those duties. 

 

The hearings into the events of January 6^th have revealed many loyal Republicans who worked for Trump for years who believe what he did and did not do on January 6 and 7 crossed the line and threatened the very foundations of our democracy. Those who have testified before the committee have demonstrated that the tribalism of the cult of Trump does have its limits. There are places where even those Trump loyalists refuse to go. 

 

Thursday’s witnesses, a deputy press secretary and a senior deputy national security advisor, put country over party when it comes to a violent attempt to prevent the orderly transfer of power from the losing administration to the winning one. They agreed that the “Big Lie” had no validity and that it was wrong to keep insisting the election had been stolen.  These brave citizens risked the opprobrium of their peers by standing up for the principles of the founding fathers and speaking truth to power. 

 

They join other Republican White House staffers who have come forward to testify about the events and actions of the former president that imperiled our democracy. Not only are they to be commended for their courage but they will be remembered for doing the right thing when their country called for the truth. They demonstrated that you can be a conservative Republican, tell the truth and stand up for our democracy without buying into the conspiracy theories and cult of personality all too prevalent in today’s GOP. 

 

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney chaired Thursday’s hearing. Her closing remarks are a clarion call for other conservatives to abandon the cult of Trump and to put county over party. She laid bare the errors in the “Big Lie” and how we must make changes to our laws so that the events of January 6^th are never repeated. For those in her party who have ignored the hearings and think they are just political theatre, her words, and those of fellow Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, are a reminder that facts and truth matter, especially in the conduct of government officials. Those who ignore those warnings do so at their peril. 

 

 

Thanks SCOTUS

 Thanks SCOTUS for the Path to Victory

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court for helping to create a path to a Democratic victory in this fall’s mid-term elections. Unwittingly, the ultra-conservative majority of the Court’s Justices joined forces with the House Select Sub-Committee investigating the insurrection on January 6th and the several state Attorney Generals investigating the “Big Lie” efforts to overturn the last presidential election. These combined forces will do more to mobilize the electorate than any of them could have imagined. 

The Supreme Court’s trifecta of cases that over-ruled Roe v. Wade, struck down New York’s reasonable restrictions on public carrying of firearms and gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit harmful emissions from power plants struck every major element of a Democratic platform. 

Progressive Democrats have long stood up for a woman’s right to choose whether to have a child or not. Several generations of women have gotten used to the protection of their bodily autonomy provided by Roe v. Wade and it’s offspring. They will not go peacefully into the good night now that protection has been stripped from them and their children. Justice Thomas did his cause no good by urging the Court to go after other rights that the Court has recognized as part of “substantive due process” such has the right of married couples to use contraceptives, the ability of same-sex couples to marry, and the general right to privacy that protects against government intervention into what goes on in people’s bedrooms. Those who fear Justice Thomas might be gunning for them will certainly join women who have been relegated to second class citizenship in electing those who will stand up for them and codify their previous protections. 

In striking down the New York laws prohibiting most public carrying of firearms, the Court further energized those clamoring for reasonable federal gun control measures to staunch the bleeding caused by horrific gun violence that has overtaken cities and towns across the land. Congress saw the handwriting on the wall, passing the first gun control measures in decades as citizens rise-up to demand more control over the carnage caused by unfettered access to weapons of mass destruction. 

Finally, the Court put a nail in the GOP’s coffin by limiting the ability of government regulators to protect our air and water. Most Americans have come to understand that only by uniform regulation will our ability to breathe clean air and drink clean water be preserved for future generations. I grew up with brown air in Southern California in the 1950s. I know what it is like to struggle to breathe due to intense smog caused by automobile emissions. I was kept inside on many summer days due to ozone alerts until California started to regulate auto emissions and clean up California’s air. We won’t go back to rivers that catch fire due to flammable pollutants being dumped into them. We won’t go back to catastrophes like the poisoning of the drinking water in Flint, Michigan. 

If the Court’s leap to the far right was not enough to get voters off their couches and to the polls, the revelations of the House Select Committee investigation into the riots and assault on the Capitol on January 6th last year might just get it done. The Committee has done a masterful job of exposing the fraudulent “Big Lie” and placing the former president and members of his inner circle in the middle of a conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from the president who lost the election to the one who won. If criminal indictments of the former president and his cohorts are not forthcoming, many will be rightfully concerned that our justice system is not up to protecting our democracy. 

Not waiting for the U.S. Department of Justice to act more forcibly against the former president and his gang of law breakers, several state Attorneys General have started their own investigations into the illegal behaviors so neatly laid out by the Select Committee. Georgia is looking into the effort to persuade the Secretary of State there to find votes for the former president that did not exist. New York is looking into the various business ventures of the former president and his family and their dubious tax filings. Other states are looking into the fraudulent electors sent to Washington to replace those rightfully elected to the Electoral College as a result of the free and fair elections in their states. Those depending upon the endorsement of the former president to carry the day in their local elections this fall will be sadly disappointed that they hitched their wagon to a long dead horse. 

All the issues raised by these efforts will mobilize voters like we have not seen in decades. The blue wave that is rising will sweep those who would strip us of protected freedoms, remove protection of clean air and water, make guns omnipresent on our streets from office for a long time to come.