The Morning After

It’s like a psychic hangover—for three weeks I’ve tried to tune out the noise and listen—often literally—to music instead. But it was incessant, and ultimately impossible to ignore: who, if anybody, would back down in our political game of chicken?

And what would the price be, if we went over the “fiscal cliff?” Or was it a cliff? Because some Republicans were saying that it might not be that bad a thing if all of a sudden we stopped paying on our obligations. A treasury note was supposed to be as sure as money in the bank—and then one day it wasn’t. And that wasn’t a big deal?

Still, what do I know? I know little things like speaking with a border patrol guy in the supermarket. He was working but not getting paid; I asked what he thought about the situation in Washington that had led to his lending his time to the government (he’ll get retroactive pay).

He looked hard at me, sizing me up. And it was obvious—we’re on different sides of the fence, politically.

“Children,” he said derisively. He tensed, waiting for me to rant about the Republicans.

“I’ll say,” I said. Why should I go there? He hadn’t; he had expressed a view that wasn’t an attack on an ideology.

So we had a pleasant exchange, and left cordially. Which is not the way I’m feeling today. In fact, I’m feeling battered and bruised; so much so that I tuned out the President, who was doing his best to pull everybody back on track.

And I’m thinking about my own state, which according to The New York Times is the most politically divisive state in the nation. What happened?

Well, big money moved in, for one. David Koch himself came out and said it: “We’ve spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We’re going to spend more.” How much money? Well, 60% of the $25 million Walker raised for his recall campaign came from outside the state.

Legislation began coming in from elsewhere, instead of being crafted and drafted locally. And it often came from ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative coalition of business, lobbyists, and state legislators. And they were less bills than packages: they came with strategic talking points designed to eliminate opposition. Oh, and often a smoke screen—here’s a description from The New York Times:

Pocan described an ALEC conference in New Orleans that he attended last summer. “I remember going to a workshop and hearing a little bit about a bill they did in Florida and some other states to dismantle public education,” Pocan said. “There was a proposal to provide special-needs scholarships. Lo and behold, all of a sudden I come back to Wisconsin, and what gets introduced? A bill to do just that.”

The next day, Pocan outlined a strategy ALEC advises its members to use: “You have to introduce a 14-point platform,” he said, “so that you can make it harder for them to focus and for the press to cover 14 different planks.” He pointed to several bills introduced in the past two sessions, including one that allows more children to enroll in virtual charter schools. “It sounds good,” Pocan said. “Kids could access virtual schools for home schooling. But again,” he emphasized, the real purpose is “taking apart public schools, drip by drip.”

There were the strong-arm tactics, as the discourse broke down completely. The Times spoke of the violation of the open meetings law, and mentioned a heated debate between the Assembly minority leader and Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate majority leader. Well, it was indeed—as heated as things tend to get in Wisconsin. Take a look:

Of course the whole affair ended up in court, and a state court took the very unusual step of throwing out the law banning collective bargaining for state workers, solely on the basis of the violation of the open meetings law. Later, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago would overturn the ban on the ban. Meaning that Walker carried the day, and that government workers no longer have the right to bargain collectively.

So a nation sat and watched a 16-day temper tantrum, averted at the last hour, but not without a lot of damage wrought. Unnecessary damage, really—because a good fight about an important issue is one thing. But you know what? John McCain came out and said it:

“We’ve got to assure the American people that we are not going to do this again,” Mr. McCain said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday. He said Republicans should “focus on the provisions of Obamacare that are not acceptable” and make sure they get “a positive agenda for the party so we can be for things rather than against things, for opening things rather than closing them.”

You learn more from your enemies than from your friends, in general, and the idea was supposed to be that the discourse sharpened the debate, and improved the product. So yes, it’s important to talk about the size of the federal government, or whether big government is the answer, or whether the economy—read jobs—is more important than the spotted snail that lives in the bottom of a tributary of a river. Oh, and nobody ever much sees the snail. Nor is the tributary navigable.

I thought about all of this yesterday, when I watched the video below—how important it was to have the fight, and to know how to fight well.

And today? Well, the one person who isn’t editorializing on the shutdown is Nicholas D. Kristof—right, so what was that about? Well, he talked about the fight to get lead removed from gasoline and paint, and the rise in intelligence levels in kids as a result of not being exposed to lead. And his bet is that the next big fight is going to be endocrine disrupting chemicals—the chemicals found in plastics and petroleum-based products. Next to me, as I read the story, was my bottle of water—which many scientists don’t allow their children to drink from. The bottling industry—hold on firmly to your chairs here—scoffs at the idea.

Who’s right, who’s wrong? Two things—we could have spent our time on that question, rather than closing down the government. And second, how are we going to fight big industries like the lead industry, the petroleum industry, or big tobacco except through government?

If you have the answer—tell me.

I’ll try to listen….

Corporate America Buys the Statehouse

Feeling just a bit overwhelmed, lately, legislatively speaking? Beleaguered? Under attack?

If it feels like you just can’t keep on top of the constantly more right-wing, not-to-say lunatic legislation—well, there’s a reason. It’s being cranked out like Oscar Mayer cranks out the wieners. And remember the old adage—there are two things you don’t wanna know what went in to: a sausage and a legislative bill?

Well, relax—you won’t know. And why not? Because for the last forty years, a shadowy triumvirate of conservative state legislators, corporations, and think tanks have been beavering away to create more than 800 pieces of legislation, all designed to be tweaked according to state tastes, introduced as legitimate legislation, and then jammed down the throats of the people.

The organization is called ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, though it started out a bit more forthrightly as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators. And according to Wikipedia, the group has more than 2000 sitting state legislators, or nearly a third of all state legislators.

And what does ALEC espouse? Well, let’s start with the first of three concepts at the top of the group’s website.

Limited government—of course! But mind you, this is not the old Goldwater conservatism of pay-as-you-go, the business of America is business, etc. Here’s what John Nichols, who wrote an exposé on ALEC for The Nation, said on NPR:

According to Nichols, legislation authored by ALEC has as a goal, "the advancement of an agenda that seems to be dictated at almost every turn by multinational corporations. It's to clear the way for lower taxes, less regulation, a lot of protection against lawsuits, [and] ALEC is very, very active in [the] opening up of areas via privatization for corporations to make more money, particularly in places you might not usually expect like public education."^[52] 

Hmmm—is that true? Well, here’s a copy and paste from one of the 800 pieces of model education, taken from the group’s own website:

The Charter Schools Act allows groups of citizens to seek charters from the state to create and operate innovative, outcomes-based schools. These schools would be exempt from state laws and regulations that apply to public schools. Schools are funded on a per-pupil rate, the same as public schools. Currently, Minnesota operates the most well-known program.

How very convenient! So does that mean that the school is free to teach “creation science,” and not evolution? Is geology going to be taught as starting at 4000 years before the birth of Christ? Is daily attendance at chapel going to be funded on my and your dime?

As you might expect, it gets worse; here’s Wikipedia again, with another tidbit of conservative misdoing:

Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group, two of the largest for-profit prison companies in the US, have been contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed bills which State legislators can then consult when proposing “tough on crime” initiatives including “Truth in Sentencing” and “Three Strikes” laws. Critics argue that by funding and participating in ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Forces, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.^[38] ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create for-profit prisons, which served as a boon to both of the aforementioned contributors.

Say whaaaa?

You’re telling me that we have these draconian laws that have one in three black males going to prison at some point in their lives—all to support a prison industry?

Seems so, for ALEC is divided into 9 task forces, and here they are:

1. Civil Justice

2. Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development

3. Communications and Technology

4. Education

5. Energy, Environment, and Agriculture

6. Health and Human Services

7. International Relations

8. Justice Performance Project

9. Tax and Fiscal Policy

Well, that does cover quite a large tract, hunh? And all of this in secret, because you won’t know where the bills are coming from. Here’s what Arizona Assistant Minority Leader Steve Farley had to say about the group:

I just want to emphasize it’s fine for corporations to be involved in the process. Corporations have the right to present their arguments, but they don’t have the right to do it secretly. They don’t have the right to lobby people and not register as lobbyists. They don’t have the right to take people away on trips, convince them of it, send them back here, and then nobody has seen what’s gone on and how that legislator had gotten that idea and where is it coming from. All I’m asking... is to make sure that all of those expenses are reported as if they are lobbying expenses and all those gifts that legislators received are reported as if they’re receiving gifts from lobbyists. So the public can find out and make up their own minds about who is influencing what.

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Well, not according to J. B. Van Hollen, the Wisconsin State Attorney General. He has just declared Leah Vukmir, a state legislator from Wauwatosa, has immunity from turning over her record in the state’s open record standards. And why? Because when in session, the legislators have “immunity” from lawsuits requesting them to turn over records. The problem? The legislature is almost always in session.

"I think the attorney general's position is a radical misinterpretation of that (provisions that are supposed to outline a narrow measure of legislative immunity),” Susan Crawford, a Madison attorney who served as an assistant attorney general and as chief counsel to former Gov. Jim Doyle, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I've never heard a legislator asserting they're above the law, which is what (Vukmir’s) doing. You have to wonder what she's trying to hide."

Do you have to wonder what she’s trying to hide? Probably, if you want the details. But let me spell out to you the general idea:

Frustrated at the national level, corporations have overtaken the state legislatures and are secretly writing legislation that will make them richer, stifle regulation, and ruin the environment at the expense of the American people.

It’s as simple as it is cynical…..