I know I said I was done talking about Scott Walker, so I'll make this quick. Since Katrina came home from school she's filled me in on more reasons to get rid of him besides his infamous union-busting antics.
1. Governor Walker repealed the Equal Pay Enforcement Act. His reason and that of State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), who sponsored the repeal legislation, is that the law "created a lengthy, complex, and unnecessary new set of procedures that put Wisconsin businesses at greater risk for frivolous lawsuits". Grothman also recently said the reason there is often a wage gap is because "money is more important for men." Women, he argued, are more focused on child-rearing. Really? How many single mothers do we have in Wisconsin? Don't they deserve a fair wage? And what about the women during the recession whose husbands lost their jobs...like my cousin? If women were getting paid equally, the system wouldn't be "clogged" with lawsuits, and Wisconsin women are getting paid even less at 75 cents per dollar compared to the nation average of 77 cents. For more information read the Huffington Post article link here.
2. Governor Walker signed a bill in April that will allow hunting wolves which have only been off the endangered species list for 2 months! The Wisconsin DNR has a lot of control over zoning and issuing permits, which I hope will help not put them back on the endangered list, but I still think this seems kind of risky. I understand that farmers and homeowners feel threatened in certain areas by the wolves, but I would have preferred that experts were consulted and other ways of managing the situation were tried first. The bill was heavily supported by Republicans and some Democrats, but like most things happening in Wisconsin these days it seems to have been pushed through quickly. Also of concern, to quote the NY Times: "It was opposed by environmental groups and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Game Commission, which represents Ojibwe tribes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. The tribes have significant rights in wildlife management in much of the area where wolves are found and said they were not consulted on the hunting plans as required by a treaty. State wildlife biologists also criticized various elements of the bill."
3. In order to balance the budget and pay for the tax cuts to corporations, the UW system is hit the hardest with about $300 million cut in funds. Katrina's professors are worried about taking pay cuts or being let go, class sizes are increasing, classes are being cut, and tuition will of course be raised. Wisconsin has the 3rd or 4th largest cuts in higher education in the nation this year. Part of the reduction in the Wisconsin and national figures comes because of the expiration of federal stimulus funding that helped the nation’s universities last year.
Even more disturbing, $18.6 million to the state Department of Health Services will be cut, which would come out of federal bonus money that the state received for covering uninsured children and $8.3 million to the Department of Children and Families, which runs programs such as the Wisconsin Shares child-care subsidy program for low-income families.
4. He has tried to make it more difficult for the poor and students to vote by implementing a Voter ID law, citing a need to fight voter fraud as the reason even though Wisconsin historically has ridiculously low documented cases of voter fraud. The League of Women Voters in Wisconsin filed suit in October and recently a Dane County Court Judge ruled the law unconstitutional. The law, thankfully, will not be in effect during the recall election. My daughter was affected by this new law as a college student with a constantly changing address that doesn't match her driver's license, and currently moving into a new residence just 4 days before the recall election. The College Democrats at UWEC worked hard to make absentee voting information available to students on campus in the final weeks of the semester.
5. Two-thirds of the $13.2 million Walker raised in the last fundraising period came from contributors outside of Wisconsin.
6. And to top it all off, Scott Walker wants to see a change to the state's recall laws. I wonder why? Ironically, as Barrett pointed out in their first gubernatorial debate, Walker became Milwaukee County executive in a special election in 2002, after the previous officeholder resigned facing the possibility of a recall. Barrett also said he believed the governor had signed recall petitions targeting Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and former Democratic senator Russ Feingold.
I love getting all this information from my amazing daughter, and hopefully I've made it easy for someone else to get this information in return. Get out on June 5th and vote, Wisconsin!
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