Category Archives: Gov. Scott Walker

September 7, 2011 · 5:03 PM

Wisc. DMV workers ordered to not offer voter IDs

I suppose that since it’s pretty much out in the open that the GOP does NOT want minorities, seniors and poor people voting because they generally vote for Democrats. However, to tell the agents at the Wisconsin DMV  not to ask patrons if they want to get a free voter ID is blatantly undemocratic.

The Raw Story

In states where a photo identification is required to vote, Republican lawmakers have been able to avoid legal challenges to the rule by giving away free voter ID cards, thereby ducking the label of a “poll tax.”

But in Wisconsin, which recently passed one of the nation’s most restrictive voter ID laws, another roadblock exists: ignorance.

A leaked memo written by a high-ranking Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation official stipulates that DMV workers are not to offer the voter ID, leaving it to the patron to explicitly ask for the free ID, then fill out the proper paperwork.

“While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,” Steve Krieser, executive secretary for the Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation, wrote to employees.

Signage which was supposed to notify DMV patrons of the new voting rules is also missing in action, still being designed, according to The Capital Times.

After passage of the voter ID law, Gov. Scott Walker (R), pictured above, called for the closure of as many as 16 DMV offices, mainly in Democratic-leaning areas. After intense public backlash, he reversed himself, expanding the DMV and adding operating hours in some offices to accommodate increased demand for ID cards — at a cost of $6 million over the previously allotted budget.

Democrats argue that voter ID laws are unnecessary due to a complete lack of evidence of any organized voter fraud scheme. They say it unfairly targets students, the poor and the elderly, who are more likely to not have a photo ID and also tend to support Democrats over Republicans.

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August 18, 2011 · 11:30 AM

Don’t Buy Walker’s “Bipartisanship”

The Progressive

So what’s next?

It’s the question people keep asking. Now that Democrats defeated two incumbent Republican state senators in Wisconsin, while defending all three Democrats, what should we learn from this?

To that, I pose a simple question back to you. WWSWD? Yup, you guessed it, What Would Scott Walker Do? A lot can be learned from Wisconsin’s extremist governor, who has been telegraphing his plays since the day he spilled the beans on that fake call with someone pretending to be one of the Koch Brothers many months ago.

Have you noticed that Scott Walker has been mentioning the word bipartisan every chance he gets lately? Maybe it’s because he’s seeing the same polling everyone else is. Scott Walker is one of the least popular governors in the entire country, and people are tired of the extremist politics.

Now don’t jump to any conclusions just yet.

Scott Walker may have seen the polling, but much like he treats Wisconsin’s pro-labor majority, he’s not listening. Scott Walker’s polling tells him to be more bipartisan.

Enter “doublespeak.”

The book “1984” made the term popular for deliberately ambiguous or evasive language. Pretty soon, Walker will create a Ministry of Truth that will rewrite the very history books we use to teach our kids.

Now, he’s giving bipartisanship lip service every chance he gets. Yet, when it comes right down to it, it’s just doublespeak.

Continue reading here…

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August 12, 2011 · 5:16 PM

The Progressive Magazine: Scott Walker, Fitzgerald, Take Us for Fools

The Progressive

 

Why did Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans claim victory after losing two incumbents on Tuesday?

Simple. They don’t want you to look deep enough to find the truth.

In Wisconsin history, only two legislators have been removed through a recall election. On Tuesday, voters removed two Republicans in one fell swoop. We may not have taken the majority in the Senate, but let’s not let the GOP take our eye off the prize: recalling Scott Walker.

Progressive momentum is easy to see when you compare Governor Walker’s 2010 election with Tuesday’s Senate recall elections. Note, of the six Senate Republicans up for recall, five of the seats are considered by political insiders as safe Republican districts.

In 2010, Governor Walker cleaned up all six Senate districts in 2010, but Republicans lost two of them on Tuesday. GOP enthusiasm in those districts (and dare I say the entire state?) is waning.

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August 10, 2011 · 5:27 PM

That’s Enough, Now Walker: WI Doesn’t Want More Recalls (Against Me)

TPMDC

Coming off of Tuesday’s state Senate recall elections, Democrats remain determined to recall Gov. Scott Walker next year, though they were unsuccessful in their ambitious goal of taking a majority in the state Senate. But for his part, the prospective recallee Walker says the people of Wisconsin don’t want yet another election.

“I think setting aside me, if you went around and talk to the average voter, the best thing they like about today is the ads are gone, at least outside of these two remaining Senate districts,” Walker said, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

“I’ve heard repeatedly from people who are just disgusted at all the ads, disgusted at all the money. They’re tired of seemingly year-round campaigning, and whether it’s a gubernatorial recall, any other recall, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of enthusiasm for having a whole ‘nother wave of ads and money come into the state of Wisconsin.”

Democrats had hoped to flip the Republicans’ 19-14 state Senate majority by gaining at least three seats. When the votes were counted in the six Republican incumbents’ districts, though, the Dems gained two seats for a 17-16 GOP majority, with two remaining recalls next week in districts held by Democratic incumbents.

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August 6, 2011 · 8:05 PM

Facing Backlash For Disenfranchising Voters, Gov. Walker Reverses Course On Plan To Close Several DMV Offices

In a sharp reversal, the state of Wisconsin announced yesterday it will expand Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) services to accommodate the increased demand for photo identification in the wake of a controversial new Voter ID law. As ThinkProgress reported last week, after signing a Voter ID law earlier this year that disenfranchises tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters, Gov. Scott Walker (R) then called for closing as many as 16 DMV offices across the state, making it even more difficult for residents to obtain the ID they needed to regain their electoral voice.

Walker’s undemocratic plan prompted widespread criticism and has apparently compelled the administration to completely change its position:

Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb said the expansion leaves all current offices open, increases the total number of offices across the state from 88 to 92 and drastically expands the hours of operation for some 40 counties.

The change, expected to cost about $6 million the first year and $4 million every year going forward, was called for by Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011-13 budget and was meant to address an increase in demand for photo IDs in the wake of the state’s new law requiring voters to show ID at the polls.[...]

The plan announced Thursday differed markedly from the one first unveiled last month, which called for closing as many as 16 offices while expanding office hours elsewhere. That proposal was immediately panned by some as unfairly targeting Democratic areas.

State Rep. Andy Jorgensen (D) is still angry that Walker even considered closing down DMV offices, including one in his district, and accused the governor’s administration of playing politics with necessary services.

Although the new plan infringes less on voters’ rights, it also confirms that these new,completely unnecessary Voter ID laws being signed by conservative governors across the country are costing states millions of dollars at a time they can least afford it.

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July 25, 2011 · 5:50 PM

After Signing Law Disenfranchising ID-less Voters, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Closes 10 DMV Offices

Is Scott Walker a sociopath or are all Republicans this heartless?

Think Progress 

Earlier this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became one of the many GOP governors to sign a law disenfranchising voters who do not have a photo ID — a law thatdisproportionately affects elderly voters, young voters, students, minorities and low-income voters. Having disenfranchised tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters, Walker is now making it harder for many of these voters to obtain the ID they need to regain their right to participate in the next election:

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is working on finalizing a plan to close as many as 10 offices where people can obtain driver’s licenses in order to expand hours elsewhere and come into compliance with new requirements that voters show photo IDs at the polls.

One Democratic lawmaker said Friday it appeared the decisions were based on politics, with the department targeting offices for closure in Democratic areas and expanding hours for those in Republican districts. [...] Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the state Department of Transportation to reconsider its plants to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center. The department plans to expand by four hours a week the hours of a center about 30 minutes away in Watertown. [...]

“What the heck is going on here?” Jorgensen said. “Is politics at play here?”

Of course, no one has been more aggressive in waging the GOP’s war on voting that Scott Walker. Walker stripped state workers of their right to organize to strengthen the GOP’s position in the next election, and he gutted the state’s public financing system, which allows candidates to run effective campaigns without pleading for money from big dollar donors, and used this money to pay for his voter ID scheme.

Lest there be any doubt, there is absolutely no legitimate purpose behind Walker’s voter ID law. Although Republicans justify these voter disenfranchising laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud, a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that only 44 one-millionths of one percent of votes are cast by people who commit voter fraud.

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July 21, 2011 · 10:36 AM

Protesting Walker in Beloit 7-18-11

Just dessert indeed…

Walker was in Beliot on 7-18-11 to open a new Welcome Center from Illinois. He was welcomed by large angry crowds.

H/t: Yankee Clipper

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July 14, 2011 · 2:54 AM

As recalls loom, Scott Walker’s approval rating drops to 37%

I suspect Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s poll numbers will soon rival Florida Governor Rick Scott’s numbers…

Daily Kos  

University of Wisconsin Badger poll (PDF), 6/17-7/10, 556 registered voters, MoE 4.2, no trendlines:

Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way Scott Walker is handling his job as Governor of Wisconsin?

     Approve: 37
     Disapprove: 55

Ouch. This is the lowest approval rating for Walker found in any poll to date. While Walker is not, sadly, on the ballot in the recalls, these numbers do suggest an increasingly difficult political environment for all Republicans in Wisconsin.

Other notable findings from the poll:

  • 60% disapprove of the way the State Legislature is handling its job.
    • 56% disapprove of the job Republicans in the State Legislature are doing.
    • 48% disapprove of the job Democrats in the State Legislature are doing.
  • Wisconsonites overwhelming think the recall option in the state constitution is a good thing (78%), and 50% said the current recalls of state senators made them feel better about Wisconsin politics.
  • 59% of residents statewide preferred that the Democratic state senators remain in office rather than be recalled and 49% said the same of the Republican state senators.

These are statewide numbers on the recalls, and generic ballots at that, so they might not really tell us much about the nine specific recall elections. Still, this poll shows that Wisconsonites are much more in favor of recalling Republicans than recalling Democrats, and that’s a position I want to be in only four weeks out from the recall elections.

 

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June 21, 2011 · 9:05 AM

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker To Cut Medicaid Without Public Hearings

Do governors  like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, John Kasich, Chris Christie and others of their ilk have a soul?

Think Progress

Republicans argue that states are the “laboratories of democracy” that should be charged with developing new, innovative ways for delivering quality health care more efficiently. But that point is far harder to make in the face of Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) effort to shut the public out of a debate about Medicaid cuts and shield legislators from having to weigh in on cutting benefits and services for the neediest Americans.

Continue reading here…

 

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April 15, 2011 · 12:04 AM

Scott Walker Admits Union-Busting Provision ‘Doesn’t Save Any’ Money For The State Of Wisconsin

Rep. Dennis Kucinich deserves all the praise for this one…

Think Progress

Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called Govs. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Peter Shumlin (D-VT) to testify in a hearing titled “State and Municipal Debt: Tough Choices Ahead.” Much of the hearing was spent probing Wisconsin’s spate of anti-union restrictions it recently passed.

At one point, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) confronted Walker about his crackdown on public employee unions. The congressman referenced a provision Walker signed into law that would require union members to vote every year to continue their membership. Kucinich asked the governor how much money the state would save from the provision. Walker repeatedly dodged the question and eventually admitted that it actually wouldn’t save anything at all.

Kucinich then asked Walker how much money would be saved by barring union dues from being drawn from employee paychecks, another provision of Walker’s legislation. Walker claimed that it would save workers money, but was unable to explain how it would save the state any money. Kucinich then produced a document from the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office, that concluded that Walker’s measures were “nonfiscal” — meaning they had no impact on the state’s finances. Kucinich asked that the letter be included in the public record, but Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) refused:

Walker’s admission is crucial because he had long claimed that his anti-union “budget repair bill” was designed to save the state money, not bust unions. But his words today echo those of Wisconsin state senate leader Scott Fitzgerald (R), who last month effectively admitted that the union fights are not about budgetary issues, but rather about winning the next election by depleting the ranks of organized labor.

H/t YankeeClipper:

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