Happy Friday, Milwaukee! Halloween may have passed, but the odious output of our city’s news cycle remains as bloodcurdling as ever. This week’s news roundup reveals far-right extremists in our police departments, a good bipartisan mental health care bill, a couple of equally good but likely doomed health care and reproductive rights bills, gerrymandering legal updates, sobering prison stats, and some environmental protection legislation.
Read on … if you dare!
Proof, if Proof Need Be: Milwaukee Area Officers on Oath Keepers Membership List
This week in spine-chilling but ultimately unsurprising news, the names of at least three members of Milwaukee-area police departments appear on a recently leaked list naming members of the Oath Keepers, a violent far-right extremist group. Two of the officers, Cory Dale Fuller and Ryan T. Bowe, work for the Village of Bayside Police Department. The other officer, David J. Larscheidt, is a 22-year veteran in the Milwaukee Police Department.
When asked for comment, MPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Efrain Cornejo stated that the department “was not aware and is currently looking into this matter for any violations of our code of conduct.” The Bayside police department has yet to respond.
If you don’t like the idea of armed insurrectionists patrolling our streets, we recommend you make your thoughts heard by calling the Village of Bayside Police Department at (414) 351-9900 and MPD at (414) 933-4444. (The Badger Project)
On the brighter side, a bit of good news concerning cops …
Wisconsin Will Finally (Probably) Enact a Better Response to Mental Health Crises
A new bipartisan bill would allocate $10 million to regional mental health crisis centers throughout Wisconsin. These centers would be accessible for those needing short-term care for up to five days during an emergency. The locations would be staffed with psychiatrists, nurses, and certified peer support specialists in what supporters call a home-like environment that offers more support than a hospital or emergency room.
This proposal is vastly better than the current structure, which is to send a cop to handle a person in crisis. Considering that officers are not trained mental health professionals, this approach can be highly traumatizing for the individual in crisis, with this type of situation often leading to people being handcuffed and transported hours away from their loved ones to a detention center. (WPR)
On the topic of recent health care bills …
Two Good Health Care Bills That Will Likely Never Pass
State Democrats introduced two additional health care packages this week. The first package is focused on health insurance and prescription drug costs. These bills would expand BadgerCare eligibility to those making at or below 138% of the federal poverty level (eligibility currently sits at 100%), create a public option for BadgerCare, appoint an affordability board to establish prescription drug spending targets and set price limits, and create an insulin safety net program. (WPR)
The second package aims to codify reproductive rights. These bills would eliminate restrictions to abortion care, require pregnancy counseling facilities that receive public funding to provide all-options counseling, and demand that health care providers give medically accurate information to patients. (Wisconsin Examiner)
Are these bill packages a common-sense and desperately needed solution for countless Wisconsinites? Yes. Are these bill packages likely to die in the Legislature thanks to a relentlessly regressive Republican majority? Also yes.
Speaking of the GOP legislative stranglehold …
Gerrymandering Case Moves Forward in the State Supreme Court
On August 2, a group of Wisconsin voters submitted a petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court asking the court to commence an “original action” (a case that goes directly to the state supreme court rather than starting at a district court and then moving up) to challenge the state’s map of legislative seats that favor Republican over Democratic candidates, i.e. the rampant Republican gerrymandering of Wisconsin’s legislative maps.
On October 6, the Supreme Court responded, declining to take on the first three of the petition’s five stated issues and taking on the final two. The five issues are as follows:
- Whether the state legislative redistricting plans … are extreme partisan gerrymanders that violate Article I, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under law; and whether this cause of action is justiciable in Wisconsin courts.
- Whether the … plans … retaliate against voters based on their viewpoint and exercise of free speech and abridge the ability of voters with disfavored political views to associate with others to advance their political beliefs in violation of Article I, Sections 3 and 4 of the Wisconsin Constitution; and whether these causes of action are justiciable.
- Whether the plans … fail to “adhere to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, … fundamental principles” in violation of Article I, Section 22 of the Wisconsin Constitution; and whether this cause of action is justiciable.
- Whether … plans … violate the requirement of Article IV, Sections 4 and 5 of the Wisconsin Constitution that legislators be elected from districts consisting of “contiguous territory.”
- Whether the … plans … violate the separation-of-powers principle inherent in the Constitution’s division of legislative, executive, and judicial power by usurping the Governor’s core constitutional power to veto legislation and the Legislature’s core constitutional power to override such a veto.
In addition to taking on numbers four and five from above, the court tacked on two new items:
- Whether … plans … violate the requirement of Article IV, Sections 4 and 5 of the Wisconsin Constitution that legislators be elected from districts consisting of “contiguous territory.”
- Whether the … plans … violate the separation-of-powers principle inherent in the Constitution’s division of legislative, executive, and judicial power by usurping the Governor’s core constitutional power to veto legislation and the Legislature’s core constitutional power to override such a veto.
Long story short, this case will tackle how legislative district maps are drawn, how powers should be separated (by examining whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court unconstitutionally overrode a veto in a 2010 case in which the court adopted a plan that had been vetoed by then-Gov. Jim Doyle) and what should be done if the court finds Wisconsin’s legislative map to be unconstitutional. Given the new liberal tilt to the bench, we wouldn’t be surprised if Vos & co. are sweating. (Urban Milwaukee)
Looks like Republicans are making hay while the sun shines …
Will the Fourth Time be the Charm for a GOP Anti-Free Speech Bill?
Republican lawmakers are yet again trying to muzzle First Amendment rights on college campuses by trotting out a tired anti-free speech bill. The bill in question, introduced this week for the fourth time, would enable legislators to rule on alleged free speech violations. It gives legislators the power to revoke student grants, fire administrators and demand campuses provide notices to prospective students that the school has violated free speech provisions in state law. It’s important to note that many of the legislators who would be ruling on these cases have no legal background whatsoever.
The bill would also ban higher education institutions from limiting protests to designated areas, often called “free speech zones.” Additionally, it would ban colleges from sanctioning speakers for discriminatory harassment unless their speech attacks people for characteristics like race or gender. But seeing as this bill is being pushed by right-wing lawmakers in a right-wing state legislature, it seems unlikely that they will err on the side of political correctness and basic human decency.
The last time lawmakers tried to push this through was in 2021 when it failed to pass before the legislative session ended. For that reason, it appears likely that the bill will fail once more. But as our Republican state lawmakers have shown us time and time again, anything can happen if you believe! (WPR)
Regarding state overreach …
Wisconsin’s Shamefully Expensive Prisons
As the cost of living skyrockets amidst a woefully inadequate social safety net, it seems the only public service our state is eager to fund is its prison system. The 2023-’25 state budget dedicates $2.76 billion to the Department of Corrections, making it the third-biggest recipient of those funds among all state agencies.
Prison isn’t cheap in Wisconsin; our state spent $220 per resident on corrections in 2020, compared to the U.S. average of $182. Wisconsin spends more on corrections than any of its neighbors, with Minnesota spending $111 per resident.
Bolstered by its wildly inflated budget, the Wisconsin Department of Justice seems more than happy to lock people up in droves. A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found that 344 of every 100,000 Wisconsinites were in prison in 2021, compared to a national average of 316. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the number of inmates in Wisconsin, the state’s incarceration rate was even higher, at 411 per 100,000.
As expected, Black people are facing the brunt of this burden; Black Wisconsinites are imprisoned at nearly 12 times the rate of white Wisconsinites, and our state had the highest Black imprisonment rate in the country in 2021. Wisconsin’s prison system is quite possibly our biggest shame. (WPR)
And finally, from our state’s greatest shame to its greatest resource …
Should Trees Have Standing? Crowley Says Yes
Here’s a glimmer of good news to balance out the scary stuff. Last Friday, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signed a resolution to make Milwaukee County the first in Wisconsin to recognize the “Rights of Nature.”
Evocative stuff. But what does it mean? The Rights of Nature Movement asserts that natural areas, bodies of water, and plant and animal wildlife have a right to exist unimpeded and unpolluted by human society. Members of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation support this movement.
This resolution enables the defense of the environment in court. Basically, the environment now has the same legal protections and capabilities as human beings and corporations. While the excessive profit-seeking of late-stage capitalism seems unshakeable, it is comforting to have a legally enshrined tool to protect the natural world. (Urban Milwaukee)
