Daily Archives: December 28, 2019

Wisconsin's Democratic legislative leaders say the first year of Gov. Tony Evers' administration has been defined by Republicans seeking to stop him from getting wins.

The result, Rep. Gordon Hintz and Sen. Jennifer Shilling said in separate year-end interviews, has been a lack of commitment to move forward on bigger issues as the state navigates the ramifications of split control after a decade of one-party rule in the Legislature and East Wing.

Republicans were very strategic from day one of trying to minimize the governor and successes and wins for him, said Shilling, who credited Evers for being the adult in the room while slamming GOP leaders for what the La Crosse Democrat called legislative absenteeism.

Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh

Hintz, D-Oshkosh, stopped short of labeling the current arrangement gridlock, saying that to reach that point, you at least have to make an attempt to find resolution.

I feel like it's been less gridlock and more there's kind of the Mitch McConnell style intentional strategy to starve the process, to try to make the governor look unsuccessful and to really play politics from the beginning, he said. So it's a little different than gridlock, but I guess some would say that's the result.

Both seemed resigned that the remainder of the session which could include floor periods in January, February and potentially March would include much of the same.

But Hintz expressed optimism that there could be more productive work ahead, saying while the political environment is tough, there are always opportunities and there's no shortage of issues.

Shilling highlighted her desire for the Senate to act on the remainder of Evers Cabinet secretary nominees in January and February. Currently, around half have yet to be taken up by the full chamber, though they can continue serving in their capacities indefinitely without a confirmation vote.

Technically (the nominees) serve at the pleasure of the governor, but this Republican Legislature has inserted itself so that the Cabinet secretaries appear to serve at the pleasure of Senate Republicans and thats not how this place was designed to operate with respect to the role of the executive branch, she said.

Looking ahead to the 2020 legislative races, when all the Assembly seats and half the Senate ones will be up for election, the pair said they were encouraged by their candidate recruitment efforts so far.

Hintz noted that in 2018, Democrats sought quality and quantity, with the result being that many challengers appeared across the state, with some in miserable seats that the party hadnt competed in recently. This time, Hintz said he hasnt yet been discouraged because I think theres so much uncertainty at the top of the ticket.

He added that without any statewide races on the ballot next November, Democrats have an opportunity to put the Legislature up for referendum.

Weve got to hold Republicans accountable for the decisions they've made and the decisions they've refused to make, he said. I'm encouraged by the candidates that we have so far in important races (meaning those that) we either came close to or the numbers indicate will be competitive.

Asked how messages that the maps are rigged have impacted candidate recruitment efforts, Shilling said she tells would-be contenders that if theyre waiting until after redistricting to run: I cant wait that long. If youre interested in doing this, weve got to do it now.

Early next year, she said, Senate Democrats would roll out the seats theyre targeting, but throughout the cycle she said the party needs to make sure that we build on the momentum of having the DNC in Milwaukee and having a crisscrossing of Democratic candidates in Wisconsin.

I wouldn't want to be Republican running next year, she said. I think just their brand is very different than what it even was four years ago and the weight of a Trump being around your neck is a heavy one.

When Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a congressional candidate in the Milwaukee-area 5th CD, almost assuredly leaving the chamber after the fall cycle to head to Congress in 2021, both Shilling and Hintz declined to say who'd they'd prefer to work with as his successor.

Fitzgerald is so far the only Republican contender for the seat, which is being vacated by longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Shilling noted Fitzgerald in his time as leader has "had the ability to thread the needle" in working with the Senate GOP caucus, which she said has "certainly moved to the hard right" in recent years.

"It's a difficult caucus to manage and we'll see who can put together a coalition to get there," she said.

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Wisconsin Democrats say Republicans have made thwarting Gov. Tony Evers their priority - Madison.com

Remember back in March 2016, when President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to hold up a confirmation vote in the Senate until after the presidential election, so the next president could select the replacement for Antonin Scalia?

With Obama being a Democrat and McConnell hoping a Republican would win the presidency, it was a gutsy move.

Well, its payback time.

It appears House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has outmaneuvered the Republicans by getting President Donald Trump impeached and holding up sending the articles hes being charged with to the Senate for a trial.

She asserts that she wont do that until shes assured by McConnell that the Senate will conduct a fair trial using documents and witnesses the White House has so far failed to provide.

Ive read speculation that maybe shell wait until after the 2020 election in the hope that Democrats can take the Senate. And, in the meantime, Trump will have to conduct his reelection attempt with an impeachment record on his resume.

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I love Nancy Pelosi.

She should be president!

Ben Thompson Jr.

Lebanon

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Outmaneuvering the Republicans (letter) | Letters To The Editor - LancasterOnline

There has been a great deal of speculation as to why Nancy Pelosi was so anxious to rush her impeachment Schiff Show through Congress, but is now demanding that Mitch McConnell make the Senates process as unfair as hers was before she allows him to get the ball rolling. Many have even speculated that she is embarrassed by the whole thing and just wants it to go away before it completely kills the reelection hopes of too many Congressional Democrats. It is more probable, however, that she is demanding certainty that the Senate trial be fair, by which she means viciously biased against the President, because she knows that the Republicans are likely to give her everything she wants.

Pelosi has good reason to think that she can intimidate McConnell and other Senate Republican leaders into folding and transforming their impeachment proceedings into a Stalinist show trial that will suppress evidence exonerating the President, highlight the tendentious version of events that the House offered, and maybe even result in Trumps removal from office. The Republicans have a pattern going back well over half a century of caving in to Democrat demands and doing their bidding. Pelosi has witnessed a great deal of this firsthand as she grew to be a multimillionaire on her modest Congresswomans salary. Why should she think it will be any different this time?

Republican kowtowing to Democrats goes back to the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt. After Democrats successfully blamed Republicans for the Great Depression and initiated the massive expansion of federal power that was the New Deal, the Republicans nominated for president not critics of Roosevelts big government measures, but me-too candidates who praised what FDR was doing: Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, and Thomas E. Dewey. Not surprisingly, each of these pale copies of the great New Dealer were trounced by the real thing.

Republicans who didnt think a huge increase of federal control over the daily lives of Americans was a terrific idea had their best chance in 1952, when Republicans won the trifecta of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for the first time since 1930. However, the new president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would not hear of this. He declared: Should any party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things....Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

The Eisenhower administration backed up these harsh words with actions that would have pleased FDR. It expanded the Social Security program and supported a bill raising the hourly minimum wage from 75 cents ($7 today) to a dollar ($9.50 today). It tried, but failed, to get a bill passed requiring the federal government to underwrite private health insurance policies, which was the beginning of the long push for government control over the health care system.

Sixteen years later, Eisenhowers protg, Richard M. Nixon, became president. He succeeded Lyndon Johnson, whose Great Society and War on Poverty have cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars in failed urban development and welfare programs that have done little besides create a large group of people who are more or less permanently unemployed and wards of the state. And of course, they can always be relied on to vote Democratic.

Nixon did nothing to challenge any of this. And with the exception of Ronald Reagan, Republicans after Tricky Dick have been cut from the same cloth. Instead of challenging the Democrats, they allow them to set the agenda, and then maybe maybe! find some way to quibble over the details. They seldom if ever say that the latest government boondoggle shouldnt be done; they only dare to suggest that they could do the job more efficiently.

Given that this has been the pattern for decades, why shouldnt Pelosi think that the Republicans will behave as they always have up to now? It would be more surprising if they didnt. Even now, Republican governors are clamoring for more refugees to be sent to their states, as if they didnt already have enough Democrat voters. The Stupid Party is unlikely to miraculously find a spine in the Senate.

Robert Spencer is the director ofJihad Watchand a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of the New York Times bestsellersThe Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)andThe Truth About Muhammad. His latest book isThe Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. Follow him on Twitterhere. Like him on Facebookhere.

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Why Shouldnt Pelosi Try to Strong-Arm the Republicans? It Has Worked for Decades. | News and Politics - PJ Media

LINCOLN, Neb. An executive order by President Trump giving states the right to refuse to take refugees is putting Republican governors in an uncomfortable position.

Theyre caught between immigration hardliners who want to shut the door and some Christian evangelicals who believe helping refugees is a moral obligation. Others say refugees are vital to fill jobs and keep rural communities afloat.

More than 30 governors have agreed to accept refugees, but about a dozen Republican governors have stayed silent as they face a decision that must be made by Jan. 21 so resettlement agencies can secure federal funding in time to plan where to place refugees.

Trumps executive order requires governors to publicly say they will accept refugees. They cannot automatically come to their states, even if cities and counties welcome them. So far, no one has opted to shut out refugees.

A North Dakota county voted this month to accept no more than 25 refugees next year, after initially signaling it would be the first to ban them.

Trump issued the order in September after slashing the number of refugees allowed into the United States in 2020 to a historic low of 18,000. The reduction is part of the administrations efforts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration.

With his order, Trump again thrust states and local governments into immigration policy, willingly or not. It has caused heated debates and raucous meetings in several states, including North Dakota and Wisconsin.

Trump says his administration acted to respect communities that believe they do not have enough jobs to support refugees. Refugees can move anywhere in the U.S. after their initial resettlement at their own expense.

Republican governors in Nebraska, West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Arizona, Iowa and Oklahoma have consented to accepting refugees in 2020. Vermonts Republican governor said he intends to accepts refugees.

Others have not taken a public stance. They include the Republican governors of Georgia and Missouri, along with Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, the state that took in the largest number of refugees this year.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, the nations most populous state that resettles many refugees, also has not consented yet, but his office said he plans to do so.

In 2015, governors from 31 states nearly all with Republican governors, including Abbott tried to shut out Syrians, citing terrorism fears. But they didnt have the legal authority at the time.

Now that they do, some governors have struggled with the decision.

Faith-based groups have led an aggressive campaign urging them to keep accepting refugees, while immigration hardliners have criticized Republicans who have not used their new authority to put the brakes on refugees coming into their states.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who tried to turn away Syrians in 2015, spent weeks reviewing his options.

He gave his consent Thursday in an open letter to Trump co-signed by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, praising the president for strengthening the vetting process.

Thanks to your leadership, Americans can be confident once again in the screening process for refugees entering the United States, the governors said in the letter.

Hatim Ido, a former U.S. Army translator and member of the persecuted Yazidi community who fled Iraq, was relieved to know Nebraskas doors are still open. Ido hopes his two sisters in Iraq will be able to join him someday in Lincoln.

Im really concerned about them, said Ido, a graduate student who became a U.S. citizen last year. I understand (government officials) need to be very careful. I just wish there was a process in place so we could bring them here.

Administration officials say refugee applicants are subject to the strictest, most comprehensive background checks for any group seeking to come to the U.S.

Fraud detection and national security officers now come overseas with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services teams who are processing refugees.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb made the distinction that opening the door to refugees does not mean hes going soft on illegal immigration.

A federal judge last year permanently blocked Indiana from trying to turn away Syrians under an order that Vice President Mike Pence championed as governor.

These are NOT illegal or unlawful immigrants but individuals who have gone through all the proper channels, Holcomb wrote in his consent letter.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced his consent the same day this month that 300 evangelicals signed a letter urging him to keep letting refugees resettle as an exercise of our Christian faith.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said faith leaders reached out to him, too.

I appreciate Oklahoma churches who have assisted these individuals, he wrote in his consent letter.

Tennessees consent did not sit well with legislative leaders who sued the federal government over the resettlement program.

Our personal preference would have been to exercise the option to hit the pause button on accepting additional refugees in our state, House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said in a joint statement.

Gov. Bill Lee, who talks often about his Christian faith, said he had to follow his heart.

My commitment to these ideals is based on my faith, personally visiting refugee camps on multiple continents, and my years of experience ministering to refugees here in Tennessee, he wrote in his consent letter.

More than 80 local governments have written letters welcoming refugees. Many are rural towns in conservative states that have come to rely on young refugees to revitalize their economies.

We need workers, big time, said Nebraska Sen. John McCollister, a Republican who is sometimes at odds with his party. Refugees bring a lot of enthusiasm, and theyre some of our best entrepreneurs. They add a lot to the economy of Nebraska.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert asked for more refugees in a letter to Trump last month. The Republican said Utah has the resources and space and that welcoming refugees is part of the culture in a state where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found refuge generations ago.

Its been striking to see the breadth of bipartisan support for refugee resettlement in the states, with a number of governors writing very strong letters of support, said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and a former official in the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which includes refugee resettlement. He left in 2017.

Holly Johnson, who coordinates the Tennessee Office for Refugees within the Catholic Charities, is not surprised. Employers are chasing down resettlement agencies because they know refugees work hard, she said.

Three resettlement groups have sued to block Trumps order.

Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon does not plan to weigh in for now, his spokesman Michael Pearlman said, noting the state has not had a refugee resettlement program for decades.

GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Arkansas is determining which communities may be interested in accepting refugees, looking at financial costs and verifying security checks but that no final decision has been made.

I am committed to ensure that refugees brought to Arkansas have a real chance to settle and become self-sufficient, he said.

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Republican governors grapple with whether to accept refugees - Press Herald

Thirty or so budget architects at the state Office of Planning & Budget spent the year tracking actual spending by government departments. In November and December they made budgetary lists and checked them twice.

For once the holidays pass, the really big work begins on cobbling together the state spending plan for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

January is when administration executives make their adjustments in preparation for the governor to present the executive budget proposal to legislators on Feb. 7.

That means six weeks of meetings with department heads, all of whom will be appealing preliminary budgets and arguing for more funding for this program over that service. Before Gov. John Bel Edwards signs off, he will want to ensure the budget proposal reflects his priorities, including the projects hes pushing this year expanding early childhood education and more money for public colleges and universities that could necessitate decreased spending elsewhere.

House Republicans made that task more difficult by blocking the Revenue Estimating Conferences projections that the state will bring in more money from taxes, fees and other revenue sources. In addition to creating more work for the budget architects, stalling the REC forecast also creates procedural difficulties and requires next years budget to be drafted using much lower estimates approved in April.

For the second time in as many years, conservatives in the Louisiana Legislature Thursday refused to certify how much money is available to sp

If we had a certified amount, if we were working off an official amount, wed have a sum certain that could be expended, then we could say we want to do more in these areas and were going to have to reduce the amounts in these areas, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne said.

Dardennes Division of Administration includes the Office of Planning & Budget and has the job of drafting a budget that balances available revenues with spending on specific services, all of which have constituencies and many of which are governed by state law.

Traditionally, the governors executive budget, which he is required to draft and present at a specified time each year, serves as the base from which legislators rearrange, add and subtract then approve.

But that wont happen.

Last year, Edwards proposed a budget that used money as forecast by the REC economists but not approved the panel itself, rather than the lower numbers from the previous year.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said he intends to push for more funding for colleges, early childhood education and public teacher pay raises in the co

The play will be the same this year, Dardenne says, as the administration doesnt want to release a spending plan that details huge cuts that in the end wont be needed. If we went with the April forecast, we would have to be cutting an inordinate amount that doesnt represent reality. Were not going to play that game that makes it look like we dont have the revenue there when everybody knows the revenue is there, Dardenne said.

Republicans argue that the law requires an executive budget using the latest approved revenue numbers, even if it does mean huge cuts. Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry agreed.

Dardenne countered, By failure to get the unanimous approval, the governor is precluded from submitting a budget that represents the official forecast because we dont have the official forecast.

Though Edwards won reelection last month and is the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, the newly elected Louisiana Legislature is more conservative and has a two-thirds Republican majority in the Senate and a near super-majority in the House. New leaders will be selected in January, but the move in December to block new income figures indicates that the new group of GOP legislators also want to take on a larger role in the state budget.

"It's time, as you can see in the Legislature on both sides, that we start doing things differently. This is one of those steps," said House Appropriations Chair Cameron Henry, representing the House on the four-member REC and refusing to certify an increase of revenues that the other three of the members wanted. All four members must agree to the revenue projections.

The REC economists one for the Legislature and one for the administration point out that several indicators of Louisianas economy are getting better, though theyre not rising very fast. Meanwhile, national economists are predicting a possible recession during the next 18 months. The economists projection would allow for an additional $168 million to spend on prisons, education and other state services for the current fiscal year and $103 million for the following year, compared to the last official REC projection adopted in April.

Three weeks after winning a tight reelection, Gov. John Bel Edwards was in a playful mood as LSU prepared Thursday to head for Atlanta to cont

Henry urges caution. If a downturn is looming, state government shouldnt allow expenses to grow. The increased sales taxes and suspended tax exemptions that helped stabilized the states finances are scheduled to expire in 2025. The state should be wary about making the state budget bigger, he said.

Waiting until January, February or March would give the economists more information to make more accurate predictions, Henry said.

This years budget, which runs through June 30, is $31.63 billion with $9.72 billion coming from Louisiana taxpayers and businesses. (The rest are fees that are dedicated for specific purposes and $14.4 billion from the federal government.)

The GOP-dominated House drafted its own budget for the current fiscal year. After five months, and soon before the House-written instrument was presented, Speaker Taylor Barras, the New Iberia Republican sitting on the REC, lifted his opposition to the revenue forecast an acknowledgement that Louisiana was collecting more tax dollars as the economists said. It also saved the House from having to submit a budget with dramatic cuts.

Without a new amount, the administration is forced to use the last figure the REC agreed upon, which was in April, to draft the spending plan.

But a standstill budget doesnt really mean that the same amount spent last year is allocated for this year.

Increases in costs from year to year the average price of premiums for family health insurance policies, for instance, increased 5% from 2018 to 2019 requires state government to take money from programs and services to pay for the increased costs.

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House Republicans and Democratic governor feud over the Louisiana budget, again - The Advocate