State
of the State
For the eighth straight year, Governor Scott Walker gave a State of the
State address that did nothing to reflect what life is really like for
Wisconsin’s working families. Instead, the Governor gave a thinly veiled
campaign speech, flip flopping on major issues and making more empty
promises in a desperate attempt to get reelected.
Governor Walker’s agenda over the last 8 years may be working for
big-money special interests and extreme ideologues, but it certainly
isn’t working for the people of Wisconsin. While the Governor tries to
sell his policy flip flops and glosses over the problems he has created,
Democrats will continue working for the people of Wisconsin.
Click here to watch a video I put together ahead of Governor
Walker’s address, and catch a glimpse of the real state of our state.
Republicans
Put Special Interests Ahead of Our Neighborhoods
On Tuesday, the State Assembly passed of AB 771, which makes a wide
range of changes to laws regarding rental properties and real estate
development. The Republican bill puts the very same special interest
that fund their campaigns ahead of the people of Wisconsin by allowing
wealthy developers and big rental companies to rake in profits at the
expense of our local communities.
Among the many changes made by this bill are provisions that eliminate
key protections for renters who are treated unfairly, make it more
expensive to even apply to rent a home, and make it harder for our
cities, towns, and villages to identify and crack down on slumlords.
All it takes is one slumlord on your block to change the entire fabric
of a neighborhood. Sadly, in the name of political payback, Republicans
are dead set on making it even harder for our local communities to crack
down on the few bad actors who put our neighborhoods at risk.
More
Attacks on our Most Vulnerable Neighbors
Last week, Governor Walker called for a special session to take up bills
that would limit access to our safety net for Wisconsin’s most
vulnerable families. After eight years of Governor Walker’s so called
‘reforms,’ families across Wisconsin are still living paycheck to
paycheck and struggling to make ends meet. Instead of expanding new
opportunities or increasing wages for working families, the Governor is
threatening to limit access to food and shelter for struggling families
with children. As Governor Walker and Republicans call this special
session in a naked attempt to score political points at the expense of
our most vulnerable neighbors, Democrats will continue fighting for
reforms that create family supporting jobs and policies that make it
easier, not harder, for Wisconsin families to get ahead.
On Wednesday, January 31 the Assembly Committee on Public Benefits
Reform Committee will hold a joint hearing with the Senate Committee on
Public Benefits, Licensing and State-Federal Relations.
[Add specific details if we have them before we send i.e. time and room]
Update:
Clean Government Under Attack
While we were on the Assembly floor earlier this week, the Senate was on
the floor, too. At their meeting, Republican members of the State Senate
followed through on their threats to not confirm the appointments of
Michael Haas as the Administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission
and Brian Bell as the Administrator of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
To be clear, this action was taken as part of an eerily McCarthy-like
witch hunt, with Republicans attacking these men simply because they
previously worked for the Government Accountability Board.
In order to prevent chaos during the upcoming spring elections, the
Wisconsin Elections Commission subsequently took the action of
reappointing Administrator Haas through April 30. Governor Walker and
Senate Republicans are taking action to prevent Mr. Haas from performing
his duties. Although some Ethics Commissioners had expressed a desire to
reappoint Mr. Bell, he returned to a position he had previously held
with another state agency.
In the case of both Mr. Haas and Mr. Bell, the Senate Republicans
rejected the appointments due to these gentlemen having worked in the
former Government Accountability Board (GAB) at a time when an
investigation into Governor Scott Walker’s 2012 recall campaign, known
as John Doe II was underway.
Whether Mr. Haas or the respective Commission members choose to file
lawsuits over the actions of Republican Senators remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, it could be an expensive lesson for Republicans with
taxpayers having to pay the bill.
I will continue to support strong ethics and elections laws and, most
importantly, the ability of individuals who are tasked with enforcing
those laws to do so without fear of retaliation from politicians who
feel they, or members of their party, are above the law.
Health
Committee Works to Improve Dental Care for Children
While we witnessed partisanship at its worst this week in the Senate,
the Assembly Committee on Health did hold a hearing on legislation that
has bipartisan support.
Assembly Bill 781 helps children placed in out-of-home care who have
significant unmet dental health needs. Health is defined broadly in this
population, including oral health. Currently in our statutes, the term
“ordinary medical and dental care” is not defined for children in
out-of-home care and therefore health care providers and counties apply
it inconsistently across the state. Foster parents and organizations
have expressed frustration with their inability to provide these
ordinary dental services to this vulnerable population.
Often, when these routine dental services are not provided, children in
out-of-home care end up in the emergency room to deal with the issue.
This experience is costly to the provider and traumatic for both the
child and foster parent.
This proposal would define ordinary dental care in statute, giving both
parents and the provider the clarity they need to adequately provide
these critical services for children placed in out-of-home care. By
defining what these services are, providers will not be so reluctant to
provide these critical services to children in out-of-home care given
that they are specifically defined in statute.
Madison
Winter Festival at Elver Park
The 14th annual Madison Winter Festival, a family-friendly event,
returns to Elver Park this year on February 3rd and 4th. This community
festival first started in 2005 and promotes outdoor sports, recreation,
the arts and maintaining a healthy lifestyle throughout the winter.
The festivals will have activities for adults and children of all ages
and even your pets. There are over 14 different events including a 5 km
running race, a free kids fun run, and a free learn to ski clinic,
snowshoe run and a recreational candlelight ski & snowshoe tour. In
addition to those events there will also be skijoring, adaptive and open
ski opportunities, sledding and ice skating.
National snow sculpting champs will be there to show off their amazing
skills and local sporting-goods stores will be on site to help if you
never cross-country skied or snowshoed before. Also, rentals of sleds,
skates and skis will be available at the park.
Click here for more
information or to register for specific events.
Sunday
is Data Privacy Day: Shrink Your Digital Footprint, One Step at a Time
New online applications are launched every day, and internet users are
only a couple of clicks away from downloading these programs and setting
up accounts. With each new account we create, we continue the spread of
our personal (and often financial) information across the internet,
expanding our "digital footprint."
To remind everyone of how important it is to consider the amount and
types of information we share online the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) asks Wisconsin
residents to set aside a couple of minutes on that day to evaluate their
online presence and the steps they take to protect their personal
information.
Our names, addresses, birthdates, Social Security numbers and more are
stored throughout the internet in databases owned and maintained by
businesses, government agencies, healthcare organizations and
educational institutions. We rely on these organizations to safeguard
our data, but we can help protect our information by making decisions on
how and where we share our information online.
To better protect their digital footprints, consumers could use Data
Privacy Day to:
-
Delete apps that they no longer use. Having an abundance of unused,
out-of-date apps can create vulnerabilities that could threaten your
accounts and your devices.
-
Purge the application permissions list in their social media
accounts. Many people use their social media accounts to log into
other services rather than creating usernames and passwords for
those apps. These connections could give the third-party service the
right to reuse information from your social account such as your
name, birthdate, contacts and even your messages. This could put
your social accounts at risk if a linked service is compromised.
-
Review the settings of each app to see which services it accesses in
their devices. Some apps may access your device's camera, seek your
physical location (using information from GPS, cellular and Wi-Fi
networks or Bluetooth), or access your device's mobile pay features.
Turn off any connections you are uncomfortable with or delete the
app altogether.
-
Pay close attention to requests for data or device services that
appear during the setup stage for a new app or online account. If
you are uncomfortable with any of the data or services that the
program will utilize, deny the request.
-
Update passwords. Be sure they are long and strong, with a
combination of at least eight uppercase and lowercase letters,
numbers and special characters.
-
Update all web-enabled devices to the latest operating system and
antivirus package in order to protect against the newest viruses and
vulnerabilities.
-
Remind friends and family members not to click on links in
unsolicited emails or social media posts and to avoid completing
unsolicited surveys that ask for personal information.
For additional consumer information or to file a complaint, visit the
Consumer Protection Bureau at https://datcp.wi.gov, send an e-mail to
datcphotline@wisconsin.gov or call the Consumer Protection Hotline at
800-422-7128.
Fun
Wisconsin Fact
91,379 Wisconsinites fought for the Union Army during the American Civil
War. Most Wisconsin soldiers were trained at Camp Randall, now the home
of UW-Madison Badger athletics. Nearly 4,000 Wisconsin soldiers were
either killed in action or mortally wounded.
Most Wisconsin troops served in the western front, although a few
Wisconsin regiments did fight in the east forming the Iron Brigade. The
8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment fought in the western part of
the war, at the Battle of Iuka, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River
Campaign, and the Battle of Nashville. The 8th Wisconsin is most known
for its mascot the owl, Old Abe (pictured left).