Date: December 8, 2011
Contact: Rep. Gary Hebl, 608.266.7678
Democratic Weekly Radio Address: "Gov. Walker's Price Tag on Free Speech is Wrong"
Madison -- Today Rep. Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie) offered the Democratic Weekly Radio Address. The topic for this week’s address is Gov. Walker's new policy that puts a price tag on First Amendment rights and places restrictions on assembling in state buildings, a policy that could lead to further court challenges as Republicans continue to waste taxpayer money by hiring private lawyers to defend their extreme agenda.
“It is past time to stop spending excessively on outside lawyers in legal battles while slashing money for our children’s schools," Rep. Hebl said. "A good first step toward this goal would be if every one of us in state government listened to the people when they show up to express their opinions and address their elected officials rather than trying to silence them."
The audio file of this week’s address can be found here. The video of this week's address can be found here.
Here is a written transcript of the address:
Last week, Gov. Walker’s administration continued its assault on democracy in Wisconsin when it announced that any members of the public who plan a gathering of four or more people in the Capitol must get a permit at least 3 days in advance. Those citizens might also be asked to pay for security and other costs associated with exercising their free speech rights.
Republicans basically put a price tag on free speech and the right of citizens to address their elected government. That’s plain wrong.
A year ago this kind of anti-democratic action against the citizens of our state would have been unthinkable. But throughout 2011, the governor and his party have continually locked people out of the Capitol, shut down public hearings, disconnected the legislative hotline, violated legislative rules, acted in defiance of open meetings laws and sought to minimize opinions that were critical of them or questioned their power.
At the same time, they have been going to unthinkable lengths to increase their own power -- from hiring more politically connected cronies to consolidating rule-making authority in the governor’s hands.
This is not the ethical, open and democratic Wisconsin most of us value. And what will happen if Gov. Walker continues to insist on his crackdown on free speech? The people of Wisconsin will challenge it in court because they will not stand idly by while their rights are taken away.
The state is spending too much time, focus and taxpayer money on private lawyers to defend Republicans’ extreme actions.
Take redistricting, where Republicans divided communities, disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters and trumped local government plans. Republicans have three private law firms working to defend their divisive power grab at great expense to Wisconsin taxpayers.
They even have one law firm suing to undo the redistricting plan that it was paid -- with taxpayer dollars -- to write.
The legislature has been criticized for failing to make progress on job creation during the fall special session that was supposed to create jobs. In the most recent monthly reports, Wisconsin lost more jobs than any other state in the country. The legislature needs to focus on creating jobs for all Wisconsinites, not just politically connected law firms.
Wisconsin should not be leading the nation in job losses.
Wisconsin should not be in the top two states in making massive cuts to public education.
And Wisconsin should not be leading the country in political division.
It is past time to stop spending excessively on outside lawyers in legal battles while slashing money for our children’s schools. A good first step toward this goal would be if every one of us in state government listened to the people when they show up to express their opinions and address their elected officials rather than trying to silence them.
During this holiday season of sharing, let's get back to working together to put Wisconsin back on track.
Thank you and happy holidays.
###