Ninety-eighth Wisconsin assembly district special election web sites

Here are the people running for the 98th assembly district seat with their web sites:

First the Democrat Eric Prudent:  Eric Prudent for District 98.

Then the Republicans:

Ed Baumann

Todd Greenwald For Wisconsin State Assembly

Matt Morzy for State Assembly

Adam Neylon

Taxpayers For Tarantino

Patch has done a short story focusing on Baumann and a look at the rest of the candidates and Blogging Blue has written supporting Prudent.

Here’s a map of the district (PDF file). I’m close to being in it but I’m just outside still in the 97th. And here’s where you can find out if you live in the district.

The primary is February 19 and the election coincides with the Spring Elections on April 2.

It’s a highly Republican district that the Republican nominee should win.

Related articles

• Gov. Walker calls special election to fill vacancy (fox6now.com)

Representative Sandy Pasch and Citizen Action of Wisconsin

UPDATE 2: Via Blogging Blue. The campaign treasurer for Sandy Pasch campaign is also treasurer for Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

UPDATE: GOP files complaint into Pasch-Citizen Action tie

Via a couple of tweets from Charlie Sykes:

Sandy Pasch is on brd of directors of group spending big $ backing her campaign. Coordination between candidate and indy groups illegal

And

Dem Sandy Pasch is listed as a member of the Board of Directors of Citizen Action: the group that organized this protest http://t.co/UdStJ9H

That Sandy Pasch is on the board can be seen here. All the way near the bottom of the page is:

Sandy Pasch
State Representative

Sandy Pasch is a concerned citizen, right? Great.

Well, except for Wisconsin statute 11.06 (7)(a):

Every committee, other than a personal campaign committee, which and every individual, other than a candidate who desires to make disbursements during any calendar year, which are to be used to advocate the election or defeat of any clearly identified candidate or candidates in any election shall before making any disbursement, except within the amount authorized under s. 11.05 (1) or(2), file with the registration statement under s. 11.05 a statement under oath affirming that the committee or individual does not act in cooperation or consultation with any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who is supported, that the committee or individual does not act in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate or any agent or authorized committee of a candidate who is supported, that the committee or individual does not act in cooperation or consultation with any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who benefits from a disbursement made in opposition to a candidate, and that the committee or individual does not act in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, any candidate or agent or authorized committee of a candidate who benefits from a disbursement made in opposition to a candidate. A committee which or individual who acts independently of one or more candidates or agents or authorized committees of candidates and also in cooperation or upon consultation with, in concert with, or at the request or suggestion of one or more candidates or agents or authorized committees of candidates shall indicate in the oath the names of the candidate or candidates to which it applies.

A lot of legalese to say that an organization who makes an oath of independent disbursements is not acting in cooperation or consultation with the candidate or committees connected with the candidate.

See, Citizen Action of Wisconsin has made such an oath. For Sandy Pasch. And Sandy Pasch is on the board. And they stage demonstrations like this.

Independent? Hmmmm…

I’ll let the legal eagles take over from here, cuz I’m not a lawyer, or anything…

The McConnell Plan

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered a new plan to allow the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority by the summer of next year in three separate submissions.

via McConnell: Give Obama New Powers on Debt Limit.

You can find the details here.

Basically it

allows the president to demand up to $2.4 trillion in new borrowing authority by the summer of next year in three separate submissions.

House and Senate could disallow these requests in 15 days and the president could veto any “disallowals.”

The Heritage Foundation argues against it. The Wall Street Journal seems to like it. Zogby says voters will blame the president.

Republicans had already been called out by The Economist:

IN THREE weeks, if there is no political deal, the American government will go into default. Not, one must pray, on its sovereign debt. But the country will have to stop paying someone: perhaps pensioners, or government suppliers, or soldiers. That would be damaging enough at a time of economic fragility. And the longer such a default went on, the greater the risk of provoking a genuine bond crisis would become.

The Journal op/ed sees what’s happening:

Mr. Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson’s choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default. In the former case Mr. Obama takes the tax issue off the table and demoralizes the tea party for 2012, and in the latter he makes Republicans share the blame for 9.2% unemployment.

The McConnell Plan avoids both of these.

It may work…

Recall elections begin.

Well, the next six weeks will be exciting. Or maybe not.

The first round of recall election process begin Tuesday. Here’s the schedule from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Tuesday [July 12] is election day for Democratic primaries in six Republican-held Senate districts.

July 19 is the general election in the district of Sen. Dave Hansen D-Green Bay, and Republican primary day in two other Democrat-held districts.

Aug. 9 is the general election in the Republican districts.

Aug. 16 is the general election in the two Democratic districts.

In this round, the fake Democrats (Everyone knows they’re fake now right? We don’t have to hide any longer? And we do know the Democrats have done something very similar in the past, don’t we?) will be in a primary with the real Democrats (just to keep it simple for everyone, especially me).

Oh, speak of keeping it simple here’s a nice little graphic (PDF file):

Now if it was my preference, the fake Democrats (far right column in above graphic) would win the primary and then the general election. But my preferences rarely come to pass.

Now one more thing, which everyone knows, is that there is going to be a boatload of money spent by both sides, a lot of coming from outside the state.

I actually think this is good because I believe people should be able to spend their money the way they want to. Democrats will spend just as much as Republicans even though they pretend to not want to do it. They just have to protect us from evil Republicans.

I used to agree with what the Editorial Board said about recall elections:

But that doesn’t mean these elections are a good idea. In fact, they are a very bad idea – an extreme overreaction born from a long season of overreaction.

[snip]

Recalls should be used to punish gross malfeasance or corruption – something that cannot wait for the normal election cycle – not to overturn the results of an election or to dispute policy differences.

But this money helps the economy maybe even creating some jobs, which is good for the state. Maybe other states will put recall elections in place in other states to boost their employment rates. #sarcasm

Because Wisconsin’s job market, though not as robust as we would like, and slipping a bit last month (PDF file), is still the envy of many states and certainly the federal government.

Redistricting fight begins!

It’s redistricting time. The Wisconsin Republican controlled legislature has redrawn the lines for Assembly, Senate and Congressional districts. (Here’s a nice map to see current and proposed Senate districts and current and proposed Assembly districts).

Of course, practically since the Republic began, once the lines are drawn, the opposition cries, “Foul!” It’s already happened and the Democrats are hoping for gains during the recall elections next month to gain control of the Senate so that they can have some say in it.

No doubt the courts will be the final arbiter in this as well as many other redistricting plans being drawn across the nation.

Gerrymanders have long been a part of the redistricting and opposition. The term “gerrymander” comes from Elbridge Gerry who was responsible for oddly shaped districts back in the early 1800’s.

In recent years, gerrymanders have been used to give certain voting blocs (whether political or demographic) a reasonable chance of representation. Look at North Carolina’s 12^th district; a district that stretches almost completely from north to south through the middle of the state in order to set up a majority African-American district.

But most of the time it’s used to secure seats of representatives. No doubt it’s happening this time; Republicans and Democrats both desire advantage in representation…

I’ll leave it to others point out those things.

Political Cartoon of the day 2011-07-09

Amplify’d from theweek.com

See more at theweek.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a17bqa