Eau Claire Chief-Telegram. April 27, 2022.

Editorial: Honoring Wisconsin’s youth

Final week our editor had the privilege of being a choose for the Wisconsin Civics Video games, which returned after a COVID hiatus. The video games concerned highschool groups from round Wisconsin in a quiz bowl-style occasion.

The competitors did not crown a champion, however set the stage for the Civics Video games finals. Every spherical acquired harder, and it was spectacular to observe the groups within the final matches of the day sq. off. There have been a number of terribly shut matchups. You may see the preparation and funding of time these college students put in.

How arduous did issues get? The primary query of Spherical 1 was “Identify the 2 main political events in america.” Most groups might reply earlier than the choose was completed studying the query. By the final spherical college students have been being requested this: “Wisconsin was the primary state to ratify the nineteenth Modification, granting ladies the precise to vote. Which state was the final to ratify earlier than it went into regulation?”

The reply was Tennessee.

The next are 10 questions from the 4 rounds of final week’s Civics Video games. The solutions will probably be on the backside of the editorial.

1. Beneath Wisconsin’s Open Conferences Legislation, how a lot discover have to be given for a gathering of a authorities physique?

2. Identify two necessities for serving on a jury.

3. The US Postal Service is an impartial company of which department of presidency?

4. What’s the minimal variety of conferences per yr required for a county board in Wisconsin?

5. Who was the primary governor of Wisconsin Territory?

6. What number of electors are within the Electoral Faculty?

7. So as to immediate a recall election in Wisconsin, what number of signatures are required?

8. What number of cities are in Wisconsin?

9. Victoria Woodhull, in 1872, was the primary lady to do what in america?

10. Which division of the federal authorities points United States passports?

The data and enthusiasm displayed by the scholars on the Civics Video games clashes with the headlines since Friday.

This has been a tough week for everybody within the space. The dying of a kid is all the time a heavy blow. The very fact one other youngster is accused within the case would not assist. And there is a clear restrict to how a lot we are able to constructively say on the topic on this second.

It is simple to overlook when information like that is on everybody’s thoughts how spectacular the youth of Wisconsin actually are. In spite of everything, college students have been anticipated to have the ability to reply the above questions. That is a part of what hurts proper now. There’s a lot potential that will probably be endlessly unfulfilled.

The investigators within the Lily Peters case deserve the general public’s thanks for his or her efforts. It is vital that we not overlook that, whereas we are able to all discover distractions, they needed to deal with such a wrenching occasion at size. They have been clearly aided by the ideas individuals referred to as in. Thanks to everybody who helped.

Could Lily’s reminiscence be a blessing for these she liked, and those that love her.

Solutions: 1. 24 hours 2. Not less than 18 years outdated, a U.S. citizen, and in a position to perceive English 3. The manager department 4. Two 5. Henry Dodge 6. 538 7. 15% of the residents who voted within the earlier gubernatorial election 8. 190 9. Run for president of america 10. The U.S. Division of State

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Racine Journal Instances. April 25, 2022.

Editorial: Maintain boosting state’s wet day fund

Politicians on either side of the political aisle get positively giddy when there may be an sudden surge in tax collections that buoy Wisconsin coffers — just like the one that’s at the moment projected to provide the state a $3.8 billion basic fund stability on the finish of fiscal 2023.

So many {dollars} — and so some ways to spend it.

Gov. Tony Evers in January proposed further spending for faculties and sending $150 checks to each state resident — which was derided as an election-year gimmick by Republicans. GOP legislators, in the meantime, are speaking longingly about tax cuts within the subsequent biennial finances and different spending proposals.

And no, state officers mentioned in January, socking a few of that surplus away within the state’s “wet day fund,” for use within the occasion of an financial downturn was not on the precedence checklist.

In spite of everything, Wisconsin put $967 million into the fund at shut of 2021, bringing the entire to about $1.73 billion — the biggest quantity in state historical past. Beneath state regulation 20 years in the past, lawmakers requited that half of extra tax revenues be deposited into the wet day fund till it reached 5% of state funding ranges. At the moment, the wet day fund stability equates to eight.4% of state spending.

So we’re good, proper? Properly, possibly. For now.

However there are nonetheless some alarm bells ringing. This month a report by the Wisconsin Counties Associations nonpartisan analysis arm, Ahead Analytics, mentioned Wisconsin must nearly double the wet day fund — that it ought to be 15% to 16% to correctly stand up to a future recession.

Dale Knapp, the creator of the report, prompt further contributions to the emergency fund ought to be the primary declare on what’s within the basic fund stability.

“Even when we try this, there’s sufficient there to fund another priorities that the governor or legislators might need and and it units us up able the place we’re truly ready for the subsequent downturn and we do not have to make important cuts to spending or elevate taxes considerably like we did within the final recession,” Knapp mentioned.

Knapp mentioned Wisconsin’s 5% stage is just too low and that the Authorities Finance Officers Affiliation recommends holding at the very least 16% of spending in reserve.

Knapp just isn’t the one one signaling this can be a time for warning.

The Federal Reserve is combating a difficult battle to dampen down hovering inflation by elevating rates of interest whereas nonetheless not hurting the financial system or the labor market — or triggering a recession. Final month, the Fed raised its benchmark rate of interest by 0.25% — the primary elevate since 2018 — and as many as seven price will increase are projected this yr, together with bumps of 0.5% in Could and June, based on some economists.

Economists argue that the Fed’s response was tardy and even Fed chair Jerome H. Powell conceded final month the Fed “clearly” ought to have begun tightening charges earlier earlier than they acquired so excessive.

It is a sophisticated scenario compounded by the struggle within the Ukraine, the disruption of Russian oil shipments, the struggles in China with COVID that proceed to disrupt provide chains all over the world and a good labor market right here within the U.S.

That requires a bit little bit of warning by the governor and state lawmakers earlier than they begin writing checks for brand spanking new applications, tax cuts or anything to sop up the state’s surplus.

The Reuters information service polled economists final week they usually projected the chance of toppling right into a recession is 25% this yr and 40% subsequent yr.

They’re saying it is pretty doubtless it is going to rain. Wisconsin ought to have a more healthy wet day fund to make use of as an umbrella, simply in case.

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Wisconsin State Journal. April 22, 2022.

Editorial: Courts fail the general public in push for honest maps

A double whammy of bizarre courtroom choices has made Wisconsin’s gerrymandered voting districts even worse than earlier than.

Meaning the Republicans who management the Legislature will probably be even much less accountable to voters over the subsequent decade.

It is unhappy and shameful.

This is what simply occurred, and why it is extra vital than ever for Wisconsin residents to advocate for nonpartisan redistricting, much like Iowa’s confirmed mannequin:

The primary whammy got here on March 23, when the U.S. Supreme Courtroom rejected new legislative districts drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom had narrowly authorized these maps as a result of, based on the state courtroom’s novel standards, the governor’s maps have been nearer to present maps than competing Republican-drawn maps.

With out in depth briefing or oral arguments, the nation’s highest courtroom dominated that the Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom had didn’t correctly decide if Evers’ maps adjust to the federal Voting Rights Act. Particularly, the courtroom questioned Evers’ try to extend the variety of majority-Black Meeting districts in Milwaukee from six to seven.

The consequences of Evers’ adjustments have been unclear. They may have fostered extra Black illustration. Or, as a result of Evers’ maps lowered the dimensions of Black majorities within the six present districts, Black illustration might need been much less doubtless. His maps additionally collapsed some GOP lawmakers into the identical districts in Milwaukee’s suburbs, hurting their possibilities.

This will get to the center of why not one of the politicians — not the Republicans nor the Democrats — ought to be drawing the strains of voting districts. They are going to all the time attempt to skew the maps to their favor. They only can not help themselves.

As a substitute, like Iowa, Wisconsin ought to assign the once-every-decade job of adjusting the strains to mirror inhabitants adjustments to a impartial state company. In Iowa, the map-drawing company is nonpartisan and forbidden from contemplating the destiny of incumbents or voting patterns. As a substitute, it should draw the strains as contiguous and compact as potential whereas respecting group boundaries.

Evers tried to encourage an analogous course of by making a citizen panel to attract the strains in Wisconsin final yr. However the GOP-run Legislature has repeatedly rejected any try to take the politics out of the method. As a substitute, Meeting Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Chief Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, have doubled down on gerrymandering and proceed to waste tens of millions of tax {dollars} on legal professionals to defend their rigged districts. They worry shedding their energy and Republican majorities if the maps are drawn pretty.

Republicans have been poised to win the newest spherical of redistricting both method. That is as a result of, resulting from a state Supreme Courtroom edict, even Evers’ maps needed to be much like present maps, which the GOP had gerrymandered in secret a decade in the past.

What was disappointing was the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s determination to inject itself into this subject so late within the sport and with so little justification. The conservatives who management the U.S. Supreme Courtroom typically deride liberal judges for “judicial activism,” accusing them of going past decoding legal guidelines to really making regulation.

However on this case, those self same conservative justices seem like working towards what they preach in opposition to. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, such a abstract ruling is often issued solely when settled regulation has been violated, which was not the case right here.

A lot for judicial restraint. About the one shiny spot was that the excessive courtroom left in place considerably extra aggressive congressional voting districts that Evers drew.

The second whammy for Wisconsin voters got here final Friday, when the state Supreme Courtroom’s conservative majority abruptly reversed course and adopted the Republican-drawn maps, giving GOP legislative candidates much more political benefits than they already loved. The conservative justices claimed the U.S. Supreme Courtroom left them little selection. They mentioned they needed to rapidly select completely different maps than Evers’ in order that candidates might begin circulating nomination papers to run this fall.

However the U.S. Supreme Courtroom had particularly prompt in any other case — that the state’s prime courtroom did have “adequate time to undertake maps” earlier than the Aug. 9 main, even when it sought extra info.

The state Supreme Courtroom’s newest determination seems chaotic and suspect, relatively than deliberate and impartial.

In Iowa, the courts aren’t wanted to settle partisan squabbles over redistricting. Each political events finally settle for the maps drawn by the nonpartisan state company. That is occurred with out fail for 5 many years in Iowa.

Voters in Wisconsin should proceed to demand a good system like that. Voters right here deserve impartial maps — even when our courts, sadly, will not require them.

END