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Sanders campaigns here for Democrats

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U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders campaigned for Wisconsin Democrats on Monday, just more than two weeks ahead of crucial midterm elections. The Vermont Independent’s events here start off a week in which President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama have both scheduled to host their own rallies in Wisconsin

Sanders appeared at UW Milwaukee with Democratic candidate for Governor Tony Evers, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and other Democrats on the ticket. He urged young people to participate in the midterms, noting that they “stayed home” four years ago. “Not this time,” a person in the crowd shouted. “Not this time is exactly right,” Sanders responded.

Report: Evers plagiarized sections of budget request

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Plagiarism by the Democrat running for governor. The Journal Sentinel reports that state schools Superintendent Tony Evers submitted a budget request last month included sections plagiarized from several sources, including Wikipedia.

A spokesman for Republican Governor Scott Walker’s campaign accused Evers of “peddling empty promises but also stolen ideas.”

A spokesman for Evers’ Department of Public Instruction acknowledged that “proper citation use was missed in certain places” of the budget request. Staff will be retrained but Evers does not plan to discipline anyone, according to DPI’s Thomas McCarthy.

The story broke just hours before Evers and Walker meet in their first debate Friday night.

Walker shrugs off criticism by former cabinet members

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Governor Scott Walker on Thursday shrugged off criticism from former cabinet secretaries. Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Paul Jadin co-signed a letter with former Corrections Secretary Ed Wall and former Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten, sharply criticizing Walker, and supporting Democrat Tony Evers.

But the governor said the criticism just shows he welcomed differences of opinion in his cabinet. “One of them advocated for a gas tax increase,” Walker said. “I didn’t have a problem with people serving on my cabinet having different viewpoints on issues.”

Walker was referring to former Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb. Gottlieb has not endorsed Evers but said that Walker was “not truthful” and “increasingly inaccurate” in comments about transportation funding.

The tone of the letter from Jadin, Wall and Bildsten goes well beyond different views on issues. The letter accuses the governor of “micromanagement, manipulation and mischief.” The three men are supporting Walker’s opponent in his reelection, Democrat Tony Evers.

“It’s not surprising to me that their politics aren’t as aligned with me,” Walker said. “That’s part of leadership. You bring people with different backgrounds, different experiences out there. But I think what voters should look at ultimately is our track record and what our plans are for the future.”

Soglin back in Madison mayoral race

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Mayor Paul Soglin

Madison’s mayor is back in the running. Paul Soglin has announced that he will seek reelection next spring. Over the summer, when Soglin was running for governor, he announced that he would not run again for mayor, adding that he did not think he would be up for another campaign.

But now, Soglin says he made a miscalculation. Soglin said in an email “it turns out that I was wrong about being up for another campaign. I am.”

Soglin has served as Madison mayor for more than twenty years on and off, since the 70’s.  He finished seventh in the eight-candidate Democratic governor’s primary with about 5 percent of the statewide vote.

He enters a now crowded field of six mayoral candidates. The election is April 2, 2019, with a primary scheduled for February 19.

WIBA

 

Debates aplenty – and plenty of eyes on Brewers

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Walker

Set your DVR, because the timing is — awkward. The first debate between Republican Governor Scott Walker and Democrat Tony Evers is at 8:00 p.m. Friday. That’s 20 minutes after the opening pitch in the Brewers must-win Game 6 with the Dodgers, in their National League Championship Series.

It’s just one of three campaign debates scheduled on a night when the attention of a majority of Wisconsin residents is likely to be focused on a team that’s is making a bid to return to the World Series for the first time since 1982.

The Walker-Evers debate is sponsored by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. It will be produced at WMTV-TV in Madison and be carried by radio and TV stations around Wisconsin.

Evers

The final U.S. Senate debate between incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin and GOP challenger Leah Vukmir is at 7:00 p.m. from Marquette University Law School. Mike Gousha will moderate and WISN-TV carry the debate live.

And in the 1st Congressional District race, Republican Bryan Steil and Democrat Randy Bryce will debate, beginning at 7:30, from the at Oak Creek City Hall. Mary Spicuzza of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Steve Walters of WisconsinEye will moderate and the debate will be live streamed at wiseye.org/live.

The Brewers are not the only sports competition for politics – the Milwaukee Bucks tip-off at 7:30 p.m. in their first-ever home opener at Fiserv Forum.

 

Paul Jadin is latest Scott Walker critic

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Paul Jadin PHOTO:WRN

A fourth former cabinet member has come forward to criticize Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Paul Jadin is stepping down as director of the Madison Region Economic Partnership.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports Jaden told the MADRep board that he wants to be able to speak more freely about politics. Specifically, he sent a letter to the newspaper, criticizing Governor Walker, who hired the former Green Bay mayor to be the first CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

“All of us have witnessed how job preservation and the siren call of higher office have influenced the Governor’s approach to conducting business in Madison,” the letter states. In addition to Jaden, former Department of Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten, and former Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Wall also attached their names to the letter.

Wall and Bildsten, along with former Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb, have previously criticized the Republican governor, who is running for a third term.

Jadin joins Wall and Bildsten in publicly endorsing Walker’s opponent, Democrat Tony Evers.

The Walker campaign issued a statement calling WEDC a “successful public-private partnership” that has brought Amazon, Haribo, and Foxconn to Wisconsin.
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President Trump to rally Wisconsin GOP voters

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President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Wisconsin next week. A press release from the Trump-Pence campaign says the president will hold a MAGA Rally next Wednesday at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee.

Governor Scott Walker’s campaign has confirmed that he’ll be with the president for the rally, which is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Trump’s campaign said the president will urge voters to protect Republican control of Congress, including electing Republican Leah Vukmir in her race against Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will also be Wisconsin next week, on behalf of Democratic candidates. The independent senator from Vermont will be in Milwaukee on Monday, to rally liberal voters for Democrats like U-S Senator Tammy Baldwin, gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers, and congressional candidate Randy Bryce. He will make a second appearance later the same day in Kenosha, again rallying Democrats for Bryce.

Ryan to campaign for House Republicans

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House Speaker Paul Ryan is hitting the campaign trail for the midterms. The Janesville Republican is not running for reelection, but is campaigning on behalf of 25 House Republicans.

That includes Brian Steil, running against Democrat Randy Bryce in Ryan’s southeast Wisconsin district. He’ll also campaign for Minnesota Republicans Jason Lewis and Erik Paulson, whose districts both rate as “lean Democratic” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

USA Today first reported Ryan’s upcoming campaign efforts.

“Speaker Ryan said in his announcement in April that he was going to ‘run through the tape’ and he’s making good on that promise with this ambitious schedule over the final three weeks in the lead-up to Election Day,” Kevin Seifert, executive director of Team Ryan, said in a statement.

Covering preexisting conditions at issue in governor’s race

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Protecting coverage for preexisting conditions is a focus in the governor’s race. Republican incumbent Scott Walker says he’ll make sure people are covered. “Because it’s just the right thing to do,” the governor said. “As long as I’m your governor, we will always cover pre-existing conditions in the state of Wisconsin.”

Walker says he supports legislation to protect such coverage, but his opponent, Democrat Tony Evers, notes that bill did not pass both chambers of the legislature.

“If he was that serious about it, it would have passed,” Evers said. “It’s great to say now that he cares about it. If he cares about it he should get out of this lawsuit.” That’s a lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Wisconsin is one of the state’s participating.

Legislation requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions, in the event of Obamacare repeal, passed the Assembly earlier this year but was never brought to a vote in the Senate. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he doesn’t know if his caucus would support the bill. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said some Republican senators oppose the measure because it places a mandate on health insurance providers.

Mapping a route to meet future road needs remains challenging

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Senator Fitzgerald

How to pay for the state’s future infrastructure needs? The answer has eluded lawmakers at the Capitol for the past two legislative sessions. In Madison on Tuesday, State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said problems with the state’s roads have been years in the making.

“So people say ‘well raise the gas tax.’ Well even if you raise the gas tax by a dime in this next budget, there’s not going to be enough new revenue generated to address that issue,” Fitzgerald said.

“It’s not going to be one funding source, it’s going to a mix,” said Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling (D-La Crosse) says the issue needs to be addressed in the next legislative session

Senator Shilling

Governor Scott Walker has claimed that Tony Evers, the Democrat challenging him for reelection, would raise the gas tax by a dollar a gallon. “So the question is how much do we raise the gas tax, which is the question we continue to ask Tony Evers,” Fitzgerald said. “But he won’t say. He won’t tell you.”

“That’s like fake news,” Shilling countered. “The fact is, we can have a grown up discussion about how we get there without alienating and scaring the voters.”

Shilling and Fitzgerald participated in a WisPolitics event in Madison on Tuesday.