Progressive Thinking

The recent 10 year anniversary celebration demonstrated not only the success of the Recovery Court but the support of the entire Trempealeau County community. Everyone sees it as a wise investment that saves lives.

TREMPEALEAU COUNTY, WI - Addiction may begin in a very private way. But, healing from addiction can take a village and can be very public.

“This is a big challenge,” Taavi McMahon, the Trempealeau County District Attorney told me. “People get up in front of everyone in open court and spill the beans about their whole life.”

Recovery Court in Trempealeau County recently celebrated 10 years of helping addicts return to a healthy life and avoid prison. I was blessed to be a part of the anniversary celebration held in Whitehall.

“All of the Black Tar China Girls raise your hands,” said Kim Walker to the crowd of community members and graduates of the Recovery Court. Folks raised their hands. These were heroin or other opiate drug addicts who changed their lives.

Kim Walker worked with addicts through intensive outpatient counseling. Her smile and sparkling enthusiasm for life was infectious. Those recovering crowded around her and took “selfies” to mark the anniversary of the program that brought them from the brink of death to a full life in a supportive community.

I saw clearly how the Trempealeau County community rallied around the Recovery Court to help heal those suffering from addiction. Church members, food pantry workers, local employers, mentors and sponsors all played invaluable roles.

The Recovery Court team managed the anniversary celebration, including addiction counselors and behavioral health specialists, office staff, probation officers, law enforcement officers, mental health professionals, family court commissioners, the district attorney and the judge.

By every account I heard, Judge John Damon was the driving force behind Recovery Court. “I cannot emphasize enough, Judge Damon got it going,” said Justice Coordinator Patrick Bell in a follow-up interview. Ten years ago, the retiring judge’s vision led to several staff taking intensive training to learn skills necessary to run the court.

“We didn’t have any money when we first started,” Judge Damon told the crowd gathered at the Recovery Court celebration. “So when we rewarded the participants, we gave out candy bars.” He laughed and handed each of the graduates of the program a chocolate bar in fond remembrance of their success.

Law enforcement also plays a key role in Recovery Court’s success. Sheriff Rich Anderson spoke with the group reminding them of how far they have come and how much the Recovery Court is needed in the county.

Local employers, including Gold’n Plump and Whitehall Specialties, support the program by encouraging participants and allowing employees to take time off for therapy and drug testing.

County board leadership played a key role in the program’s success. County Board Chair Dick Miller received an award at the celebration on behalf of the entire Board. Later District Attorney McMahon told me, “The County Board is very in favor of justice reform. We have a lot of good people who believe in redemption and believe in second chances.”

Justice Coordinator Patrick Bell, who worked with participants in Recovery Court for many years, told me about the importance of drug testing. “It really holds them accountable. People do relapse and slip off to the bad side again.”

Participants are required to call every day. Trempealeau County Health Department does drug testing. A randomized system tells recovering addicts when to test. Sometimes the system will order a test every day. Participants have a two-hour time slot to show up and be tested. Testing can detect drugs, including alcohol, taken many days prior. By the time a participant finishes the nearly two-year long program, they might be tested over 230 times.

Recovery Court is part of a movement across America to treat addiction rather than incarcerate addicts. The program is run through the court system often with some state money. Those who fail the program are incarcerated. However, completing the program allows recovering addicts to start their lives anew without prison.

“People do stay straight,” said Patrick Bell. He noted that many give back to the community. “A participant started an AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] support group on his own…the program really works.”

The camaraderie among graduates and their enthusiasm for life moved me. Money was saved because these folks did not go to prison. Crimes were prevented. The community was safer. Moreover, lives were changed.

It’s almost as if the unofficial slogan of the U.S. has become No We Can’t. Forgotten is how past generations of Americans who had far less than we have today made great progress. But we seem to lack their optimism and boundless faith in America’s potential.

ALTOONA - From the time of the nation’s founding through the first 180 years of the American experiment, our country’s motto was E pluribus unum. In 1956 it was officially changed to In God We Trust. But as more and more Americans grow increasingly pessimistic about the future — even more pessimistic than people in economically underdeveloped countries — it’s almost as if the unofficial slogan of the U.S. has become No We Can’t.

When it is suggested that we should stop sentencing the nation’s youth to debt and make education as affordable for our children and grandchildren as past generations made it for us, this aspiration is widely dismissed as a pipe dream. Some bitterly grumble about “free stuff” while many others wonder aloud how we could possibly pay to extend the promise of free public education all the way through college.

Seemingly forgotten is that past generations of Americans created and paid for a system of free public education through high school, and they were far poorer than we are now when they did it. Many who did the paying had no high school diploma of their own at the time, but knew that industrialization meant that many of their kids and grandkids would be leaving the land and heading to factories and offices and would need more education and job training if they were to have a shot at experiencing the American Dream. So they dug deep and provided future generations that shot.

Here’s the question for us: Is a high school diploma alone a sure pathway to the American Dream today? Of course not. Then where is the resolve in us that our grandparents and great-grandparents had in such abundance? Where in us is their willingness to pay it forward?

When it is suggested that every American should be able to get medical care, this ambition is roundly condemned as pie in the sky. Calls for universal health insurance produce more griping about “free stuff” and many a baseless claim that guaranteeing medical care for everyone would be the mother of all jobs killers.

Forgotten is how past generations of Americans who had far less than we have today made rampant poverty among the nation’s elderly a thing of the past by creating and paying for such things as Social Security and Medicare, and these inventions didn’t ruin the economy. Didn’t even slow it down. The U.S. economic engine roared as never before.

When it is suggested that high-speed Internet and mobile phone service be brought to every doorstep in America, this digital-age necessity is shouted down as an unaffordable extravagance. Still more complaining about “free stuff” ensues.

Forgotten is how past generations of Americans found it within their limited means to pay to bring electricity to every farmhouse and barn in the country. Electric companies never would have taken on the expense of stringing electric wires down every backroad just to pick up a handful of additional customers. Rural electrification took a decades-long national effort.  We all benefit today from that massive undertaking past generations of Americans were willing to support.

Today’s telecoms aren’t going to lay fiber optic or erect cell towers or mount transmitters in every nook and cranny of the country, just to get a few extra customers. The realization of universal access to high-speed Internet and wireless voice services will again require a sustained national effort.

In so many ways, we have more going for us today than past generations did. We have more money than they had, we are more highly educated than they were, we have far more material possessions, more free time on our hands, not to mention more and better ways to communicate with each other. The one and perhaps only thing they had and we seem to lack is their optimism and boundless faith in America’s potential.

— Mike McCabe

Gayle Harper traveled the entire length of the Great River Road after reading that it takes 90 days for a raindrop that falls at the Mississippi River headwaters to travel to the Gulf of Mexico. She spent time with people along the river and celebrates the peoples, the land and America’s greatest river in her new book, Roadtrip with a Raindrop.

LA CROSSE, WI - “A single drop of water falling into the headwaters of the Mississippi in Minnesota would travel the river for 90 days to reach the Gulf of Mexico.” Gayle Harper, author/photographer, read this detail on the National Park Service website.

“Every cell in my body felt the impact of that and came to full attention. It felt as if someone had hit the ‘pause’ button on the world.”

She was captivated. How would it be to voyage the entire length of America’s Greatest River for 90 days with an imaginary raindrop?

This moment of inspiration conceived a project that resulted in a story of the peoples, land and waters of the Mississippi River – one of America’s Greatest Treasures. Gayle Harper traveled the Great River Road along with a fictitious raindrop she named “Serendipity.”

Gayle presented her work at the national conference of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission in La Crosse. I serve as a Parkway Commissioner. The Wisconsin Commissioners hosted the national organization charged with protecting the Great River Road. America’s longest and oldest National Scenic Byway stretches 3,000 miles through 10 states.

Through an assignment for Country Magazine Gayle was inspired to learn more about the river and its people. She sat down with a map of the Great River Road and divided her journey into 90 segments. Each day she would travel about 27 miles.

With no money to support her project, Gayle wrote letters to Chambers of Commerce and other groups asking if they would be interested in helping. She ended up with “more invitations than nights available!”

Local people “chose unique and historic places – a fisherman’s cabin, a trendy downtown loft, a tugboat converted to a bed and breakfast, a share croppers cabin, a plantation mansion, and was given keys to the 30 room mansion,” said Gayle. “’Just leave the keys in the box,’ I was told.”

“I did the research, but I didn’t have any planned interviews. I decided to leave it to Serendipity. I met amazing people everywhere. People invited me into their homes. They took me to meet Aunt Betsy. I went to a little girl’s birthday party. I went to dances, barbeques, barges, festivals, whatever was going on.”

The talented author described the spirit of the river: “River-lovers know – it’s in us. It flows through our hearts. It never leaves us.”

“The soul of the river is its people. They teach us to be innocent and to live in every moment. Life is a series of fleeting moments never to be repeated.”

Just like the single raindrop.

Gayle described the “mysterious nature of creativity that we can receive but never claim.” She got back home with “thousands of photographs and impressions”. She was a little overwhelmed about how the project would come together. But beauty and order emerged. “Life has taught me that it works best if I just stay out of its way.”

The result of her work is Roadtrip with a Raindrop, a 240-page book of “200 compelling full-color photographs and 55 beguiling tales from the road.”

The book, published just over a year ago, has won three major book awards.

Gayle was quick to share her accolades with others. “The work you are doing touches hearts,” she told the Commissioners. The Mississippi River Parkway Commission created the map that inspired her journey.

Commissioners asked Gayle about her next project. She hedged a bit and described the creative process “like a baby growing before ultrasound. It’s brewing but you can’t say too much about it.”

I asked Gayle about the “mysterious nature of creativity” that can seem squashed by modern life.

“Funny you should ask,” she said. “My new project is about the creative spirit. Creativity is equally available to all of us at all times… If you feel the creative spirit is squashed, the spirit hasn’t gone away. You need to open the channels.”

Gayle finished with a challenge for all of us. “It’s tempting, if you watch the news, to think that fear, isolation, and mistrust are rampant. And that is just not the case. All these people [the river people] taught me the world is filled with wonderful people.”

Indeed it is.

Wisconsin taxpayers have missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal government as a part of the Affordable Care Act implementation, but now there's a chance to push the “reset” button.

MADISON - That fact that Wisconsin taxpayers have missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars from the Federal government as a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA-ObamaCare) implementation is not new news. One of the few states that to say “no thanks we don’t want our own tax dollars back, please send it to Illinois or Texas” has been a painful decision to watch as students cannot graduate because classes are cut, potholes get bigger and another school referendum hits property taxpayer’s pocketbook. Well the good news is that this bad decision by Governor Walker and the Republican majority in the Legislature can be reversed at any time. We could come in session tomorrow and get this done.

Now that no one from Wisconsin is running for President and we have seen the unnecessary struggle that the choice to refuse $320 million just this biennium has had on our state economy, we can come back to the table and accept Federal dollars and give access to affordable health care. Not taking Federal funds does not mean that our tax dollars are squirreled away and saved for a rainy day by Congress. It just means they send our money to another state, to help them balance their budgets and help their citizens with health insurance.

Excellent new news from the Federal government is the introduction of the SAME Act by Senator Tammy Baldwin and others. This bill would push the “reset” button for Wisconsin. We could choose to accept our tax dollars back as a part of ACA and start at the same full reimbursement rate that we could have had in the first place; 100% reimbursement from the Federal government for expansion of our current BadgerCare Plus program. Under SAME, for four years we would be at 100% reimbursement, phasing down to 90% reimbursement after another three years. Still a lot better than where we are now, which is zero. This could be a huge windfall for our state budget.

What people don’t understand is general purpose revenue (GPR) was used to backfill Medicaid expenses for Wisconsin this budget. That means dollars that should have gone to our schools, roads and UW schools were diverted because of the political decisions of the Legislature. Republicans can even accept the Federal funds for a year and then change their mind the next year. The flexibility and sheer amount of tax dollars makes this decision a no brainer.

It is time for the Legislature to put politics aside and accept Federal BadgerCare expansion funds so our financial house can improve. The SAME Act from US Senator Baldwin will provide Wisconsin a unique opportunity to hit the “reset” button for our taxpayers and citizens. It simply is time to put more than $320 million in our coffers without raising taxes and without cuts.

For more information on the BadgerCare Plus expansion dollars or the Federal SAME Act please contact my office at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 888-549-0027 or 608-266-6670

MADISON - The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign thanks the courageous district attorneys John Chisholm, Ismael Ozanne, and Larry Nelson for appealing the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in the John Doe II case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.

While the details of their appeal have not been made public yet, there are two solid grounds for the appeal.

The first is that at least a couple of the justices should have recused themselves from the John Doe case because of a conflict of interest.

The four justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who dismissed the John Doe investigation concerning alleged coordination between Scott Walker and so-called outside groups were aided enormously by some of the very groups that were party to the John Doe case.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Wisconsin Club for Growth, and Citizens for a Strong America—all of which were reportedly embroiled in the John Doe--together spent more than $8 million in support of Justice Patience Roggensack, Justice Annette Ziegler, Justice Michael Gableman, and Justice David Prosser.

The second, and even more crucial, basis for an appeal is the fact that the Wisconsin Supreme Court blatantly misread forty years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent on campaign finance.

In tossing out the John Doe II case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that the First Amendment prohibits the state of Wisconsin from imposing a ban on coordination between candidates and issue advocacy groups. But dating back to Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 and right on through Citizens United of 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court campaign finance decisions have been predicated on there being no coordination between candidates and issue advocacy groups.

In Buckley, the court ruled that expenditures by outside groups that are coordinated with candidates amount to campaign contributions. “The ultimate effect is the same as if the person had contributed the dollar amount to the candidate and the candidate had then used the contribution,” the court ruled. Such expenditures, it said, should be “treated as contributions rather than expenditures.”

Only the lack of coordination reduces the risk of corruption, the Court stressed in Buckley. “The absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent . . . alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidates.”

Even in its infamous Citizens United decision, which allowed independent groups to spend unlimited amounts of money, the U.S Supreme Court stressed that such groups had to be independent; they couldn’t coordinate with their favored candidates: “By definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that line. He will be the crucial vote in this case, assuming that the U.S. Supreme Court hears it. And if Justice Kennedy stands by his own reasoning in Citizens United, the district attorneys have an excellent chance of prevailing and getting the John Doe II decision overturned.

That would be a tremendous outcome because unless the John Doe II decision is overturned, we will have little hope in Wisconsin of limiting the corrupting influence of dark money over our politics.