Progressive Thinking

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout writes about the annual Art Fair in Stockholm Wisconsin, reflecting on how the art mirrors the natural environment as well as the political environment in our state.

STOCKHOLM, WI - “If you came to Stockholm today, you came up or over a river,” musician Julie Patchouli told the folks gathered at the 42nd Annual Art Fair. The musical group, known by Julie’s last name, began a rousing river song as part of the celebration of art in the village of Stockholm, Wisconsin.

Stockholm is a picturesque Mississippi River town of 66 individuals (not counting the dogs and cats) that swells by many hundreds on art fair day. Most of the art fair is in the scenic village park on the riverbank of Lake Pepin – the widest spot in the Mississippi.

Over 100-juried Midwest artists brought their pottery, paintings, photography, jewelry, glass, leather, metal, wood, and hand painted silk clothing.

Mary Peterson of rural Stockholm brought her hand-woven alpaca ornaments and wearables. She also brought one of her partners in this artistic venture – the alpaca “Mabel”.

I was struck by how much the art fair – the art, artists, and attendees, mirrored the environment. For example, the hues, tints, shades, and tones of nature were reflected in the art.

I saw the greens and greys of a misty August morning in pottery, the vivid pinks and lavender blue of the tall, blooming Delphinium’s stalks in photography, the rich gold and red of autumn leaves in acrylic paints.

Artists’ renditions of Wisconsin’s natural beauty leapt to life: the rushing streams along deep green woods, the crashing waves of Lake Superior, the huge, fluffy cumulus clouds over a rolling landscape, and the multi-colored rocks washed over by a stream.

Much of the art that reflected our environment was three-dimensional: glistening water droplets in earrings, the graceful swirls of wood grains accentuated by the carvers’ hand in wooden bowls, and all sorts of clay lumps turned to art suited for daily activities of eating and entertaining.

Around every corner I found a new interpretation of the essence of our great state.

What is more Wisconsin than cows and fishing? I found artistic versions of cows in paintings, pottery, and even leather. But nothing matched the popularity of fish! I found fish everywhere: in photography, paintings, woodcarvings, jewelry, metal sculpture, and even T-shirts.

Renditions of Wisconsin’s beauty were not limited to objects of art. The group Patchouli entertained the art fair goers with “Folk Meets Flamenco” music including the song “Amarantha” (named after the grain, I suppose) from their CD “Dragonfly”. The music made me feel like dragonflies were darting around me.

This also might have been because art fair-goers were decorated with millions of mayflies. These rather large, harmless insects looked like Mother Nature’s works of art. In its flying form, the insect has two sets of delicate lacewings tinted grey, olive, or blue, large eyes, short, bristle-like antennas, and two or three long sweeping tails.

Once mayflies enter their winged state, they cannot feed. Sometimes their existence in winged form lasts only a few hours; which means the mass emergence of the mayflies – which nature timed perfectly to coincide with the art fair – reminded us of how our time on this planet is short-lived.

People came with family and friends to enjoy the festivities. Throughout the day, people I met shared ideas and concerns. Topics ranged from local affairs – especially sand mines and railroads – to state and national politics. I heard concern about cuts to the UW and spending on the Bucks Arena. Folks worried about the meager $1,400 per student the Pepin School District will receive in state aid. Pepin is among the 55% of public schools that will receive less state aid under the new state budget. Citizens raised concerns about privatization of health programs like FamilyCare and IRIS.

One woman, Marge Lorayne of rural Maiden Rock, told me of her fight with the telephone company to keep her home phone. “I have to go up to the top of the bluff to get cell coverage,” she told me. I spoke with her about policy in the budget related to landlines and my new bill to protect rural residents.

I found art also reflected our environment of frustration with recent governmental action. Perhaps none better than Paul Meddaugh’s comic photography of Wisconsin’s Capitol encircled by an enormous, puffy, white ghost. The photo’s title: “Who you gonna call?”

LA CROSSE, WI - Wisconsin is struggling economically. While other states have invested in their communities and boosted family wages, So where do we go from here?

It’s simple. Stop cutting and start growing.

By working together to strengthen our schools, expand access to health care and invest in modern infrastructure, we can grow Wisconsin’s middle class and create thousands of good-paying jobs.

We are a diverse and hardworking state. In order to succeed, we need a team approach to leverage our shared assets and lift all communities equally.

Whether it’s an energy-saving upgrade to reduce utility bills at a local school, a broadband project to boost internet access in a rural community, the construction of a cultural center to encourage creative thinking and tourism or a highway expansion to improve safety and reduce traffic, communities across Wisconsin rely on one another to leverage our public resources and maximize private investments.

Like many in our state, I was skeptical when Governor Walker first proposed borrowing millions to help pay for a new arena facility in Milwaukee. I recognized the importance of this project and what it meant for our state, but I didn’t think it was the best deal for taxpayers or workers. I knew we could do better.

I wanted to see a more fiscally responsible plan that strengthened our state's bottom line and included stronger protections for all Wisconsin families.

By listening to local residents and working to find a more bipartisan solution, we have been able to leverage additional private investments, reduce the amount of state borrowing, increase the amount of state funding available for schools and create thousands of quality, family-supporting jobs for Wisconsin workers.

Keeping the Milwaukee Bucks in Wisconsin and encouraging more than $1 billion in private sector economic development will benefit everyone in Wisconsin. Best of all, the new plan doesn’t raise taxes and it ensures first and foremost that Wisconsin workers are protected. The state won't be on the hook for future maintenance or repair costs, and we can invest additional revenue into our schools and communities.

With these improvements to the governor’s original proposal, this investment is good deal for taxpayers, workers and families across Wisconsin.

But the same can be said for other state investments as well.

We all know it’s better to invest in quality schools and affordable higher education than additional prison cells. It’s better to help working families get regular health checkups and preventive care than pay for expensive emergency room visits. It’s better to keep our lakes and rivers free from arsenic and mercury than clean up industrial pollution later.

Across Wisconsin, I want to make sure that we are strengthening communities by responsibly leveraging our public resources to encourage private investments and expand economic opportunities.

Generating more revenue for our schools and creating thousands of family-supporting jobs with a new Milwaukee arena project is a good deal for working families that I am proud to support. I know it is a much better deal for families than the “cut and borrow” alternative and I hope that this spark of bipartisanship will renew our desire to come together and invest in other forward-looking priorities across our state.

MADISON - While the ink dries on the new state budget, one thing remains clear: the anti-education, anti-middle class Republican budget is not a budget for the people of Wisconsin. It throws the people of Wisconsin under Governor Walker’s campaign bus as he travels to Iowa, New Hampshire and other primary states to launch his presidential run. And incredibly, the Republican legislature took the governor’s historically harmful budget and made it even worse.

The Republican budget will remove up to $800 million from Wisconsin’s public schools and give it to unaccountable private voucher schools over the next decade as a favor to their private-school campaign contributors. The state Department of Public Instruction estimates that most Wisconsin public school districts will see state aid cuts in the coming year. Not only have Wisconsin Republicans refused to make our public schools whole, they are continuing to essentially dismantle our public schools through massive cuts and creating uncertain teacher standards so they can focus instead on paying back their private-school campaign contributors.

Our local schools aren’t the only ones taking a huge hit. Republicans are also making a $250 million cut to our world-class university system. At a time when other states across the country are investing in higher education, universities in Wisconsin are facing the largest cut to higher education of any state in the country. This cut will only harm our universities’ ability to serve as a vital economic engine for our state and prepare our workers for success in a 21st-Century economy.

To top it all off, despite promises to the contrary, Republicans are kicking a bigger can down a longer road on needed infrastructure while also gutting funding for transportation projects with Republican legislators making changes to the governor’s budget that will cost 5,500 good-paying jobs. And they are dismantling successful long-term care programs that provide independence and confidence for thousands of seniors, people with disabilities and others with fragile health conditions.

Wisconsin has traditionally been known for having great public schools, strong universities, bountiful natural resources and a nationally respected model for caring for our most vulnerable. Yet the Republican budget sells out these proud traditions, our kids and our families in order to pay back their special interest supporters and further Governor Walker’s presidential ambitions. There is no part of what makes Wisconsin great that goes unharmed with this budget.

My Democratic colleagues have heard from citizens from across the state who told us how damaging this Republican budget is to their livelihoods and their communities, so we offered more than 50 amendments that fit Wisconsin values. Unfortunately every Democratic amendment was rejected – nearly every one on a party-line vote – as Republicans passed up every opportunity to make this budget better.

You deserved better than this budget. But despite all that is wrong with it, Democrats are more determined than ever to stand up for the people of Wisconsin and propose ideas that are true to the values we have held dear for generations: quality public education, a world-class university system, economic development and quality infrastructure, and working to improve the livelihoods and quality of life of Wisconsin’s hardworking middle-class families.

Prosecutors were looking into whether Walker broke state law in his 2012 recall battle by urging major donors to circumnavigate crucial donation limits by giving to outside political action groups. Decision suspect as four majority justices also received $10 million in campaign money from those same groups.

MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-2 on Thursday to end a John Doe investigation into Governor Scott Walker’s coordination of dark money during his 2012 recall campaign.

Wisconsin prosecutors were looking into whether Walker broke state law in his 2012 recall battle by urging major donors to support his campaign by giving to outside groups to circumnavigate crucial donation limits he faced.

But Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled the investigation was “overly broad” and infringed on First Amendment rights of free speech. The court’s justices, who are elected every 10 years in statewide elections and are themselves dependent upon campaign donations from the same groups, split over the effect of a pair of recent federal rulings which opened the floodgates for money in federal campaigns.

Several watchdog groups, including many who have hounded Walker throughout his tenure, pointed out that the four justices who ruled in favor of Walker and the outside groups supporting him also received $10 million in campaign money themselves from those same groups.

“It is not only regrettable; it is downright dangerous,” said Matt Rothschild, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The decision itself is corrupt, Rothschild added, since it was contaminated by outside spending on behalf of the conservative justices by the very groups that were being investigated.

Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal One Wisconsin Now, said that the conflict of interest among the justices was part of a system “run amok”.

“If this exact scenario were occurring in another country, Scott Walker would be calling for boots on the ground to save democracy,” Ross said in a statement.

But the Governor seemed to know the fix was in from the beginning. “We said all along that the courts would ultimately rule on the side of the original circuit court judge,” Walker said Thursday, during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “As folks in Wisconsin will tell you, I’ve gone through these battles so many times I don’t get up or too down, I’m pretty even keeled on all this.”

“The Wisconsin State Supreme Court has further embarrassed itself with this ruling,” Rothschild said. “And it is draining the public’s confidence in the integrity of our courts.”

MADISON - I hope you had a safe and happy 4th of July!  Summer is in full swing and if you're like our family, you've been outside as much as possible, taking advantage of these warm, sunny days.

Budget Update

While many were out enjoying the 4th of July holiday week, we wrapped up budget deliberations in the Joint Finance Committee late in the evening on July 2nd.  Republicans jammed packed their last omnibus budget motion, referred to as a "999" motion, with bad policies, including getting rid of our living wage ordinance, expanding pay day lenders authority and giving tax breaks to cigarette distributors.  Overshadowing all of this was their efforts to gut our open records laws and draw a curtain around all legislative communications (see below for details).

Then, last week, the Assembly debated the full budget which was interrupted by a bomb threat that resulted in the Capitol being evacuated.  I actively debated this budget and was vocally opposed to it.  As you've heard me say before, this budget is a mess, full of more tax cuts for the most wealthy, retaliatory paybacks (goodbye to approximately 18 scientists at the DNR) and handouts to campaign donors - mainly at the expense of our public schools and higher education system.  The real loser in this budget is Wisconsin's children.  Millions of dollars will be siphoned from our public schools to subsidize private voucher and charter schools, which have never been shown to increase academic performance or graduation rates.

Assembly Democrats offered nearly 30 amendments to make this budget more manageable and reasonable.  From increasing funding for TAD (Treatment and Diversion) programs to eliminating the cuts to our UW System, to investing in public K-12 education and restoring Wisconsin's shoreland zoning regulations - Democrats offered commonsense solutions to some of this budget's greatest problems.

This budget does not help middle class families, it does not help our kids, it does not protect the things that Wisconsinites know and love.  I proudly voted against this budget late Wednesday night, as did 11 of my Republican colleagues (although all 11 made little effort to improve the budget or speak against it).  If you'd like to read my final statement on the 2015-17 state budget, click HERE.

Yesterday, after five months of review and deliberation by the Legislature, Governor Walker signed the 2015-17 state budget into law.  Although the new fiscal year began on July 1, due to Republican in-fighting behind closed doors and the Governor's continued absence from our state, this budget was not completed by the usual deadline of June 30.

Protecting Wisconsin's Open Records Laws

In the final "999" budget motion before the Joint Finance Committee, legislative Republicans attempted to scrap Wisconsin's open records laws and prevent legislators and staff from disclosing their drafting notes, letters and emails.  I was one of the first to loudly speak out against these corrupt policies that would draw a curtain around the Capitol and end open government as we know it.

Republicans faced enormous backlash and public outrage in this last-minute budget addition.  The day after it was inserted into the budget, Governor Walker came out opposed to the changes DESPITE the fact we know from other members of the JFC committee that his office was involved in drafting/approving the language.  How can we trust our elected officials when they are trying to hide and cover-up their actions?

To prevent future attempts to eliminate Wisconsin's open records law, I will be introducing a constitutional amendment that will include these open records protections in our state constitution.  Seems to me that if you're hiding something, that probably means you shouldn't be doing it.  If you don't want the public to know what you are up to, you have no business running for public office.

GOP Approves Irresponsible 20 Week Abortion Ban Legislation

Less than 12 hours after passing the disastrous state budget, Assembly Republicans were back at it, advancing Senate Bill 179, which bans safe, legal abortions after 20 weeks in nearly all circumstances.  The women impacted by this bill are women who have had wanted pregnancies go wrong, who are very sick, or whose babies are very sick.  This is one of the most harmful bills that has passed the Legislature since I was elected.  Despite strong opposition from the medical community including the Wisconsin Medical Society, the Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics - WI Chapter, Republicans voted in lock-step with the Governor and in-favor of this legislation which puts mothers and families at risk.

Politicians must stay out of our most personal and private decisions.  These are some of the most tragic circumstances imaginable and too often, families are not aware of these serious complications until a 20 week ultrasound is performed.  I strongly spoke out against this legislation during our debate, sharing my own story of pregnancy loss in an attempt to underscore how harmful it is to have politicians dictating and denying comprehensive and compassionate medical care.  Unfortunately, this horrible bill passed on party lines, with all Republicans voting for it and all Democrats voting against it.

ALEC

I will be traveling to San Diego next week to attend the annual ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) conference.  This will be my 5th ALEC conference.  It is important to attend because so many of the bad policies embraced by Republican elected officials start with ALEC.  The keynote speaker will be none other than Governor Scott Walker (I think I'll sit right in the front for that!)  To see previous articles I have written about ALEC, click HERE and HERE.

Moving Forward

Finally, I want to thank all of you you for the support you have provided me throughout this budget process.  Though I was honored to serve on the Joint Finance Committee, I am disappointed that the Republicans were not more open to our commonsense ideas to amend this harmful budget.  After taking a breather to recharge and taking my kids to swim at the Goodman Pool, we must all renew our commitment to continuing to advocate for policies that actually help the people of our state.  I am more committed than ever towards working for a day when progressive policies provide the foundation for our government and improve the lives of the people of this state.

I also want to thank you all for contacting me with your opinions about the state budget.  My office received over 11,000 letters, emails and phone calls throughout this budget season.  Though we are still catching up, I can honestly say that I have the most politically active constituents in the state and I am very proud of your engagement and your commitment.  Thank you!

As always, if you have questions or would like more information about these issues or any other legislative issue, please do not hesitate to contact my office via phone at 608-266-5342 or via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Have a great week!