By Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — Wisconsin lawmakers and officials edged closer to decisions on some of the biggest issues the state is addressing.

Mining, recalls, redistricting and ethics  — related to the John Doe investigation  — all progressed this week, against a backdrop of political volleyball as Democrats and Republicans sought to take credit for job growth heading into 2012 elections.

Mine bill movement

Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, early this week circulated a Senate version of legislation aimed at streamlining mining regulations, intended to encourage Gogebic Taconite LLC to move ahead with plans for an open-pit iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin.

The proposal differed from the mining bill the Assembly introduced and passed last month, including allowing people to challenge mining permits.

But critics, including environmentalists and Democrats, still worried that changes didn’t go far enough to address environmental concerns.

“Unfortunately, the environmental rollbacks contained in the Senate bill are practically identical to those in the Assembly bill,” Clean Wisconsin government relations director Amber Meyer Smith said in a statement. “We urge the Senate to stand with the majority of Wisconsin residents who oppose weakening environmental protections for mining by starting over.”

By week’s end, though, any argument over which mining bill is better appeared moot, after senators introduced a Senate mining bill that is identical to the Assembly bill.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, disbanded the Senate committee tasked with drafting separate mining legislation, and a scheduled hearing on the original Senate proposal was canceled.

Instead, the Joint Finance Committee held a meeting Friday to consider the identical Senate and Assembly mining bills.

Recalls, redistricting challenges

Republican state senators targeted for recall filed their responses to rebuttals to their challenges of recall petitions Wednesday — part of the constitutional give and take that is the Wisconsin recall process.

The senators, through their representatives, are asking the Government Accountability Board, which oversees state elections, to resolve their questions about redistricting and a dispute regarding when the clock officially started ticking on recall campaigns.

The Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, or CERS, has challenged thousands of signatures collected by the campaigns to recall four state Republican senators who, along with Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, are facing potential recall elections.

CERS’ overarching concerns remain signatures collected outside of newly drawn district maps, and the timing of the recall campaigns.

CERS insists recall campaigns must be conducted in the maps drawn up by the majority Republicans and passed into law on a party-line vote last year.

Those redistricting maps are being challenged in court, with the next hearing set for Tuesday.

A three-judge panel in Milwaukee on Thursday ordered Republican legislators to turn over emails and documents related to the redistricting bill, rebuking legislators for trying to use attorney-client privilege claims to keep the redistricting process secret from the public.

“What could have  — indeed should have  — been accomplished publicly instead took place in private, in an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from public scrutiny,” read the order, written by U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

Dan Romportl, CERS’ executive director, said Republicans originally set the roll out of the new legislative boundaries for the November 2012 general election to avoid effectively creating a series of special assembly elections beforehand.

“Now that the Democrats have triggered a round of what essentially are special elections (the recalls), that’s a moot point,” he said. “We are asking GAB to look at it.”

Wetlands and ethics

The GOP-led Senate passed a bill early Wednesday lifting restrictions on developing wetlands, after Democrats stalled the legislation during Tuesday’s debate.

Angered, Fitzgerald called for lawmakers to come in at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, the earliest that a vote could be taken after the Democrats’ maneuver.

“Last fall, Republicans ran on a pro-jobs agenda, promising to do whatever we could to improve the economy,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “If that means working late to wait out the Democrats’ stall tactics, then that’s what we’ll do.”

With a month left before the regular spring session of the Legislature is scheduled to conclude, there’s no end in sight for the mutual animosity Democratic and Republican lawmakers repeatedly have expressed during the past year.

Assembly Democrats proposed a four-part ethics package of bills Thursday. Called “Restoring Integrity,” the proposals attack what the minority party sees as cronyism and corruption, corporate influence, partiality and secrecy.

Some of Walker’s former aides either have been charged or convicted of illegal fundraising or campaigning, in many cases alleged to have been done in the Milwaukee County Executive office when then-County Executive Scott Walker was running for governor.

“The secrecy of Gov. Walker and Republican leaders and the scandal surrounding them have left Wisconsin’s reputation for open government in tatters,” Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said in a statement.

Politics of job growth

Politicians traded barbs and speeches this week as they vied to take credit for improving economic conditions.

President Barack Obama, seeking a second term, came to Milwaukee on Wednesday to cheer Master Lock’s move to bring 100 jobs back from China.

“Two years ago, I set a goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years,” Obama said. “With the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law, we’re on track to meeting that goal ahead of schedule.”

Walker, meanwhile, who faces a potential recall election this year, spoke at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce’s annual “Business Day In Madison” event to tout business-friendly legislation, such as tort reform, Republicans have passed in an effort to improve Wisconsin’s business climate.

“In the end, government doesn’t create jobs,” Walker said. “We can create an environment that is either better or worse, positive or negative. I choose to create a better environment for creating jobs so you all can put the state back to work again.”

Polls consistently show that the economy is the No. 1 issue Americans are concerned about heading into the 2012 election cycle.

By Kirsten Adshead | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — Outlining a pro-business agenda to members of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was, Gov. Scott Walker admitted, like preaching to the choir.

“But I’m not going to apologize for that, because when I preach to you today, I’m telling you … I need you to help us sing,” the governor said at WMC's "Business Day in Madison" event. “I need you to help us sing loud, louder than you’ve ever sang before.”

Read the full story

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — Claiming they aim to “reverse the worst power abuses” of Gov. Scott Walker and legislative Republicans, Assembly Democrats on Thursday released a four-part ethics package.

Several Assembly Republicans, busy with a full slate of bills up for debate, said they hadn’t seen the proposals, but one top leadership assistant described the Democrats’ announcement as “distraction” during a critical time for Wisconsin’s economy.

Read the full story

Read the full story

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — Republican state senators targeted for recall were expected to file their responses to rebuttals to their challenges of recall petitions Wednesday.

If that sounds confusing, it is just part of the constitutional give and take that is the Wisconsin recall process.

In this latest volley, the senators, through their representatives, are asking the state’s election watchdog to resolve their questions about redistricting and a dispute regarding when the clock officially started ticking on recall campaigns.

Late last week, the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, or CERS, challenged thousands of signatures collected by the campaigns to recall state Sens. Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau, Pam Galloway of Wausau, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Van Wanggaard of Racine.

The incumbents cited a litany of problems with the petitions, from convicted felons signing to missing information, like a lack of date or address.

Recall committees on Tuesday responded with their rebuttals, asserting many of the challenges lacked evidence or could be cleared up.

The Committee to Recall Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, countered the incumbent’s claims that 1,739 circulator certification forms were not properly completed, asserting that all but 111 followed recall laws.

CERS was set to file its response to those rebuttals with the Government Accountability Board, or GAB, late Wednesday.

GAB had not posted the file as of Wednesday evening.

CERS’ overarching concerns remain signatures collected outside of newly drawn district maps, and the timing of the recall campaigns.

The senators collectively have challenged thousands of signatures they say were collected in Senate districts created more than a decade ago. They insist recall campaigns must be conducted in the maps drawn up by the majority Republicans and passed into law on a party-line vote last year.

Those redistricting maps are being challenged in court, with the next hearing set for next week.

Dan Romportl, CERS’ executive director, said Republicans originally set the roll out of the new boundaries for the November 2012 general election to avoid effectively creating a series of special assembly elections beforehand.

“Now that the Democrats have triggered a round of what essentially are special elections (the recalls), that’s a moot point,” he said. “We are asking GAB to look at it.”

GAB settled the question early on, advising recall committees to operate under the existing maps, “because the Legislature said when they passed redistricting to use the old maps until the general election of 2012,” said GAB spokesman Reid Magney.

“Unless a court tells us otherwise, we’re going to follow the law,” he said.

Randy Brandt, treasurer for the Committee to Recall Van Wanggaard, said his committee followed GAB guidance.

Wanggaard is challenging 20,427 signatures, much of which are based on redistricting, according to a Wisconsin Reporter review of challenges filed on the GAB website.

“The GAB decided this early on, that the recalls would be conducted in districts as they exist. We followed that instruction,” Brandt said.

The senators also want GAB to rule on the timing of signature collection.

Many of the recall committees electronically registered their campaigns with GAB just after midnight on Nov. 15. They filed their paper form with the board later that morning.

But signature collection began in the wee hours of the morning, with some recall campaign kickoffs featuring signature-signing pajama parties and other festive events.

“We’re saying anything collected before the paper form was filed should be invalid,” Romportl said.

“The ones that filed on the 15th, their paperwork was filed mid-morning, yet they had all of these midnight parties where they were collecting signatures.”

Brandt and Lori Compas, who spearheaded the Committee to Recall Scott Fitzgerald, said they followed GAB guidance in filing their committee registrations.

Magney said GAB will not comment on the positions of the petitioners or the incumbents.

Compas said the vast majority of Fitzgerald’s challenges are “frivolous.”

“I think in a lot of cases (Fitzgerald’s signature review volunteers) entered people’s name’s wrong,” she said. “Half of the postcards they sent out (to petition signers) came back, because they entered information incorrectly.”

Republicans, Romportl said, will take aim at what he called the Democrats’ “over-the-top” rhetoric surrounding the recall campaigns, particularly charges that the GOP is dragging out the process.

“We’re provided under law the right to challenge,” he said.

“The one silver lining to come out of all of this is that this process is under a microscope,” Romportl said. “I think the public is getting fed up with all of the gray area in the recall process.”

Recall update

Gov. Scott Walker is asking a Dane County judge for an extension to vet the reported 1 million-plus signatures collected in the recall against him.

The request was filed last week, said Republican Party of Wisconsin spokesman Ben Sparks.

“As it has become apparent, an adequate review of all of the recall signatures cannot be met within the current time limits, the Friends of Scott Walker (campaign committee) has requested an additional two weeks to complete its full review of all recall petitions,” Sparks said.

The court is expected to take up the matter Friday.

Walker’s campaign now has until Feb. 27 to complete its review, after it was granted an earlier extension.

Sparks said the proposed deadline of March 12 still would be within the GAB’s March 19 court-ordered deadline to make a determination on recall elections.

“This will allow the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Friends of Scott Walker the time necessary to conduct a complete review of these signatures and it will aid the GAB’s efforts by ensuring their examination is focused on the signatures that have undergone a more thorough factual review,” Sparks said.