97th Assembly report

We're going to more-than-occasionally update readers on the 97th Assembly race. Obviously there's a special interest on my part as I live in the district, but given the personalities involved I also think the race could be pretty entertaining to watch. Besides, if the Democrats make this race competitive, then we'll know the Assembly Republicans are in trouble. If you have a hot tip (or just want to fluff your candidate) send me an e-mail at Jamesmdw@yahoo.com.

Attention! Attention! We have our first yard sign sighting of the spring. Yep, Democrat Steve Schmuki already has some yard signs out. Apparently he doesn't fear a May blizzard, and the campaign signs left over from two years ago are slowly making their way out of his garage.

Both Ruth Page Jones and Steve Schmuki recently spoke at a Waukesha Democratic party gathering. The disgraced former schoolboard member Roger Danielsen (who was forced to resign before he was recalled) was absent. Not smart if you want the backing of the 150 people that call themselves Democrats. (Hey, that's their count, not mine.)

Ruth Page Jones is still the only Democratic candidate with a button on the side of the local party's website.

Risky scheme? (97th Assembly Update)

Fox Head takes on Roger Danielsen's defense of the school board's pension investment scheme. Danielsen, of course, is the disgraced former schoolboard member who was forced to resign before he was recalled who is now seeking the Democratic nomination for assembly in the 97th Assembly District. Fox Head finds Danielsen's defense of the investment plan insufficient and calls for a thorough audit of the plan.

Ahh yes, the fact that the fund made money, on the same token Danielson fails to mention that the underlying investment has dropped in value that the taxpayers get to help inject 13 to 15 million into the plan. All because the district made a bad move with the investment. Of course they will try to redirect that as well by saying we will borrow for that injection of cash, but who gets to pay back the interest and principal on that loan? The taxpayer, we just get to pay later rather than sooner.

By the way a few days ago I called this a Margin call. Perhaps it is perhaps not. If you look at my explanation of pensions, we get to make up the difference because of the loss of value, and the very fact that we have to make up the collateral would lead us to believe that this is indeed a margin call. If you prefer a cash injection to level off the collateral. Either way we still pay.

Definitely worth reading the whole thing.

Meanwhile, one of Danielsen's opponents in the primary, Ruth Page Jones, has her website up and has announced her first fundraiser event. We'll see how serious the Democrats are by the number of state vehicle bingo cards we can fill out in the parking lot.

Update! I see Steve Schmuki has his website updated from his last run. I don't see a site yet for disgraced-former-school-board-member Danielsen. Meanwhile, the local Democratic party has an actual website button on their front page directing you to Ruth Page Jones' website, something missing for the other candidates.

Well, at least I have column fodder

Ruth Page Jones is the third-announced Democratic candidate for the 97th Assembly District. The winner of the September primary will take on (lose to) State Representative Bill Kramer in November.

Ruth Page Jones is known locally as the head of Project ABC, a moribund group that advocated for higher school taxes. She is also head of Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, a group advocating a 42% increase in state spending. And she was the campaign treasurer for a congressional candidate that paid himself a slary out of campaign funds.

She faces Roger Danielsen, the former school board member who resigned in disgrace before he was recalled, and Steve Schmuki, who lost to Kramer two years ago.

Waukesha Democratic Party Chair Rich Congdon calls State Representative Kramer the "low-hanging fruit" of the county. He's going to need more than Moe, Larry and Curly to climb that ladder. But at least I have column material whenever I need it.

97th assembly battles

It was a battle on the op-ed page Saturday in the Waukesha Freeman. The disgraced former school board member Roger Danielsen, who was forced to resign before he could be recalled, had a letter to the editor printed. My favorite part:

That’s right. The latest budget repair bill passed by Kramer and his friends in the Republican-controlled Assembly is pushing school aid payments (your money they took in the first place only to delay giving it back to you) until long after when it’s needed here.

As a former school board member and treasurer for the Waukesha School Board, I can tell you we are forced to spend substantial amounts of your tax money paying interest on money long past due to us by the state to fund its local schools commitment. It seems like every time they get in trouble in Madison, they’ve got one solid place to dump on: the schools.

Someone should've told Danielsen the Senate Democrats pushed school spending into the next biennium, too. Buncha right wing fascists. Of course, as a former school board member (who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled) Danielsen is uniquely qualified to discuss the financial straits of the Waukesha School District since he played a large role in creating the situation - before he was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled.

Meanwhile, the current front runner for the Democratic nomination to face Bill Kramer in November is not resting idly by. His supporters were a little cranky in the Sound Off section because Schmuki's announcement did not receive the same attention as the announcement by Roger Danielsen, the former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled.

Steve Schmuki

Hello. I have a complaint regarding the coverage of the candidates of the 97th Assembly district. One of the candidates, Roger Danielsen {a former school board member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled - JW}, announced that he was running and received headlines on the front page. This past week, one of the other candidates Steve Schmuki, who ran in 2006 and captured approximately 44 percent or the entire vote in a heavy Republican Waukesha district, received actually no coverage. He had a small paragraph on Page 3 and I’m just wondering what happened to equal coverage.

Seriously, did the current front runner really want the same kind of press coverage for his announcement as Roger Danielsen, the former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled? After all, most of the coverage in the story was about how Roger Danielsen was a former schoolboard member who was forced to resign in disgrace before he could be recalled. If Steve Schmuki wants that kind of negative coverage, I'll certainly try to accomodate.

The Kramer opposition file

And then there were three. Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson told the Waukesha Freeman he's not interested in running for the Democratic nomination in the 97th assembly district (as expected), so that leaves three possible candidates. I take a look at each of them in this week's Waukesha Freeman column - quite the rogues gallery, really.

Contrary to the Spring City Chronicle, its not too early to look because now is the time campaigns are forming and building support.

Idiot politician of the week

It wasn't Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson. Getting into a fight with someone who buys ink and pixels buy the barrel may not have been smart. Posting a partisan endorsement (and I know he tried not to make it look that way) on a city website was not bright either. But Nelson gets a break this week.

City of Waukesha Administrator Lori Luthor is not quite the evil genius of distant relative Lex Luthor, at least not last week. The explanation for attending the Barack Obama rally just does not hold water (always a problem in Waukesha). Awfully hard to coordinate security for an event when 1) your job has nothing to do with security and 2) you're sitting in the front row of the event between the mayor and the governor. Unless you're planning on acting as a human shield for the mayor, you belong back at the office. But even that is not the winner this week.

It wasn't Roger Danielsen, the disgraced ex-school board member from Waukesha who resigned before he could be recalled, although I'm certain he'll be in the running in the future. Believing he could run again for public office is certainly idiotic. Believing the circumstances under which he was driven from public office would not be an issue was enough to make him first runner-up. But he just fell short of our winner.

No, the winner has to be New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero. Even cutting him some slack for being mayor in the snake pit of New Berlin, his complaint about blogs and his response to them takes the prize. From Milwaukee Magazine Pressroom, March 2008:

And New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero says his administration has opted not to post press releases online because of the blogs. "They're negative and filled with wrong information," he says. "If we post our information on there, people won't know if it's true or not."

No, the test of whether a press release is accurate or not is not if its online. The test may be if it comes from the office of Jack Chiovatero.

For keeping his office in the 19th century, Jack Chiovatero is our idiot of the week.

(Send your nomination for the "Idiot Politician of the Week" to Jamesmdw@yahoo.com. The idiots will be identified every Sunday for the previous week.)

The Kramer challenge

State Representative Bill Kramer has gained his first Democratic challenger for the 97th Assembly district in Waukesha. Disgraced former schoolboard member Roger Danielsen will be seeking the Democratic nomination this September. Danielsen was forced to resign from the Waukesha School Board after he forwarded personal information to the press regarding the family of a referendum opponent in 2005. Had he not resigned, he likely would have been forced out in an ugly recall, possibly taking other members of the school board with him.

More details about Danielsen's attempt to return to politics are expected in tomorrow's Waukesha Freeman, well worth the 75 cents for the Saturday edition.

Danielsen could have competition for the Democratic nomination.

Steve Schmuki was Kramer's Democratic opponent in 2006. Schmuki will have learned from his previous run and would be an interesting opponent. However, Schmuki does not quite have the taste for the jugular, a necessary character trait if someone is going to knock off the incumbent in the normally Republican district. Also, Schmuki is actually to the left of Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson on development and water issues, limiting his appeal to the base of the Democratic Party.

Speaking of the mayor, Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson would be another potential candidate. On the one hand, Nelson seems to love being the mayor and all the attention on him. Can such a character be content to be one of the 99 in the assembly? On the other hand, Nelson is passionate about the education issue and as mayor he is largely on the education issue sidelines. One drawback for Nelson is that he would be stuck on a ballot with a (D) next to his name. After the flap over his support for Barack Obama, a failed partisan run in November may be just what is needed to stir up a real opponent for him when he runs for re-election as mayor. Look for him to sit this one out.

Another education advocate and potential candidate would be Project ABC leader Ruth Page Jones. Jones would have WEAC just dying to see her in Madison. Unfortunately for WEAC, Jones is also head of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, currently calling for a 42% increase in state spending. She also is an advocate of tinkering with the state educational funding formula which even Democratic State Representative Sondy Pope-Roberts admitted would result in less - not more - state funding for Waukesha schools.

Ruth Page Jones also served as the campaign treasurer for former Democratic candidate for Congress Bryan Kennedy in his runs against Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. Kennedy's campaign became quite controversial in 2006 when he began to pay himself a salary from his campaign funds. As treasurer, Ruth Page Jones would have been involved in the candidate paying himself a salary from donations to his campaign.

Kramer is unlikely to have any opponent in the Republican primary.

Although the district is considered to be Republican, Democrats can point to the surprising strength of the Democratic turnout in the district in the Presidential primary on Tuesday. Senator Barack Obama alone captured more votes than all of the Republican candidates combined. Democrats start the campaign season with a working list of Democratic voters to build on. Wisconsin also does not have any races in November other than the presidential election and the legislative races, meaning Republican turnout in the district may be subject to forces beyond local Republican control. Finally, while the Democrats are unlikely to invest in any race in Waukesha County, WEAC and other groups may back the Democratic challenger to Kramer if they feel strong enough for their candidate. That's why education may not be as important as an issue as it might be in keeping a Democratic challenger funded and viable.

Kramer's strengths in the race will be his dogged determination to win, his ability and desire to campaign door-to-door, the advantages of incumbency, the support of the Republican Party, and his likely ability to out-fundraise his opponents. Kramer will have all of the typical Republican special interests behind his campaign. If he draws a tough challenger, it is likely he will be the only Republican in the Waukesha area to do so, enabling the party to focus their resources to protect him. Most importantly, he will not have to expend resources in a primary. Kramer is not to be "misunderestimated" as an opponent, and to defeat him will not only take an excellent candidate but a lot of luck. As Jack Woltz would say, he ain't no band leader.