Continuing the cycle of devolving power

John Nichols of the Capital Times suggests that power is too concentrated in the governor and suggests returning power to the Secretary of State and the State Treasurer.

A number of states are engaged in serious discussions about how to make government more democratic, responsive and accountable. These discussions are wide-ranging and involve everything from proposals in Illinois and Minnesota to restructure election calendars to debates about creating elected attorney general positions in Alaska and New Jersey.

Wisconsin should open up a democratic dialogue.

Perhaps we could begin by asking:

1. Why not give the elected state treasurer some real responsibility as a budgetary and fiscal watchdog? Couldn't we bring more accountability to the process of investing state money by giving more responsibility to an elected treasurer and the professional staff?

2. Instead of an unaccountable Government Accountability Board (and its predecessor, the dysfunctional state Elections Board), why not have the secretary of state oversee a professional staff that organizes and manages elections? That's how most other states do it, and it would create an electoral forum -- in the form of the secretary of state contest -- for discussing how elections are run.

3. Does it really make sense to elect the governor and lieutenant governor as a team? Isn't this just a bow to political parties, guaranteeing them control of the executive branch even if a governor dies or resigns? Is there an argument for going back to the system of electing governors and lieutenant governors separately -- a system that functioned well as recently as the 1960s, when Republican Warren Knowles served as governor while Democrat Pat Lucey (a future governor) served as lieutenant governor?

4. Are four-year terms a good idea? Vermont and New Hampshire still elect governors and other statewide constitutional officers to two-year terms, and both states are functioning well. (Vermont also elects its governor and lieutenant governor on separate ballot lines.) The argument for four-year terms is that they allow officials to focus on their jobs rather than on getting re-elected. But does anyone really think this is the case? Wouldn't a return to two-year terms make governors and other officials more accountable -- and more inclined to try to make state government function -- if they are going to have to face the voters in short order?

Nichols has no illusions about the current state treasurer, noting her less-than-impressive career path. But perhaps if we gave the office more serious responsibilities than showing up at local fairs with lists of people owed money by the state, then we might expect a more serious election for the position. As state government spending explodes, an independent voice watching the state's finances might be just what we need.

Teach the idiot politicians well

Nothing says idiot politicians like a school board.  The Milwaukee School Board and their Superintendent of Schools William Andrekopoulos decided to explore dissolving the Milwaukee Public Schools in order to shake everybody up.  Or was it a shake down?  Either way, they were surprised when the community responded, “Okay, you quit.  We can’t do any worse.”  And the plans to dissolve the district came out of manila folders to be discussed.

Oops, the school board said.  And then despite the dire financial straits the district claimed, proceeded to vote for health benefits for the shack-ups among the non-union employees.  Despite a warning from the city attorney’s office about the impropriety, school board member Jennifer Morales voted for the expenditure even though she stands to benefit even if she is no longer a member of the board.

I wonder how typical this school board is.  After all, Joe Biden’s school board apparently let him down.

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

As Reason’s Jesse Walker footnotes it: “And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, ‘Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?’” 

Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton’s school system let her down, too.  Lawton apparently missed the lectures on the importance of voting.  She even failed to vote for herself for Lt. Governor in 2006.  But that’s okay, because we didn’t vote for her either.

But our idiot politician of the week has to be State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass for declaring October 7^th “Higher Education Day” in Wisconsin.  While we sympathize with Ms. Sass that so many of her colleagues are in need of improved educations, we would like to remind her that such proclamations are not in her job title.  Or as Senator Obama would put it, they’re quite above her pay grade.

So we at the Wigderson Library & Pub declare September 27, 2008 to be “Dawn Marie Sass is the Idiot Politician of the Week” day, and so honor her with a proclamation on our website.

Jim Rowen's psychological disorder

Jim Rowen wonders if conservatives suffer from a malady he found in the pages of the Washington Post, Empathy Deficiency Disorder. To test his pop psychology theory, he asks his conservative readers to comment on the story (as a Rorshach test) of an elderly woman who lost a large sum of money as "lost property" to the state of Wisconsin. The state can find no record and the woman is now suing the bank. What Rowen misses in his one-sentence summary is this from the original article,

{Willie Floyd } hired a lawyer, Tarena Washington Franklin, who said she was directed to bank officials in Louisiana, who told her that the money had been given to the State of Wisconsin as unclaimed.

"I checked with the state, and it was not there," Franklin said. "That money has to be somewhere, and we couldn't get any answer from them. We filed a lawsuit to get their attention."

Franklin noted that the check does not have an expiration date.

"What they're doing, it's unjust," Franklin said of bank officials. "It will clearly be unjust enrichment for the bank if they are allowed to keep the money."

Joshua Stubbins, a local lawyer representing the bank, filed a written response to Franklin's lawsuit. He said a cashier's check that is uncashed after five years is presumed to be "abandoned" under state law. He added that the bank "did not willfully or negligently commit a wrongful, illegal or inappropriate act," and that the case should be dismissed.

Yes, it's a horrible story. Let's add a few details not in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story. The bank is correct in stating what happens to unclaimed money. For years State Treasurer Jack Voight (Republican) worked hard to make sure people like Willie Floyd found out when the state claimed their property, taking out newspaper ads and travelling the state with his lists to educate the public about Wisconsin's unclaimed property law. Voight was the first state treasurer to do so, and if Voight were state treasurer today I have no doubt he would have personally combed through every record to find Floyd her money.

Unfortunately Voight did not spend enough money to get re-elected in 2006 and was replaced by the inexperienced Dawn Marie Sass (Democrat) whom the Journal Sentinel reporter shockingly does not quote in the story.

I confess this story moved me. I propose that if Dawn Marie Sass does not personally reimburse Floyd for the money seized by the state of Wisconsin, she gets tossed out on her ass as quickly as state recall elections allow. Furthermore, I strongly suggest that anyone who helped Sass get elected be publicly horsewhipped and driven to the Illinois border never to return. I want to thank Rowen for bringing this story to my attention and when he starts the recall petition he can count on my public support and the pledge of the first $25 towards his efforts.