for more state revenue!
After filing an open records request, citizen watchdog Bonnie Roe finds that not once did the City of Madison lobby a single Republican legislator for financial assistance during the last 18 months even as its $22 million budget hole became apparent. That’s important because Republicans control the purse strings in state government. In fact, the City did minimal outreach even to minority Democrats. Ms. Roe informs:
According to information provided by the mayor’s office in response to my open records request … the mayor, mayor’s office, and her lobbyist had NO meetings with Republicans regarding the budget.
The mayor’s representatives did meet with two Democratic legislators over the summer, Ms. Roe finds. In September, after formally placing Madison’s $22 million property tax referendum on the ballot, the City meet with three other Democratic legislators. Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway did address two letters to Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat “without follow-up.” Ms. Roe concludes:
The Mayor and Mayor’s Office is spending more time lobbying City residents to pass a referendum to voluntarily and permanently increase our property taxes above and beyond the maximum increase under the State-imposed levy limit than they spent in meetings lobbying the State about the budget.
Republicans have helped Democrat(ic) cities
Consider that the Republican legislature bailed out the City of Milwaukee’s by granting the city permission to levy a 2 percent sales tax — the only Wisconsin city currently permitted to do so. The tax will raise $184 million the first year for Milwaukee city government. Of course, the state required concessions, such as:
• Limiting funding for diversity, equity and inclusion
• freezing funding for Milwaukee’s streetcar
• Requiring police officers to return to public schools and
• Requiring a minimum level of police and firefighter staffing.
Madison’s Common Council did pass a resolution asking for a half-cent city sales tax back in April but there seems to have been no follow up with the legislature’s budget writers. Based on the city’s calculations, a 0.5 percent sales tax (one-fourth Milwaukee’s tax) would have raised $35 million in Madison.
Answer the g-damn questions!
Todd Novak is a Republican. He answers the Wisconsin State Journal candidate questionnaires. They print his answers verbatim. Free advertising. Todd Novak keeps getting elected. Why can’t all of our Republican candidates answer the newspaper’s questionnaires and that of the League of Women Voters? Yet, there were at least four Madison-area Republican candidates who could not be bothered to answer. What does that tell the voter? That they’re ashamed of their positions? That they don’t care? That they’re too lazy?
• Headlines we like to see: “Netanyahu calls on UN Secretary General to get peacekeepers out of Lebanon. — CNN
• Headlines we do NOT like: “Frenzied Musk is going all in to elect Trump.” — Sunday’s New York Times.“Frenzied”? Our Random House unabridged defines the word as “wildly excited or enthusiastic; violently agitated; frantic.”
• With the Packers firmly in control 31-13 over Arizona, why not play Malik Willis in place of Jordan Love to begin the fourth quarter?
Blaska’s Bottom Line: To be fair (why does that make my head hurt?), it’s possible Republican legislators would have told Madison to drop dead. But those evil Republicans were willing to help deep blue Milwaukee. Maybe the Mayor just didn’t want school resource police officers back in Madison’s troubled high schools.
10 responses to “City of Madison did not lobby Republicans”
We’re ready. Send the signs over for the two MMSD and City of Fitchburg referendums. While we sympathize with you on the City of Madison referendum, we can’t vote No on it like you can
You’re Excellency, please sign me up for a sign.
My homemade one isn’t cuttin’ the mustard!
You answered your own question. They don’t care. So they gave Milw permission to raise their own taxes. Thanks a lot. The Republicans control the purse strings, control the capital, gerrymandered in their jobs. So why waste the time. How many republicans live in Milw? They let them have the tax so they wouldn’t be beating on their office doors screaming for money. This whole thing is funnier than Hovde complaining about Baldwin’s girl friend. NO ONE CARES ERIC>NO ONE…(well; maybe crotch.)
I agree with you on one point: “Why waste the time?” I disagree on the answer, which should be that the radical elites who run this city know perfectly well that they’ll get the money they want from their fellow elites who will vote YES on the referendum, like the good little sheep they are, by a comfortable margin.
Some of us do indeed care about Baldwin’s potential conflict of interest with what her partner does. If it’s fair to question the motives of a SCOTUS justice because of the flags his wife flies, then it’s certainly fair to do the same for a senator that influences legislation for industries her partner has financial interests in.
“it’s certainly fair to do the same for a senator that influences legislation for industries her partner has financial interests in.”
Bravo Indigo November Golf Oscar, MTR, but acknowledgement of a fact-based Reality completely escapes the generationally imbecilic.
The Gotch
I hope everyone knows “It’s taxpayer money not Government money” when they talk about getting money from The State or The Federal Government. It all comes from “The People.”
Mayor PHATya Rhodes-Conway needs to spend less time at the feeding trough and more time governing this city efficiently.
One more thing.
Kacklin’ Kamala has a new gig: PLAGIARISM.
If that don’t beat all; she has more in common with DemntiaJoKe than we thought…
The Gotch
So you are posting what “conservative activist” Rufo wrote after he contacted a guy who claims to be a “plagiarism hunter” from Austria named Weber. His claim is some of the things in the book “closely resemble other things. The big complaint “”””””””QUOTATION MARKS””””””””” I recall reading about another guy from Austria and what he wrote in the 1930’s. Most of what you post online is about as reliable as a Packer field goal kicker.
Wednesday night everyone. Harris and Baier. First time for her on his show. No weaving. No silly “concepts”. Time for you to meet your next president.