"It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote against one-party rule"

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Chris Rickert: One-party rule brings out worst in major-party politicians
By Chris Rickert, January 14, 2014

It’s just about as old as America’s current two-party system itself:

Rich folk give money to Republicans, union folk give to Democrats, and in return both parties put the priorities of their respective donors ahead of the approximately 99 percent of Americans who can’t or won’t give any more than a pittance to political campaigns.

This is bad enough, but it’s when government is controlled by one or the other party that their worst instincts come to full flower.

Take the wealthy-divorced-dad-protection bill recently introduced by state Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, for example.

It’s hard to see Kleefisch’s bill even being written, much less getting a hearing before the Assembly Committee on Family Law, which takes it up Wednesday, if Republicans weren’t in full control of state government.

But given that they are, Kleefisch apparently sees some possibility for passage of a measure whose co-author and chief progenitor is one particularly generous Republican donor, Michael Eisenga, who under the original version of the legislation could very well have gotten his child-support payments lowered if it became law.

Kleefisch didn’t even bother to try hiding his tracks. Evidence of Eisenga’s efforts to write the legislation are right there in legislative documents online.

Speaking of political brazenness, it wasn’t hard to find pay-to-play politics the last time Democrats controlled state government.

Back in 2009, Gov. Jim Doyle signed Act 99 into law. It required school districts to “incorporate the history of organized labor and the collective bargaining process into the model academic standards for social studies.”

The measure was not proposed or backed by any education researchers I could find, and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards and four other statewide school officials associations opposed it. It did, however, have the backing of 13 state unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Teamsters.

Who knew train and truck drivers had such an interest in pedagogy?

Unions got another gift from their Democratic allies earlier that year, too. Tucked into the state budget was a provision to all but stop municipalities from spending less on emergency services than they did in 2009.

Crime gone down? Fire-prevention strategies wildly effective? Want to consolidate a pair of adjoining small, rural ambulance services?

The law made it harder for local government to respond to such circumstances and become more efficient.

The provision did, however, please police and fire unions — at least until Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans in control of the state Legislature killed it in 2011.

Good-government groups, bemoaning low American voting rates, regularly counsel: It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote. Maybe a better maxim would be: It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote against one-party rule.

When Democrats and Republicans are bent on catering to their big donors, better that each has just enough power to stymie the other, but not enough to cause any real damage.
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