His Turn: Senator Kedzie Sticks It To The Chippewa, Others Up North

Wisconsin Republicans continue their politics of dominance and anger, their rule by stealth and attack.

Pick up the paper, listen to the news, and people somewhere in the state - - Tommy Thompson's legacy - - are getting stuck by one or more Republican channeling a talk radio attack dog or Dick Nixon's dirty tricks. Whose turn it is today?

We'll see - - but don't forget that this rule by deceit and disrespect began when Scott Walker ambushed public employees  - - "dropped the bomb" is how he phrased it to the fake David Koch, and to whom he also confided he considered planting trouble-makers among State Capitol protesters, and had a Louisville slugger model baseball bat at the ready, too.

(You can read the transcript or hear Walker's voice, here.)

That preference for political brutality continued when Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald rammed through Walker's anti-collective bargaining bill and a 4-3 State Supreme majority affirmed Fitzgerald's process, albeit in the wake of an allegation, unproven, of colleague-choking levied against Justice David Prosser, the author of the ruling.

Fast forward to last fall, when Assembly Republicans wrote a bill behind closed doors - - but open to a mining company to which GOP legislators wanted to speed a permit for a iron ore mine up north near Ashland.

When local residents complained, including Native Americans who feared the bill would imperil their water and treaty rights, the Assembly stuck it to them by scheduling a hearing on the bill in December  in Milwaukee - - about a five-hour drive away.

You'd think no one could top that poke in the eye - - though the overwhelming majority of Republican legislators who slipped over to lawyers' offices in Madison and agreed, in writing, to keep secret the details of mandatory redistricting legislation and their plans for one-party rule certainly dissed the entire state in the process.

And Walker's recent grab of $26 million in housing foreclosure settlement funds to help balance a budget he has steadily claimed was in balance was a classless, gratuitous poke in the eye to people who have lost their homes or might soon be out on the street.

But take a bow, Neal Kedzie, Republican Senator from Elkhorn: you win a 2012 Golden Middle Finger Award.

After claiming he wanted to moderate and improve upon the Assembly's exclusionary mining bill, Kedzie managed to out-do the Assembly by finding a location for a hearing on his bill farther from Ashland than the Assembly's choice of Milwaukee.

Where?

Platteville, says Kedzie.

Yes, picturesque Platteville - - a seven-hour drive from the north land - - but just 28 minutes from... Iowa.

Why Platteville?  Clever, clever Kedzie, and his Senate colleagues: there was mining there - - in the 1800's. And UW-Platteville has a mining curriculum. Ipso facto - - a hearing venue for a northern Wisconsin mining bill.

If those are the reasons, I suppose Kedzie will schedule a hearing on his upcoming wetlands deregulation bill at UW-Eau Claire because ""Eau Claire" means "clear water" in French.

Better yet for Kedzie and the rest of his Select Senate Committee on Mining and Manipulation, the Platteville locale makes it even harder for the Chippewa and others from up north to easily get to the hearing, in the winter, than the Assembly's "F@*# You" venue in Milwaukee.

The Platteville selection makes it so opponents from up north can't swell a crowd and join with the public policy folks that might make the trip down from Madison, or maybe even over from Milwaukee, though that ride would take a good three hours to guarantee getting to a 10 a.m. hearing.

Would you make either of those drives for your allotted three minutes?

Divide, stifle, silence, stick-it-to-em, and conquer.

Kedzie is said to be willing to schedule a hearing up north, too.

Regardless, the anti-democratic disrespect and damage to taxpayers, citizens, everyday Wisconsinites has been done - - the harpooning enhanced by the Senate's bill having already been drafted without public input and having offered only cosmetic changes to the Assembly's Draconian, special-interest bill and designed to do what Kedzie months ago said was his special committee's goal - - to get mining applications.

The committee will be respectful of Native Americans' request," Kedzie said. "But at the same time, we are not going to craft a bill that is destined to fail. We want to be able to get applications from mining companies."

And you can expect more of the same from the right - - whether from Kedzie - - he's the lead on a companion wetlands' deregulation bill - - Walker, the Fitzgeralds or the big money and its corporate direction behind the Wisconsin GOP.

Look no farther than the clear statement of intent from Michael Grebe - - major power-broker, national conservative financial strategist, chair of Walker's transition team and Chairman, CEO of the Bradley Foundation - - who more than telegraphed it to the Journal Sentinel in November:

Grebe likened the Bradley Foundation to the 1960s Green Bay Packers, who ruled the football world with a fearsome ground game and a deceptively simple running play, the sweep.

"We're going to run off tackle, right over there, and we're telling you we're going to run there and we're going to knock you on your butt and carry the ball down the field," Grebe said during an interview inside the foundation's headquarters near downtown. "There are no surprises."

This is why two Senate Republicans were defeated in recall elections last year, and why there is a recall movement aimed at Walker, Lt. Gov. Kleefisch, and four more Senate Republicans.

Everyday citizens are tired of being gored, and may Kedzie - - copping out from his occasionally moderate positions of yore to fall into line with the Walkerites - - be the first legislator named on a petition in the next round of recalls.