GOP Presidental Candidates Brought The Snooze Factor To Waukesha County Base

Waukesha County is a Republican Party stronghold, but turnout there in the Tuesday primary suggests that the candidates they fielded, notably US Sen. John McCain (AZ), and former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AK) have a charisma deficit compared to their Democratic rivals.

Seems that the Democratic candidates, notably US Senators Barack Obama (IL) and Hillary Clinton (NY) out-polled their GOP counterparts 71,000-to-53,000, for an approximate margin of 28,000, according to the Waukesha Freeman.

Probable advantage, come November: The Democratic ticket.

Wisconsin Groups Engage In Water Policy Hysteria, Double-Speak

A group of 19 Wisconsin business and trade organizations sent the Wisconsin legislature a letter on Tuesday that would have put a smile on George Orwell's face because it urged the adoption of something they called a "Strong and Fair Great Lakes Compact."

This is a bogus conceit: what the groups want is neither fair or strong.
They want the opposite, for the following reasons:

The current draft Great Lakes Compact - - already approved by four of the eight Great Lakes states' legislatures - - establishes first-ever region-wide rules and standards for communities wishing to move water out of the Great Lakes basin.

It even includes special exemptions for easy access for communities like New Berlin that straddle the Great Lakes basin boundary, as well as a process for out-of-basin communities like Waukesha.

You want unfair?

Current federal law has no standards or rules governing when or why an individual Great Lakes state governor can block a proposed diversion - - the opposite of what the Compact achieves.

Furthermore, the so-called "strong" Compact these groups say they support is actually a greatly-weakened version.

That's because it removes standards, proceedures and guarantees that make it more likely that diverted water would be returned to the Great Lakes.

Maintaining Great Lakes water levels, and requiring conservation and a demonstrated need for a diversion prior to a community's application is the entire purpose of the Compact.

What these groups - - led by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce - - are proposing is in reality a loophole-ridden agreement that weakens, not strengthens, the Compact and preservation of the world's largest supply of fresh surface water.

And it pretends that seven others states, Canada and native tribes in both countries have fewer water rights than does Wisconsin.

The letter builds on the effort by the WMC, through willful actions last week by Assembly GOP leaders, to push the Compact back into renegotiation after five years of meetings that produced the draft Compact in 2005.

Regional negotiations that included business community input, and that produced, through the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the exemptions to help out New Berlin, Waukesha and similarly-situated communities in Wisconsin and the other seven Great Lakes states.

Because several states of those states have already moved to approve it, and now have the common Compact version in their state law - - calls for Compact renegotiation are disengenuous and potentially-destructive.

And lo and behold, a day after the groups sent their "strong and fair" letter to the legislature on the 19th - - the WMC praised the action in a separate news release on the 20th.

Let's be honest, and stop the spin and manipulation of events and language:

Renegotiation, arguing for impossible Compact amendments or stalling its approval in Wisconsin - - the only Great Lakes state without a bill under debate - - is simply a way to kill it.

And that would expose the Great Lakes to wholesale exploitation - - all to
please businesses and groups with water-dependent annexations, road-building and sprawl-development in Waukesha County, and not Great Lakes protections, at the top of their agendas.

Indiana Approves Great Lakes Compact: Will Wisconsin Get On Board?

Indiana became the third state to approve the Great Lakes Compact, and with a bill through the New York state legislature awaiting the Governor's signature, half of the eight Great Lakes states have already signed on the dotted line.

The only holdouts appear to be Ohio and, yes, Wisconsin, where righty legislators, ginning up arguments about property rights and scary veto scenarios, are threatening to kill the entire US-Canada water resource management plan that has been seven years in the making.

Details here.

Welcoming Rob Henken Back Into The Transit Debate

Newly-appointed Public Policy Forum Executive Director Rob Henken may find the headline a bit inaccurate, since Rob has been involved for years in local transit work, and more recently in Milwaukee County efforts to resolve its funding woes, but as you can see from this posting on the PPF's blog, Henken is making transit funding and policy-making a top priority.

Sounds good to me.

Atlantic Magazine Suggests Urban Revival At Expense Of Suburban Decline

The Atlantic Magazine offers a prediction that should make the planners of Pabst Farms, et al, think twice about that public and private investment there.

It's in cities where the growth is going to happen.

Will the State of Wisconsin and regional planners begin to focus on a real urban agenda around here?

Lake Superior Decline Means Economic Losses

Another report documents the relationship between warming temperatures, lower Lake Superior water levels, and economic losses.

Food for thought as Wisconsin GOP Assembly legislators stall the pending Great Lakes Compact agreement, and turn a blind eye towards Great Lakes protections.

Belling Flubs GOP Primary Win Prediction: McCain Was The Winner

I said in a pre-primary blog posting that I was making a note of Mark Belling's prediction of a Mike Huckabee win on the GOP side of the presidential ballot, and would use that prediction as a gauge of Belling's insight into GOP politics.

Full text of Belling's commentary is here.

I guess the GOP is not as far, far Right as Belling assumes, or wishes.

Just pretty far Right, which is why McCain is running that way on immigration and torture.

Pabst Farm Mall Muddling Along: The Road To Sprawlville, Chapter XIII

The next installment of a never-ending series on this here blog, "The Road To Sprawville," today runs into a bit of congestion and doubt:

That's because the infamous, still-being-recalibrated upscale Pabst Farms mall won another approval in Oconomowoc - - but there are nagging questions about some huge issues, like viability and design, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

There seems to be an unhappy realization that what will be most visible to the driving public (the constituency this entire drama is all about) is less a gorgeous destination and more a generic brace of big-box stores.

With that reality shielded - - or is it actually highlighted by - - a thousand-foot wall. Don't forget that Robert Frost, discussing neighborliness, once wrote that there were things not to love about walls.

Without any hard information about the major tenants they'd be subsidizing, the Waukesha County Board of Supervisors is holding on to its commitment of $1.75 million in local revenues to pay its relatively small share of the $25 million interstate highway interchange that will funnel shoppers to the project.

You would think that residents and officials out in Waukesha would demand a better design and specifics before investing all that money into something that will dominate the landscape in Western Waukesha County for generations.

Not just because they were minding their wallets, but because they read that Frost poem along the way.

Sam McGovern-Rowen Runs Third; Campaign For Alderman Ends

Our son Sam McGovern-Rowen ran third in the eight-person field vying for the Milwaukee Third District race, so he does not advance to the general election.

The Journal Sentinel's account of the race is here.

Naturally, we feel badly about that. Sam ran a positive race, didn't pander, didn't spin, but couldn't get past two other candidates.

He had the most City Hall experience in the race, and would have made an excellent Alderman, but it didn't work out.

So it goes.

My Vote's Not A Secret Today

I get to vote today for my son Sam McGovern-Rowen for Milwaukee Third District Alderman.

He's run a positive, issue-based and mature campaign, and it'll be a privilege cast my ballot for him.

Another blogger whom I have not met feels the same way: Thanks to Urban Milwaukee for the analysis and support.

The rest of my ballot choices I'll treat the old-fashioned way, and keep 'em to myself.

Just make sure you go out tomorrow and vote.

Great Lakes Governors Again Urge Passage Of The Great Lakes Compact

Noting the potential harm to the Great Lakes inherent in obstructionist legislative tactics in Ohio and Wisconsin, the Great Lakes Governors have reiterated their call for passage of the Great Lakes Compact.

The Council of Great Lakes Governors website carries this renewed call for adoption: four states' legislatures among the eight bordering the Great Lakes have approved the Compact.

Gov. Jim Doyle is the group's chairman, raising the stakes in Wisconsin over approval or obstruction.

The Governors' statement in pdf format is here as a news release.

And only Wisconsin, where GOP Assembly leaders said Thursday they want to send the Compact back to all the states for renegotiations - - an obvious procedural method of killing it - - has yet to have a Compact-ratifying and implementing bill formally introduced for debate.

The negotiations to produce the Compact already approved by half the states' legislatures took nearly five years to complete in 2005. New negotiations to allow a few opponents to gut the original are never going to happen.

And because the agreement is a cooperative document to manage a shared resource, reopening the negotiations would only embolden a handful of self-interested critics - - centered in Waukesha County - - who would continue to demand more and more concessions.

The amazing thing about the Assembly GOP's action is that the Compact contains diversion exemptions and procedural breaks for communities like New Berlin which are looking to immediately obtain a Lake Michigan diversion.

Without the Compact and its exemptions - - inserted into the negotiations towards their conclusion specifically to assist New Berlin (along with other changes that make it more likely that even Waukesha, an out-of-basin community, could successfully make win a case for a diversion) - - New Berlin and Waukesha face much tougher diversion legal obstacles in an existing federal law.

Without all eight states approving highly-similar Compact bills, this complex agreement to better manage the Great Lakes and promote regional water conservation could wither, or fail altogether, opening the Great Lakes to unregulated diversions and other negative consequences.

The Governors are right to push for adoption, now.

I don't expect the Assembly leaders to heed the Governors' actions, but their statement will help Wisconsin residents and others around the Great Lakes region better understand who is for the Great Lakes, and who is against them.

Assembly GOP Leaders Ignore The Record: This Is Leadership?

The Assembly GOP leaders who threw a monkey-wrench last week into what was supposed to be a bi-partisan approach to Wisconsin's approval of the pending Great Lakes Compact - - risking the very preservation of this crucial regional resource - - are ignoring basic documents and information about the Compact already made available to the legislature.

Makes you wonder whether Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, (R-West Salem), or Rep. Scott Gunderson, (R-Village of Waterford), read the record and tossed it, or were unaware that their key arguments against the Compact have already been explained and settled.

Take, for example, the suggestion that the Compact - - a cooperative water management agreement among the eight Great Lakes states - - would somehow harm personal property rights.

That is one of the claims made by an Ohio State legislator, Sen. Tim Grendell, the leader of Compact opposition in that state.

Yet more than a year ago, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources official Chuck Ledin informed a state legislative study committee studying Compact issues that Grendell's claims had no relevance under Wisconsin law.

Yet both Huebsch and Gunderson have told Ohio legislators that they find merit in the Ohio arguments.

Their letter to the Ohio legislature is here.

The analysis by the DNR's Ledin, here, is either being ignored by the Assembly Republican Compact opponents, or their staffers haven't bothered to look at the record, absorb it and tell their bosses that they are out on a very thin limb.

Then there is the long over-looked, December 2006 advisory opinion written by then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager about Compact issues and water law - - also forwarded to the study committee.

It's an important document because it lays out the applicable federal law that Wisconsin must follow until the Compact is approved.

That statute, the Water Resources Development Act of 1986, (WRDA), says that all diversions of water away from the Great Lakes boundaries must be approved by all eight Great Lakes Governors.

Period.

No exceptions.

Huebsch and Gunderson say that gives the other Great Lakes' governors too much power over water use by Wisconsin (forgetting or overlooking that it also gives Wisconsin a voice in other states' water usages, too).

The Compact, however, at the insistence of Wisconsin's negotiators during the four years it took to write it, contained an exemption from that eight-state approval process for communities that straddle the basin boundary - - such as New Berlin.

And the Compact also creates, for the first time, a set of standards and rules that the Governors would have to follow when they were reviewing out-of-basin diversion applications for communities like Waukesha.

In other words, the Compact makes it more likely that Waukesha and New Berlin can apply for and obtain water if they follow the rules, while, as Lautenschlager explains in detail, WRDA is a much tougher law.

WRDA doesn't have any rules or standards or procedures for the states to use in reviewing eachother's diversion applications.

Makes you think legislators like Gunderson would be taking the lead on Compact approval because it is good for their districts.

But when you are an ideologue and under the sway of a special-interest powerhouse like the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, you are likely to put yourself in a politically-contorted and self-defeating position.

Gunderson, especially.

A good chunk of Waukesha County is in his district, and like State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), a senior legislative colleague whose self-sabotaging proclivities Gunderson is channeling, these Waukesha legislators are making it more likely that their communities will not get the water they covet.

And are likely to find themselves locked in protracted and costly litigation for years.

Huebsch and Gunderson are making a mockery of the legislative process in Wisconsin, holding the state up to ridicule around the Great Lakes region, and are jeopardizing the world's largest supply of fresh surface water.

All in a day's work carrying water for the WMC, but I wonder: Will they put those achivements on their next piece of campaign literature?

And how will they explain it to constituents that a silly little daillance with an Ohio legislator and some self-parodying partisanship ended up costing their very own Waukesha County communities a rationalized shot at Great Lakes water?

Capital Times Hits GOP Pandering On The Great Lakes Compact

The reviews keep coming in about the GOP's game-playing on the Great Lakes Compact, and the theme is pretty consistent.

This time it's the Madison Capital Times, which editorially goes after the GOP's Assembly leadership for its last-minute sabotage of the pending Great Lakes Compact.

When It Comes To Energy Savings, Madison Law Firm Walks The Walk

The Madison law firm of Cullen Weston Pines and Bach goes green by meeting 100% of its energy needs from renewable sources.

Cullen Weston Pines and Bach is Wisconsin's only law firm to make that level of green partnership commitment, and only the second law firm nationally.

Details here.

80% Say Protect The Great Lakes: The GOP And WMC Say NO!

No one should be surprised that Wisconsin Assembly Republican legislative leaders could "gut" the Great Lakes Compact - - as Wisconsin DNR Secretary Matt Frank correctly put it last week when the GOP threw the pending international Great Lakes water conservation and management agreement into a partisan shredder.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) and State Rep. Scott Gunderson, (R-Village of Waterford), said they would support (sic) the Great Lakes Compact only with changes that would render it ineffective and unacceptable to the other Great Lakes states.

Great Lakes news accounts were not favorable.

The GOP's 11th-hour stall-or-kill tactic is happening because the Republican Party in this state, and particularly the GOP leadership in the Assembly. is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

That powerful lobby has had the Compact in its sights since 2004, laying the groundwork for the GOP Assembly leaders to line up with Ohio Republicans trying to kill the Compact there.

Nothing really new about that either: State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin), has been fanning these flames since last spring, something I took note on this blog as early as April.

Similarly, the WMC's junior partner, the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, has been taking the same Great Lakes deregulatory hard line.
I noted 11 months ago here that the Chamber's anti-Compact resolution incorrectly stated that the two Canadian Great Lakes provinces had veto power over any US state's diversion application, and that little bit of false xenophobia is still on the group's website - - easy click here:

http://www.waukesha.org/news_article.asp?ID=253:

And Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas fell in line with that faux, parsed Compact 'support' line a few days ago, too.

In Waukesha Republican circles, no one bucks the WMC. These Waukeshacentric interests don't want to work on behalf of the environment, or to protect resources shared with other states, even other nations.

They just want the water.

Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Even though everyone, from Lazich to Vrakas to the WMC's lobbyists in their brick fortress within walking distance of the State Capitol know that the Compact is dead without all eight Great Lakes states adopting common versions, leaving the Great Lakes relatively unprotected against unsustainable diversions.

Anti-Compact forces in Wisconsin and Ohio are suggesting that the Compact go back to the states for renegotiation for the allegedly-minor tweaks that would satisfy Huebsch, Vrakas and the rest of the WMC-inspired gang.

That is a fake argument because A) the changes are not minor, and B) those five-year discussions, which ended in 2005 and included major business organization input by the way, are simply too complex and complete to be restarted.

Note also that within a few weeks or months, six of the eight Great Lakes states will have approved similar Compact bills, leaving Ohio and Wisconsin as the hold-outs.

And because Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell, the obstructionist upon whom Wisconsin's Compact-killers are relying upon in Ohio is a controversial, if not marginalized figure - - he had to offer an apology to his African-American colleagues for insensitive public remarks - - it is possible that Ohio will approve the Compact regardless of Grendell's efforts.

An update on the Ohio perspective from The Toledo Blade is here.

That would leave Wisconsin, the state whose Constitution incorporates public trust protections for water that date to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the state that gave the world Gaylord Nelson and Aldo Leopold, as the sole barrier to Great Lakes' protection and preservation.

Imagine.

It's as if the forces of reaction and greed had taken the slogan, "On, Wisconsin," and transposed the letters in the first word, to "No, Wisconsin."

I think the next step in the anti-Compact strategy is even more daring and potentially-devastating:

A federal lawsuit filed by Waukesha or Ohio interests to overturn the sole federal water management law that protects the Great Lakes from water grabs - - and which ironically, contains tougher diversion regulations than the Compact would ease for Sen. Mary Lazich's New Berlin.

Her city straddles the Great Lakes boundary, so a special exemption was created in the Compact for New Berlin and other similarly-situated communities.

That exemption is not in the federal law, and if the Compact were reopened for negotiation, who is to say that exemption would survive a new round of compromises and trading?

Lazich's logic-defying anti-Compact stance illustrates a central fact of the debate as it gets more partisan:

For the Lazichs and others in the debate from the far right, it's all about ideology - - state's rights and a favorable, de-regulated fiscal environment for their big business allies.

It's a wierd, irrational and self-defeating twist on political correctness that has found a home on the Right side of the political spectrum.

These Great Lakes Compact opponents - - and let's not let them get away with hijacking the language as well as the Compact itself by saying they are supporters 'with just a few tweaks' - - have a lot in common with timber companies who would log the national forests on behalf of 'healthy woodlands,' or oil companies that would sink wells in protected habitats and claim their platforms are good for the wildlife.

When ideology and money are paired, forget about protecting common resoures, or even rationality.

The Compact killers may win a short term victory, but they won't be in the legislature forever.

More than 80% of Wisconsinites said in a recent UW-Survey Center poll that they wanted a strong Great Lakes Compact.

The disingenuous and narrow-minded approach of the Assembly GOP and the WMC represents the viewpoint of a selfish minority of the rich and powerful:

I'll stand with the Wisconsin tradition, and an 80-20 split on behalf of a shared water resource, any day of the week.

Scientists Claim Suppression of Report On Great Lakes-Area Health; Wisconsin Danger Included

Scientists are claiming that federal officials suppressed a report about health risks in the Great Lakes region traced to toxins in the environmental.

The report includes information about PCB contamination in the Fox River, according to The Washington Post.

The story had been circulating in regional newspapers, but now that it's in the Post, expect more national media and perhaps a better explanation from the feds about why they wouldn't release the report.

Great Lakes Regional Policy-Makers Appalled At Wisconsin's GOP Compact Killers

Media and public officials are discovering the Great Lakes Compact sabotage that got underway publicly last week by GOP lawmakers from Wisconsin and Ohio, and the stories are not pretty.

Here's one from The Detroit News.

And another, from the Ohio media, suggests that the Compact 'revisions' favored by that state's Compact obstructionist, State Sen. Tim Grendell, are not completely lucid.

Some revisions, eh?

Central City Milwaukee Experiencing A Hot Real Estate Market

There's much about Milwaukee that is positive, but little publicized: Tom Daykin at the Journal Sentinel shines a little light on new Central City affordable and appealing housing that shows there's plenty of appeal to urban living in Milwaukee.

Superior Daily Telegram Slams GOP Compact Politicking

Superior's Daily Telegram tells it like it is, ripping GOP assembly leaders for trying to sandbag the pending Great Lakes Compact agreement so that Lake Michigan water can be decontrolled and shipped more easily to "urban flighters" now sprawling through Waukesha County.

DNR Secretary Takes Issue With Wisconsin's Compact Killers

Ill-timed actions by GOP Assembly Republicans to"gut" the pending Great Lakes Compact could bring economic harm to Waukesha communities hoping to get Lake Michigan water, according to a letter to the GOP representatives from DNR Secretary Matt Frank.

It's probably a wasted effort, but good for Frank to frame the debate in those terms, since the Compact killers announced their plan Thursday, the same day a bill to implement the Compact in Wisconsin was rolled out in Madison after more than two years of preparation.

Talk about regional uncooperation - - as the goal was a bi-partisan bill to move along an agreement already adopted in four Great Lakes states and about to be approved in two and perhaps three of the remaining four - - meaning our state, the home of iconic conservationists Gaylord Nelson and Aldo Leopold could be the lone holdout to implemention of an agreement to save the Great lakes that has been seven years in the making.

And which does not go on to the US Congress for its crucial approval until all eight states adopt similar bills - - something the Compact killers are willfully trying to prevent.

As I have pointed out many times on this blog, a small group of ideological conservatives and ill-informed business interests, led by the WMC and State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), are putting the Great Lakes Compact - - an eight state, two-country water management agreement and process - - at risk.

For Lazich, the contradictions are overwhelming.

That's because she represents a city that, under the Compact, is given a specific procedural break for easier access to Lake Michigan water - - an exception that does not exist under current and applicable federal law.

If members of Lazich's party successfully stall or torpedo the Compact, New Berlin's efforts to win a water deal could be blocked by the federal law.

As I said 10 months ago on this blog, when Lazich was inexplicably leading the fight against the Compact at the Capitol, that's how you shoot your entire district in the foot.