Living-wage-killing State Rep understands Milwaukee because he "drives through every day"

But Rep. Kapenga is a self-described numbers guy and he claims to have in his possession an analysis that proves how living wages - wages that raise a family UP TO THE POVERTY LEVEL - will destroy everything that is good in Wisconsin, including, for example, the few meager government programs that provide home health care for the elderly and disabled. The Milwaukee County home health care providers employed by those programs are some of the people whose wages would be raised UP TO THE POVERTY LEVEL. Their plight was cited by one of the leaders of the grassroots group Wisconsin Jobs Now, who testified at a hearing in the state Capitol today and explained why the ordinance was needed and why his organization supported the ordinance.

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Oh, the hearing? It was the only public legislative committee hearing scheduled on a bill that Rep. Kapenga introduced yesterday that would eliminate the authority of Wisconsin municipalities and counties to enforce minimum wage ordinances. Less than a week after Milwaukee County passed it's living wage ordinance, Republican "small government" Representative and Waukesha County resident Kapenga was leading the charge to expand the powers of BIG GOVERNMENT in Madison to kill local control over local issues in Milwaukee County.

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Then, I heard Rep. Kapenga say something reminiscent of Sarah Palin bragging about seeing Russia from her front porch. Rep. Kapenga described himself as "a little unique" and very sympathetic to the struggles being faced by residents of Milwaukee, because even though he lives in and represents the suburb of Delafield in Waukesha County, he employs people who live in Milwaukee County and he drives through Milwaukee every day.

WISCONSIN ASSEMBLY
2013-2014 SESSION
Speaker Vos


AJR 50
BY TAYLOR
ADVISORY REFERENDUM ON CITIZENS UNITED
SUSPEND RULES TO WITHDRAW AND TAKE UP



AYES - 39 NAYS - 60 NOT VOTING - 0 PAIRED - 0
A N NV NAME
N AUGUST R
N BALLWEG R
Y BARCA D
Y BARNES D
Y BERCEAU D
Y BERNARD SCH. D
N BERNIER R
Y BEWLEY D
N BIES R
Y BILLINGS D
N BORN R
N BROOKS R
Y CLARK D
N CRAIG R
N CZAJA R
Y DANOU D
Y DOYLE D
N ENDSLEY R
Y GENRICH D
Y GOYKE D
Y HEBL D
Y HESSELBEIN D
Y HINTZ D
Y HULSEY D
N HUTTON R
N JACQUE R
N JAGLER R
Y JOHNSON D
Y JORGENSEN D
Y KAHL D
N KAPENGA R
N KAUFERT R
N KERKMAN R
A N NV NAME
Y KESSLER D
N KESTELL R
N KLEEFISCH R
N KLENKE R
N KNODL R
N KNUDSON R
Y KOLSTE D
N KOOYENGA R
N KRAMER R
N KRUG R
N KUGLITSCH R
N KULP R
N LARSON R
N LEMAHIEU R
N LOUDENBECK R
N MARKLEIN R
Y MASON D
Y MILROY D
N MURPHY R
N MURSAU R
N MURTHA R
N NASS R
N NERISON R
N NEYLON R
N NYGREN R
Y OHNSTAD D
N OTT, A. R
N OTT, J. R
Y PASCH D
N PETERSEN R
N PETRYK R
Y POPE D
N PRIDEMORE R
A N NV NAME
Y RICHARDS D
Y RIEMER D
Y RINGHAND D
N RIPP R
N RODRIGUEZ R
N SANFELIPPO R
Y SARGENT D
N SCHRAA R
N SEVERSON R
Y SHANKLAND D
Y SINICKI D
N SKOWRONSKI R
Y SMITH D
N SPIROS R
N STEINEKE R
N STRACHOTA R
N STROEBEL R
N SWEARINGEN R
N TAUCHEN R
Y TAYLOR D
N THIESFELDT R
N TITTL R
N TRANEL R
Y VRUWINK D
Y WACHS D
N WEATHERSTON R
N WEININGER R
N WILLIAMS R
Y WRIGHT D
Y YOUNG D
Y ZAMARRIPA D
Y ZEPNICK D
N SPEAKER R
IN CHAIR: AUGUST


NO VACANT DISTRICTS
SEQUENCE NO. 294
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
8:30 PM

Madison — A proposal to declare an optional holiday for state workers on the birthday of Latino leader and union organizer César Chávez has an influential supporter — Gov. Scott Walker.

The draft bill wouldn't add another day of rest for state workers, who currently receive nine paid holidays each year. But, as long as the state agency could still function, the measure would let workers give up their day off on another holiday to celebrate the birth and life of Chávez on March 31 of each year.

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No Republican lawmaker has been willing to sign onto the bill so far.

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The support for the bill might surprise some, given that Walker has drawn fierce attacks from union leaders for his 2011 legislation ending nearly all collective bargaining for most public workers in Wisconsin. But Evenson said that the governor has supported the ability of private-sector unions to organize. In his work with what became the United Farm Workers, Chávez advocated for agricultural workers. The labor leader died in 1993 at the age of 66.

One morning last month, Rhode Islanders woke up to the news that the National Rifle Association had been charged with the second-largest campaign finance ethics violation in state history. In a settlement reached by the Rhode Island Board of Elections, the NRA admitted that it improperly funneled money from its national Political Action Committee (or “PAC”) to the Rhode Island-specific PAC, illegal under state law. The PAC was fined a historic $63,000.

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Then he consulted the public records in the Board of Elections archive (the same source of BPR’s analysis) where Bell noticed the organization hadn’t reported a single donor in ten years. Such a practice is only legal if a donation is less than $100, known as “aggregate individual contributions.” Additionally, Bell said that the NRA’s federally filed expenditures matched dollar-for-dollar those of the NRA’s Rhode Island-specific PAC — again, every year dating back to 2002. Put another way: the NRA didn’t even attempt to hide what plainly appeared to be suspicious activity. Something was clearly up. And Bell was the first to have checked in over ten years.

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What defense did the NRA use to bring the Board to their side on these latter two points? The NRA argued that its Rhode Island PAC was maintained and operated “within” the NRA’s national PACs finances. In other words, they shared the same bank account. Think about that for a second.

The spirit of the law — the idea of precluding national PACs from giving money to state PACs — is meant to create separation between national and state money, and to keep state organizations free of outside influence. In response to the allegation that it violated a law meant to keep national and state PACs separate, the NRA argued that the only reason its national and state PACs looked so similar was “only” because the two PACs shared an address, legal liaison and bank account — such that they became indistinguishable from one another. That was their defense.