The Journal Times of Racine, April 26
Kooyenga owes taxpayers for his actions
We legally defend, with our tax dollars, our elected officials when they are sued for actions taken as part of their official duties. That’s only natural and fair; the elected official shouldn’t be personally liable for good-faith discharge of his or her duties.
We should not, however, have to pay for behavior by elected officials which has nothing to do with the official duties. Such behavior, we feel, is solely the responsibility of that elected official.
Which brings us to the actions of state Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfleld.
Kooyenga says he will reimburse taxpayers the $30,000 the state is paying to settle a lawsuit over his removal of a Capitol protester’s sign last May, The Associated Press reported.
Kooyenga’s announcement earlier this month came shortly after Gov. Scott Walker’s administration released footage of the incident in response to requests by the AP and other news organizations to make it public.
The video shows Kooyenga walking into the Capitol with a coffee cup in hand. He glances at the sign, then returns and reads it. He comes back shortly afterward, takes the sign and leaves.
Protester Donald Johnson made the sign and filed a federal lawsuit in October seeking damages and accusing Kooyenga of violating his free speech rights.
The state reached a settlement earlier this month with Johnson. The sign referred to President Donald Trump as “sadistic,” ’’racist” and a “serial groper.”
You might not like Johnson’s printed statement about the president. But as we all should remember, freedom of speech extends to speech we don’t agree with.
Kooyenga said at an April 4 town hall meeting that his military training taught him the sign’s placement along a curved wall in the Capitol made it a “clear risk” because it concealed something to the public.
Seriously?
The flimsiness of the justification suggests Kooyenga’s action was no less political than the message on the sign. The key difference being that Johnson was exercising his First Amendment rights and, by removing it, Kooyenga was censoring him. Not in the way someone banned from an online discussion group howls about censorship, but in the legal definition of the government suppressing someone’s free speech.
Kooyenga said earlier this month that he plans to fully reimburse taxpayers “with the assistance of family and friends.” State law prohibits Kooyenga from soliciting money from lobbyists but he can solicit from others as long as whatever he’s soliciting isn’t seen as a reward for legislative action or inaction.
We’re glad to see a legislator indicate a willingness to reimburse the taxpayers - and, in this case, we’re among the taxpayers in question - for behavior which had nothing to do with his official duties.
That being said? Pay up.
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Wisconsin State Journal, April 29
A lot more cooperation is needed in Congress
U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, is again Wisconsin’s most cooperative member of Congress.
U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, also scored well for bipartisanship during 2017, according to the Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Congratulations to both public servants.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, was the most improved of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation at working across the partisan divide last year, though she’s still pretty average for collaboration in the Senate.
Even U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, has improved a little in the last year, after finishing nearly dead last for cooperation in the House of Representatives in 2016.
Yet overall, Wisconsin’s members of Congress should be doing much better at working with others to propose sensible legislation that’s good for our state and nation.
The Lugar Center, founded by former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and Georgetown researchers released their latest assessment last week of how often members of Congress sponsored legislation with bipartisan support. The annual and scientific assessment accounts for variations based on which political party is in power, and compares performance to a 20-year baseline of data.
The Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy began calculating their Bipartisan Index in 2015 to encourage more pragmatism and cooperation toward solving America’s problems.
Kind ranked as the 21st most bipartisan lawmaker in the 435-member House during 2017. That’s down a bit from past years but still excellent.
Sensenbrenner ranked 79th best in 2017, while U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, placed 185th. U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau, improved to 216th, though he’s still pretty average when it comes to partnering with members of the opposite party in the often gridlocked Congress.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Black Earth, fell to 333rd, which is disappointing. Yet he is better at cooperating across party lines than U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, who ranked 359th.
Wisconsin’s least bipartisan member is Grothman, who was 410th, though that was better than the previous two years when he ranked nearly last among all his congressional colleagues.
In the Senate, Baldwin improved to 54th among 100 senators, which is below average but much better than previous years. Her Senate colleague from Wisconsin, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Oshkosh, finished 51st.
(U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, wasn’t rated because he is the House speaker, so his job is inherently partisan, according to the researchers.)
Wisconsin’s representatives in Washington must do better. The only way America’s many challenges will be met is by working together for the common good.
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The Capital Times, April 23
Honor the Southern dead, not their cause
The soldiers of the Confederate rebellion deserve a decent burial. Their graves should be tended with care, and treated with the regard accorded the final resting spots of all human beings.
But no honor should be accorded the cause for which they fought. They were soldiers in an army that took the field of battle in defense of human bondage.
As the Civil War approached, William Seward, who served as the U.S. secretary of State during the years of fighting, explained: “It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.”
About 91,000 Wisconsinites marched into that conflict on the side of freedom. They joined in a righteous cause. More than 12,000 of them died in a bitter struggle to affirm the American promise that “all men (and all women) are created equal.” We would shame their memory if we engaged in the moral relativism that neglects the fact that Wisconsinites fought on the right side of the Civil War.
So, of course, we agree with the decision by Mayor Paul Soglin to remove a plaque (which featured references to “valiant Confederate soldiers” as “unsung heroes”) from the “Confederate Rest” burial ground at Forest Hill Cemetery, and the later decision by the City Council to remove a stone cenotaph installed long after the war by the United Daughters of the Confederacy - a group that claims as its mission the marking of “the places made historic by Confederate valor.”
The council plans to belabor the issue. But we believe it was settled long ago.
Abraham Lincoln said: “In this great struggle, this form of government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by everyone.” Lincoln was right and, thankfully, Lincoln’s armies prevailed.
Every Civil War soldier’s grave should be respected. But if mention is made of the sides on which they fought, Madison should honor the cause of justice and equity, not an assault on this form of government and every form of human right.
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