Young is listed as author on few bills but consistently claims to have been in Madison the most time of any lawmaker during the year. Young even declared more days in Madison than every Milwaukee area senator except one.
Now, he may be getting work done or perhaps he's methodical, but we also know that every day a lawmaker claims to be in Madison means an extra $88 in the pocket. So Young's self-proclaimed time sheet meant he took home an extra $13,464 for his bank account in 2007.
Rounding out the Milwaukee-area top five on the per diem list include: Mark Gottlieb (R-Mequon) at 124 days for $10,912; Mark Honadel (R-Oak Creek), 118 days for $10,384; David Cullen (D-Milwaukee), 110 days for $9,680; and Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) 110 days for $9,680.
Candidates who could be accused of being distracted by campaigns for higher office notched the fewest number of days in Madison: Pedro Colon, running for City Attorney of Milwaukee, spent 54 days in Madison, while Sheldon Wasserman, who is running for state Senate and continually touts his door-knocking efforts, was found in Madison on 42 days, lowest on the list.
Among area state Senators who spent the most time in Madison, Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) topped the list declaring he spent a third of the year there -- 145 days -- which boosted his pay by $12,760. Second was Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) -- whose biggest piece of legislation was a bill to privatize the Milwaukee County airport and spent a lot of time on the commuter rail issue-- who declared 126 days for $11,088.
Senators running competitive campaigns didn't finish entirely at the bottom. That award was left to Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), who declared a mere 60 days on the job in Madison. Alberta Darling -- facing a tough re-election fight with Wasserman -- spent 73 days in Madison. Lena Taylor, the Milwaukee Democrat running for county executive, declared 113 days in Madison last year.
Bill Targeting Teachers Advances: State Sen. Glenn Grothman is pretty happy that his bill making it substantially easier to fire teachers has passed an Assembly committee. The West Bend Republican calls his bill the "Every Child Deserves a Great Teacher" bill.
The thrust is basically to take away union protection from teachers and make it easy to fire those deemed "unsatisfactory." It would require two years of documented "unsatisfactory" performance, although offers little explanation of what that means, since terms of dismissal are usually in the teachers' contract.
Keeping good teachers in the classroom is a noble cause for sure, but there are other caveats involved when trying to treat teachers as "at will" employees. They deserve some respect, after all.
"In the real world, most people are at will employees. If a legislator introduced a bill making it this difficult to fire an employee at a car wash, a lawn care service or a burger stand, the business community would rightly be outraged in that quality of lawn care, car washes or fast food would get worse and the cost would go up," he says in a statement.
"Nevertheless, we continue with a system in which education is thought to be less important than say, car washes or lawn care. A system in which the ‘rights' of employees are considered more important than the ‘rights' of students is scandalous."
The bill would likely pass the GOP-controlled Assembly, but the Democrat-controlled Senate isn't going to look on this with too much praise.
Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, coming up for air from his many tasks in corporate boardrooms, endorsed John McCain this week.
Get Ready for Prosperity: Conservative glad-handing and mantra chanting will be the theme this weekend at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation's "Defending the Dream Summit" in Waukesha County.
"In Wisconsin, the voices of taxpayers are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests. The result: policies that are threatening to destroy the American Dream -- higher taxes, government-run health care, out-of-control government spending, job-killing regulations, and endless red-tape," reads the invite. Pretty standard GOP fare.
But the funny thing is that the speakers' list seems pretty standard Republican fare, as well, including: Congressmen Paul Ryan and Jim Sensenbrenner; WISN talker Vicki McKenna; state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen; Supreme Court candidate Mike Gableman; Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker; Waukesha County Exec Dan Vrakas and Milwaukee's Republican-Democrat Sheriff David Clarke.
The group sounds quite Reaganesque in its platform and in fact has a massive headshot of Ronald Reagan as the banner on its Web site. On its national agenda:
- A Taxpayer's Bill of Rights to protect the economic interests of citizens by making it harder to raise taxes and waste scarce tax dollars on frivolous programs.
- Cutting taxes and government spending in order to halt the encroachment of government in the economic lives of citizens by fighting proposed tax increases and pointing out evidence of waste, fraud and abuse.
- Tax and spend limitations to promote fiscal responsibility.
- Removing unnecessary barriers to entrepreneurship and opportunity by sparking citizen involvement in the regulatory process early on in order to reduce red tape.
- Restoring fairness to our judicial system by stemming the tide toward "over-criminalization" of economic activity spurred by over-active attorneys general.
- Working with well-known businessman and free-market advocate Herman Cain to expand all of these projects to even more states across the country in their recently-launched "State Prosperity Expansion Project." Cain is a talk-show host who was formerly the CEO of Godfather's Pizza.
The event is scheduled for all day Saturday at the Country Springs hotel. For more information, visit www.DefendingtheDream.org/WI.
An avid outdoors person he regularly takes extended paddling trips in the wilderness, preferring the hinterlands of northern Canada and Alaska. After a bet with a bunch of sailors, he paddled across Lake Michigan in a canoe.
He lives in Bay View.
