The Underground Stock Report

I always look forward to the WisPolitics weekly stock report. Since the good folks at WisPolitics took last week off, I decided to offer my own version.

Plummeting

Governor Jim Doyle --- It was a very bad week for Wisconsin’s Chief Executive. The Wall Street Journal Editorial page took him to task for his policies on school choice and product liability reform. Policies that clash with the business community he’s worked so hard to court.

To add insult to injury, on the morning of his State of the State address, CEO’s from 24 of Milwaukee’s largest businesses signed a full page ad telling the Governor to lift the cap on the school choice program.

Tuesday’s State of the State address --- “the affordability agenda”--- was a total non-starter. With a state budget deficit of over $2 billion, Doyle’s new spending initiatives hardly excite the masses. Pundits regarded it as a “base building” speech and that means the incumbent Governor is in big trouble.

Finally, the Sunday state editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal ran front page coverage of the grand jury investigation into the Adelman Travel contract.

Standing Tall

The Milwaukee Business Community --- The Wisconsin business community is often synonymous with the incumbent party. But this week, Milwaukee business leaders demonstrated a much greater concern for the future of the Milwaukee Parental School Choice Program than the potential for retaliation by Governor Jim Doyle.

Through a series of radio and newspaper ads, Milwaukee business leaders and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce (MMAC) took bold action to defend the right of Milwaukee’s low income families to opt out of Milwaukee’s failing public schools.

Telling it on the Mountain

Milwaukee talk show host Charlie Sykes, Mikel Holt, Editor and Associate Publisher of the Milwaukee Community Journal, and the students from Messmer High School --- The somewhat unusual bedfellows collaborated to create and produce an award winning radio spot which appropriately portrays access to Milwaukee’s school choice program as matter of civil rights. The student population in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is 82% minority, and the graduation rate is just 36%.

Orbiting Pluto

State Senate Majority Leader Dale Schultz --- The Senator’s proposal to allow University of Wisconsin professors to unionize has everyone I talked to completely baffled and elicited responses from Capital insiders like, “You gotta be kidding me!” and “What was up with that?”

Leaving Skid Marks

Jury in the Milwaukee Tire Slashing Case --- The jury acquitted one defendant and deadlocked on the remaining four, leading to a plea of no contest and a slap on the wrist.

The message: Next time the RPW should hire armed guards to protect vehicles intended to take voters to the polls on election-day.

Hoisted on their own Petard

The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) --- For three years, WEAC bosses have kept Governor Doyle from supporting efforts to avoid a crisis in the Milwaukee School Choice program. Citing internal polling, they convinced the first term Governor that opposing school choice would not hurt him politically.

Now that the crisis is both immediate and real, Doyle will either have to lift the cap or face continued pressure in the form of television, radio and newspaper advertising. Increased publicity about the school choice crisis will raise statewide awareness of the program’s cost effectiveness in contrast to the deplorable job that MPS does at a cost of over $12,000 per student.

It won’t take long for districts outside Milwaukee to understand that increased aid to MPS means less money for them. Remember the old saying, “millions for Milwaukee, and pennies for Polk?”

Laughing All the Way to the Bank

Wisconsin Trial Lawyers ---The failed attempt by Assembly Republicans to override the Governor's veto of medical liability reform legislation should keep these shysters fat and happy for awhile.