Most legislators send newsletters, at taxpayers’ expense, to constituents. Although I know that some residents don’t have computer access, it’s still a lot of paper, sent to a lot of homes. Many of these so-named newsletters are no more than thinly-disguised campaign flyers. Republicans, Democrats, the few independents who might be in a state legislature somewhere: they all send these newsletters. We’d be better off if they did so at their own expense.
Embedded below is a newsletter that Rep. Evan Wynn sent to constituents after the 2011 legislative session. In format and style, it’s representative of many others. I’ll off a few remarks, after the embed.
What’s Inside? Four photos of Rep. Wynn, an introductory letter, three selected initiatives inside the newsletter (concealed carry, the biennial budget, road repair), contact information, and a summary of other proposals on the back cover.
What’s Not Here? I saved this newsletter after I received it (as I am a resident of the 43rd), because it struck me as so very odd for what it didn’t include. If you were a Wisconsin resident in 2011, you didn’t just hear about an effort to balance the budget: you heard, and debated, over the means by which Gov. Walker intended – and did – balance the budget. He and the Republicans who supported him balanced the budget – by Gov. Walker’s on account – by changes to longstanding collective bargaining laws, affecting public-sector employees in state and local government.
They might have done it other ways; they did it one way.
All America watched the debate in Wisconsin over Walker’s effort (Act 10), the protests of thousands it spawned, the recall of a few legislators it sparked, and the successful defeat of a recall of Gov. Walker, himself.
(Readers know that I am a libertarian, and not a supporter of Gov. Walker. Nonetheless, Gov. Walker wasn’t merely successful in overcoming the recall, he did so by a greater margin in 2011 than the one by which he was elected governor in 2010.)
For Walker, it wasn’t merely the ends, but also the means, by which he balanced the budget that mattered.
Why wouldn’t Rep. Wynn proudly tout a record that expressly described the means that our governor and Rep. Wynn’s own party believed were essential to their goals? Why omit from mention the very actions of which Gov. Walker and other straightforward Republicans are so very proud?
I believe that Gov. Walker should have run on the changes he later proposed after he was elected. He deserves credit, however, for being direct and unwavering in support of those proposals once he offered them – he was willing to run on those sweeping reductions to collective bargaining rights in the June 2012 recall.
Why wasn’t Wynn as direct and clear in his newsletter? To write about the Wisconsin budget while omitting mention of historic reductions in collective bargaining rights was hardly a stand-up effort.
The Other, Odd Omission. Rep. Wynn lives in Whitewater, a multi-ethnic city, with an increasingly diverse population. How very odd, then, that among his list of ‘Legislative Proposals, Initiatives, and Ongoing Work,’ he omits mention of his co-sponsorship of Assembly Bill 173, a bill that would have brought Arizona-like immigration restrictions to Wisconsin, of all places.
The bill failed to pass only in March of this year. He introduced it as co-sponsor on 6.8.2011.
What possible credibility is their for a legislator to say that he’s fighting for people if, in fact, the legislator conceals the very things for which he’s fighting as a sponsor?
That’s not direct and forthright representation for Whitewater.
Tomorrow: The Collective Bargaining Changes of Act 10.