Thursday, April 10, 2014

Milwaukee County Might Have Second Chance at Move To Amend


On Thursday, a resolution was introduced by Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan that would put the Move to Amend referendum on the November ballot.  The resolution passed through committee today and will appear before the entire County Board on April 24th.

This is not the first go around for the Move to Amend referendum in Milwaukee County.

In 2012, Weishan introduced the same bill and the board passed it with veto-proof numbers. They also allocated $25,000 to pay for the cost.

But Chris Abele, the Mitt Romney of Milwaukee County, who compared voting to a Facebook poll, did not believe that the people of Milwaukee County should have their voice heard.  First, he tried to illegally extort the cost of the referendum from  people from the Move to Amend movement:
To make matters worse, Abele told the MTA folks that if they paid for the cost, he would sign it.  He originally said it would cost them $19,000 but then put down the wrong date, which would have been too late.  Since then, Abele has corrected the date but has also more than doubled the price on his signature to $39,000.

The irony and absurdity of this is almost too much to comprehend.  Abele is wanting these private citizens to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have him sign a resolution for a referendum arguing that money doesn't belong in politics.
Abele then sat on the resolution long enough that it was too late for it to be put on the ballot in that year by the time he did veto it.

The past two years have shown us why Abele did what he did. He's made it painfully obvious that he doesn't think that the people are good enough to make their own decisions and that we should be thank plutocrats like him to tell us what to do and what to think.  He also opposes it because then he wouldn't be able to buy elections, as he's trying to do in the AD 19 race.

Abele honestly thinks that because he is very wealthy - even though he came to his money by the fluke of birth - he is better than any of us peons.

It should be noted that the Move to Amend referendum was voted on in 13 Wisconsin communities on April 1 and passed in each one by resounding numbers:
  • Belleville 85%
  • Wauakee 79%
  • DeForest 70%
  • Windsor 71%
  • Lake Mills 73%
  • Shorewood 76%
  • Whitefish Bay 65%
  • Elkhorn 69%
  • Delavan (Walker's "hometown") 76%
  • Waterloo 61%
  • Edgerton 87%
  • Wauwatosa 64%
  • Waukesha 69%
In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the Move to Amend referendum has not failed anywhere in the nation that it's been put on a ballot.

Call your Milwaukee County Board supervisor at 414-278-4222 and tell them to vote for the Move to Amend resolution.

1 comment:

  1. To see all those voting results--a vote not made to be partisan, but just from a better public policy view--gives you reason to be happy and reassured that voters are not ignorant. Whether Republican vs. Democrat or Conservative vs. Liberal, the votes strongly sided for good policy.
    Whatever your political persuasion, people still seem to appreciate democracy. This is something for the common good. It lets people feel that their voice just may count as much as some special interest who happens to have a lot of money.

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