Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Who Lobbied The Most For The Bucks Debacle?

The Milwaukee Business Journal has an interesting article reporting about who lobbied the most for the massive corporate welfare scheme for the Bucks arena:
Although the Milwaukee Bucks spent by far the most money of any organization on lobbying for arena funding in Madison, the city of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce all devoted more hours to lobbying on the issue.

The city of Milwaukee logged 876 hours of lobbying on behalf of winning legislative support for a $250 million arena public-funding package, according to a report released Aug. 21 by the Government Accountability Board. Milwaukee County lobbyists logged 271 hours and the Bucks devoted 208 hours lobbying the bill.

The MMAC recorded 277 hours to the general arena-funding issue and the specific Assembly bill, said Steve Baas, senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy.

Marquette University registered 93 hours of lobbying on the arena-funding legislation. Marquette’s men’s basketball team is expected to be a tenant in the new arena.

The figures are for the period ending June 30 and do not include lobbying in July when both the state Senate and the state Assembly approved the arena-funding bill. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed the bill into law Aug. 12.
The gentle reader could expect that MMAC and Marquette would lobby hard since they would only benefit from feeding at the trough of taxpayer money.

The huge number of man hours that Barrett devoted to the debacle is a little surprising, but he was probably looking at his election next year as well as trying to justify his streetcar.

Then there is Emperor Abele:
A spokesman for Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said working on the arena-funding issue "involved a complex and time-intensive process for county personnel." The county "produced many ideas for arena funding and conducted much of the analysis that was necessary to ultimately get a deal done," spokesman Nate Holton said.

"Although the final deal was far from perfect, the county executive is proud that the county’s commitment to getting a deal done ultimately resulted in Democrats and Republicans coming together to produce a monumental outcome that will provide a once-in-a-generation benefit to Milwaukee and the entire state," Holton said via email.
Keep in mind that the only reason Abele thinks that the deal is far from perfect is because he didn't get to stick it to Milwaukee - especially to the poor - as much as he wanted to.

My only question is this: Given that we know Mike Tate was in Madison a lot to lobby for this deal, which faction or factions was he working for?

2 comments:

  1. It's been our horrible experience of the WI Dem chair Mike Tate and his loser machine politics that makes me worried for US in the POTUS run and seeing how HRC waltzes around like the annointed. 1) I'd consider HRC but given CFR status etc rather see party really mix it up to create a populist platform 2) more in the vein of Bernie Sanders 3) There are other good strong candidates and it would STRENGTHEN the party and ultimately the Democratic Party nominee's run for POTUS.

    No good has come of having Mike Tate the party chair and I assume he's chair because he knows where the bodies are buried. It's certainly not finesse or competency and it bodes ill for the party as a whole.

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  2. > "... he's chair...."

    Should read: "... he was chair...."

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