Don't Let The Fox In The Treasurer's Office

By Jeff Simpson

In the 2018 primary, one of the major positions we are voting for is State Treasurer.

If you recall,  the Fitzwalkerstan crew tried to get rid of the Treasurers office and even put it on the ballot.   The people of Wisconsin soundly said they wanted to keep the office.

Now it is time to put it in competent, adult hands.

While I believe that Dawn Marie Sass is the person that needs to be put back in that position, I am just as certain that Sarah Godlewski is not the one.

Godlewski, just moved back to Eau Claire, WI, where her and her husband Maxim Duckworth started a company together - MaSa Partners. 

MaSa Partners is a boutique social impact venture that invests in early-stage companies seeking to shape a better future.

The happy couple moved here from DC, where Maxim was kindly shown the door(along with the last remaining Fortune 500 Company in Baltimore) from the city where Maxim was the managing director of portfolio management and trading for Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group.   

Well he used to be until the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee had other ideas. 

In case you think you may have heard of Constellation before it is because they agreed to the largest settlement in history - $245 Million dollars. 

The $245 million settlement that Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group agreed to pay is the largest of its kind to resolve allegations of market manipulation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Details of the settlement emerged Monday, the same day Chicago-based Exelon Corp. closed on its $7.9 billion takeover of Constellation. The sale creating the largest non-utility energy provider in the United States ushers Baltimore's last Fortune 500 company out of town. The New York Stock Exchange will de-list Constellation shares Tuesday.
Federal energy regulators approved both the sale and the settlement late Friday.
The settlement between Constellation and FERC resolves allegations that the company intended to manipulate New York wholesale energy markets by making trades to influence certain energy prices from September 2007 to December 2008. Those transactions, in turn, benefited other holdings in the company's energy-trade portfolio, FERC alleged.
While Constellation disagreed with FERC's findings and admitted no wrongdoing, the company said it was in its best interest to settle and move ahead with the merger.
Standard & Poor's described the settlement Monday as a "record-setting fine."

What does this have to do with Max and Sarah?

Under the settlement, each of the four employees may not hold any position involving physical and financial energy trading at Constellation, a successor company or affiliate. The men are Michael Pavo and Jason Hughes, who were traders; their supervisor, Joseph Kirkpatrick; and Maxim Duckworth, the trading group's managing director of portfolio management and trading.

Pavo, Hughes and Duckworth remain with the company, while Kirkpatrick left on his own, Constellation said.

They manipulated the New York energy market, causing untold problems on thousands and thousands of people, pay a quick $243 million fine and walk away with your money and pensions intact!

They brought their millions back to WI so they could then buy a State Treasurers seat. 

Do we trust someone who, knowing the damage he caused, would then go into business with someone who was banned by the Government from doing his job ever again, now wants to be the Treasurer of Wisconsin?

I sure do not! 

Blue Wave Sweeps Through Wisconsin Again.

Earlier in the year, Wisconsin got its first taste of the Blue Wave 2018 when there was a special election that ended in a special upset. Patty Schachtner, a Democrat, won a seat held by Republicans for nearly two decades. Not only did she win it, she caused a 30+ point turnaround.

Tuesday was the spring election day for Wisconsin and the Blue Wave came back - only bigger, better and stronger.

The big race was when moderate Rebecca Dallet easily beat the right wing nut job Michael Screnock to win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court:

Rebecca Dallet trounced Michael Screnock on Tuesday for a seat on the state Supreme Court, shrinking the court's conservative majority and giving Democrats a jolt of energy heading into the fall election.

It marked the first time in 23 years that a liberal candidate who wasn't an incumbent won a seat on the high court.

“I attribute it to Wisconsin voters standing up to special interests," said Dallet, a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge. "I think they're ready to have fair and independent courts.

"I’m the candidate with the most experience, really standing up for the rights of Wisconsinites every day and I think people saw that and spoke out today and I’m quite excited by it, by the results.”

Screnock and the Republicans are back on their heels by this win. Screnock did everything by the GOP playbook. He pledged fealty to the NRA. As a young man, he was arrested for causing a scene outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic. He took massive amounts of money from the dark money special interest groups.

Yet he got slaughtered at the polls.

And that wasn't all, folks! There's more. There's always more.

The Republicans' decades long goal of eliminating the office of the state treasurer went down even harder. After two years of using their stranglehold on the state legislature to start the process of changing the constitution, it was finally up for referendum. It lost by more than 20 points:

It turns out Wisconsinites want to have a state treasurer, after all.

By a strong margin, voters Tuesday beat back a constitutional amendment and kept Wisconsin's 170-year-old treasurer's office.

"I'm flabbergasted that the results are as high as they are," said former GOP Treasurer Jack Voight, who led a coalition to keep the office. "I thought it would be a much closer vote than this."

With little spending on either side of the referendum and no known polling, it wasn't clear until Tuesday which side would prevail in the contest that culminated a years-long effort to abolish the office. Some voters may have been surprised just to find the question on their ballots.

"No governor, no politician or political party should be above our state constitution," Voight said.

I can't wait until November for the third visit from the Blue Wave. Scott Walker and Lyin' Paul Ryan better start packing their bags now and avoid the Christmas rush.