Today, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced the appointment of their new chancellor, Carolyn “Biddy” Martin. Martin is no stranger to UW-Madison, having completed her Ph.D. in German Literature there in 1985. At Cornell University, she moved up to the position of Provost, serving on several committees for the Institute of German Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies and Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Studies. According to her online biography at Cornell, her publications include Woman and Modernity: The (Life) Styles of Lou Andreas-Salome (1991) and Femininity Played Straight (1996).

(The fact that Martin is openly gay isn’t in any way notable, other than the fact that it contradicts the UW’s recent talking point that all their bright gay talent is fleeing the university because of their lack of domestic partner benefits. That’s assuming, of course, that the paper just didn’t mean she has a sunny disposition.)

Rather than predict what Martin’s chancellorship will look like, it is instructive to look back at the tenure of the outgoing chancellor, John Wiley. During the Wiley years, the UW-Madison became a punching bag for the Wisconsin Legislature. When conservatives looked at the state’s flagship university, they saw scandal, fraud, and fiscal mismanagement. And they didn’t get much disagreement from liberals. Yet when one digs deeper into the Wiley legacy, there were plenty of things for right-wingers to like. And with the installation of the new chancellor, conservatives may gain a new appreciation for how good they have had it for the last seven years.

For one, Wiley was a staunch defender of free speech on campus. In 2005, a furor erupted in the UW System when the UW-Stout moved to kick the ROTC off their campus. Liberals at Stout argued the armed forces had no place on their campus, due in large part to the military’s policy on gays and lesbians. In Madison, Wiley stood up to the anti-war faction and defended the ROTC’s right to do business on campus. Wiley took the stage at several contentious student-led meetings where he refused to back down. In fact, some anti-war campus groups ended up accusing Wiley of working in cooperation with the U.S. Defense Department to spy on their activities.

In some cases, Wiley actively supported conservatives and Republicans on campus. In 2007, the UW-Madison College Republicans hosted a speech by conservative commentator David Horowitz on campus. Rather than requiring the College Republicans to pay the extra $1,300 security fee, Wiley paid for it with student fees, while anti-war groups virulently protested his decision. Recently, Wiley discontinued off-campus student funding for left-wing groups like Sex Out Loud and the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG), citing their lack of relevance to actual student issues.

Wiley also refused to sign the “Presidents Climate Commitment,” which commits university presidents to reducing greenhouse gases on campus. “I believe it is ill-advised to sign a pledge in which the goals are poorly defined and where the cost to taxpayers is unknown,” he said.

Every legislative session, there’s an effort to allow UW faculty and academic staff to unionize. In each of these attempts, Wiley has listened to his own faculty and refused to support an effort to allow collective bargaining by faculty. New chancellor finalists Tim Mulcahy and Rebecca Blank both stated publicly that they opposed such faculty unionization, and neither of them got the job. (Mulcahy pulled his name out of the running, most likely after he found out he didn’t get the job. In related news, I am pulling my name out of the running to replace Ned Yost as manager of the Brewers.)

Perhaps most impressively, Wiley raised billions of dollars in private money to expand the UW-Madison through its endowment fund. If someone promised the Legislature that they could raise a billion dollars in non-taxpayer money to improve the performance of any other state department, Republicans would jump at the chance. Yet Wiley’s accomplishments in private fundraising are often overlooked in favor of more negative stories about the UW.

Despite Wiley’s conservative achievements, there was also plenty of fodder for those looking for more accountability from the UW-Madison. In one incident, a vice chancellor for student affairs allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a graduate student, then was allowed to stay on the payroll at a salary of $73,000 per year while under suspension. The UW system was criticized for giving its administrators “backup jobs” in the event they had to leave their current position. It came to light that the UW gave their chancellors a $700 per month automobile stipend, and an audit of the system showed that nearly 25 percent of the positions within the UW were administrative in nature. Several high-dollar computer projects went belly-up. In all, it was not a good run for the UW.

Yet in many of these cases, the troublesome problems were the results of system-wide policies, not necessarily of the UW-Madison. And in some respects, these are problems one expects to find in any business with a $4 billion budget and over 70,000 employees. But because the UW reports to taxpayers, these problems within the system tend to be highly publicized and quite embarrassing to the UW bureaucracy (often times, for good reason.) Additionally, there’s no escaping the fact that the UW-Madison is a hegemonic liberal institution. Asking the UW to be “more conservative” is like asking a baboon to play the harmonica.

This doesn’t excuse many of the UW’s gaffes. And there certainly will be more to come – at no time in our state’s history has the UW missed an opportunity to be an irritant to the Legislature. But it would be a shame to judge Wiley’s tenure by these bureaucratic screw-ups alone. There were many instances where Wiley reached across the aisle and did the right thing to achieve an ideological balance. And letting him slip off into retirement without acknowledging these positive actions would be unfairly maligning his legacy.

As for Chancellor-to-be Martin, it is impossible to tell what her administration will look like in the future. Perhaps the Cornell Women’s Studies Department is churning out some of our great modern female conservative minds. More likely, her personally ideological views may have nothing to do with how she serves as an administrator. But if she makes the same effort as John Wiley to stand up for viewpoint diversity on campus, she’d be off to a good start. And if she can even approach the amount of private sector money Wiley raised, even better.

Earlier in May, I took a trip to Seattle for a health care conference sponsored by the Washington Policy Center.  I gave a speech to the conference on the proposed Healthy Wisconsin Plan, and the WPC has now put the video online.

You can view it here.  (Warning – the file size is pretty big – 113 MB)

In case you were under the impression that Congress isn’t hard at work, a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report demonstrates otherwise. According to the new GAO study conducted at the request of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), condom manufacturers have been inadequately labeling their products, giving people a false sense of security when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases. You know, for all those people that read the condom boxes when they’re conspicuously buried under a pile of gum, soda, and shoe polish up at the cash register.

So sayeth your federal government:

FDA reviewed studies on the relationship between use of male latex condoms and STDs and determined that existing condom labeling did not provide complete information about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing the transmission of certain STDs.

[...]

Among other things, FDA noted that condoms provide less protection against HPV, which can have multiple routes of transmission, than against certain other STDs. However, FDA found that condoms, when used correctly and consistently, can be effective in reducing the risk of transmission. Based on its review, FDA found limitations in existing condom labeling and identified several areas in which improved labeling would help provide reasonable assurance of condoms’ safety and effectiveness.

What the report fails to point out, however, is that condoms can lead to a greatly increased likelihood of your friends hi-fiving you. Seriously – who out there believes that sexual contact of any kind, condoms or not, doesn’t contain some risk of STD transmittal? If there are people that believe that, they are likely to be the same people that don’t use condoms because they might get an STD by using one.

I can save the federal government the millions of dollars it likely cost to conduct this nine month study. Here’s my suggested alternative warning label:

“WARNING: MAY LEAD TO TEMPORARY AWESOMENESS, FOLLOWED BY DEEP, LASTING REGRET AND UNWANTED PHONE CALLS”

Today, long time State Senator Roger Breske announced he was retiring from the State Legislature to take over as Wisconsin Commissioner of Railroads. Breske, who had served in the Legislature for 18 years, was a quintessential Northern Wisconsin Democrat. While he was a consistent vote for Democratic efforts to raise taxes, he was fiercely protective of his constitutents’ rights to property and gun ownership. He has been praised on this very blog for his plain-spoken opposition to a statewide smoking ban. He was also pro-life and conservative on a variety other social issues.

Yet despite his steadfast adherance to personal conviction, Breske’s legacy will be tainted by a single vote, taken on March 4th of 2003.

If there’s any group that Breske calls his own, it is tavern owners. The Senator is a legend in the taverns of the 12th Senate District – it’s the one place where everyone knows his name, and he claims to have grown up in a bar. It is this support for bar owners that forged his virulent opposition to the smoking ban.

One thing that threatens small family-owned bars in Northern Wisconsin is the competition wrought by Indian casinos. When casinos grow in the north woods, it drains money out of taverns, as people often choose to spend their money gambling.

In 2003, Governor Jim Doyle unilaterally negotiated several gaming compacts that allowed greatly expanded gambling in perpetuity. The compacts could never be revisited, unless the Indian tribes agreed to do so. In exchange, the state treasury got a slightly higher cut of the casino revenues.

Naturally, such an arrangement would be a blow to northern tavern owners. When the Legislature considered a bill to add legislative oversight to approval of gaming compacts (a concept Doyle supported as Attorney General), Breske voted for it. After Doyle vetoed the bill, it headed back to the State Senate, where it appeared the votes were there to override Doyle’s veto.

Quickly, it became apparent that Breske might be the deciding vote on whether to override the governor’s veto. He anguished over his decision for days, hiding from his Senate colleagues. When he left his office, he was hounded by reporters wondering whether he was going to side with his most beloved constituent group – the tavern owners – or if he was going to switch his vote and side with Doyle.

When Breske finally announced he was inserting a knife into the back of his district tavern owners and siding with the Governor, rumors abound that he had struck some kind of deal with Doyle. Breske is, after all, 70 years old, and seemed to welcome the idea of a less stressful job within the Doyle administration. After his vote on the gaming compacts, some speculated it was only a matter of time that he would take advantage of his deal with Doyle. And now that day may have arrived.

The 12th Senate District is a Republican district that Democrats were able to hold because of Breske’s personal popularity. With Roger gone, it could be a GOP pickup in the fall. Unfortunately, despite his hard work on behalf of his constituents, it will always appear that he was willing to sell them out for political gain.

UPDATE:  Here’s a March 4, 2003 account of Breske’s travails, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (sorry, no link:)

Senate Republicans were counting on Sen. Roger Breske (D-Eland), in particular, to join them in voting to override the veto. Breske, former president of the Wisconsin Tavern League, had said earlier Monday that he would vote to override Doyle and seek legislation to legalize video poker in taverns.

[...]

But when Breske changed his mind late in the day, the Senate abruptly adjourned on a party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer (R-West Bend) explained the delay by saying GOP senators had concerns they wanted Doyle to address before they voted. But Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said it was clear that Republicans called off the vote because they lacked the necessary two-thirds majority to override.

[...]

Breske had told a number of tribal members early Monday that he would vote to override the veto. When asked later why he changed his mind, Breske said he tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a deal between Doyle and the Tavern League that would avoid giving Doyle the political embarrassment of a veto override. Although the league ultimately rejected the agreement, the fact that Doyle was willing to compromise on some issues prompted Breske to reverse his position.

Breske said Doyle had agreed not to object to having tougher drunken driving language removed from his budget bill. To avoid losing federal aid, Doyle proposed that the state lower the blood-alcohol level from 0.10 to 0.08 for evi-dence of drunken driving.

“We worked all day, trying to cut a deal,” Breske said. “I thought it was workable, and they (the Tavern League) should have accepted it, but they didn’t.”

During my recent trip to Seattle, one of the pressing local issues in the news dealt with the city council’s recent decision to eliminate public toilets in the downtown area.  As could be predicted, the public toilets have become havens for drug use, crime, and prostitution.  And as I quickly found out, downtown Seattle is replete with people willing to take advantage of the opportunity.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the toilets have cost taxpayers about $4.3 million since they were installed in 2004. The money came from a tax on wastewater rates that cost the average single family household about $2.59 per year on an annual sewer bill of $465.

It should surprise no one that these bathrooms would be mistreated in this way.  In fact, it was completely predictable.  As they say, “no one washes a rental car.”  Sure, the intent was good – people do need to use the bathroom while downtown.  But you slap the word “public” on anything, and it’s going to be ruined by people looking to take advantage of the taxpayers.

Had the city given the $4.3 million to a private company to build and maintain their own toilets, with whatever security rules they wished, you would probably still be able to go to the bathroom in downtown Seattle.  As it is, you better hit the fish market prepared to hold it.

It appears WisconsinEye has posted the video of my debate with Senator Jon Erpenbach,  Senator Mike Ellis and Gail Shea regarding campaign finance reform.  Prepare to be scintillated as the audience skewers me.

Part One

Part Two

In my previous post about Wisconsin’s drunk driving laws, I referred to Wisconsin’s lenient statute with regard to DUI penalties. While the NCSL chart listed all drunk driving offenses in Wisconsin as civil violations, this isn’t entirely accurate. Just to be clear, here is the actual criminal penalty statute for drunk driving in Wisconsin:

346.65 Penalty for violating sections 346.62 to 346.64 (Wisconsin’s Drunk Driving Statute)

346.65 (2)(am)
(am) Any person violating s. 346.63 (1) The drunk driving law)

346.65
346.65 (2)(am)5. (Fifth Conviction and Beyond)
5. Except as provided in pars. (f) and (g), is guilty of a Class H felony and shall be fined not less than $600 and imprisoned for not less than 6 months if the number of convictions under ss. 940.09 (1) and 940.25 in the person’s lifetime, plus the total number of suspensions, revocations and other convictions counted under s. 343.307 (1), equals 5 or more, except that suspensions, revocations or convictions arising out of the same incident or occurrence shall be counted as one.

346.65(2)(f) (If a Minor Is In the Car)
(f) If there was a minor passenger under 16 years of age in the motor vehicle at the time of the violation that gave rise to the conviction under s. 346.63 (1), the applicable minimum and maximum forfeitures, fines, or imprisonment under par. (am) for the conviction are doubled. An offense under s. 346.63 (1) that subjects a person to a penalty under par. (am) 3., 4., or 5. when there is a minor passenger under 16 years of age in the motor vehicle is a felony and the place of imprisonment shall be determined under s. 973.02

.

Lawmakers in Wisconsin now appear serious about getting tough on drunk driving in Wisconsin, following the death of 39 year-old Jennifer Bukosky, her unborn child and 10-year old daughter at the hands of three-time convicted drunk driver Mark Benson. Even Governor Jim Doyle has proposed making a third drunk driving offense a felony. Other lawmakers have proposed confiscating offenders’ cars after a third offense, as well as sending drunk drivers directly to prison (Benson killed Bukosky and her children during a period before he was supposed to report to jail after his third conviction.)

When crafting a tougher new law, the sensible thing for legislators to do is to see what other states have done to crack down on drunk driving. The National Conference of State Legislatures has provided a chart that details every state’s criminal drunk driving statute. When you look over the list, Wisconsin stands out in how light we are on drunk driving offenders. In the overwhelming majority of states, first non-accident offenses are at least a misdemeanor (although, admittedly, “misdemeanor” means different things in different states.) Exceptions from first-time misdemeanors include New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, and New Hampshire – although subsequent offenses usually ratchet up the penalties in those states.

Generally, it is the third, fourth, and fifth offense (usually within a period of a few years) that moves the offense up to a felony in most states. Yet in Wisconsin, the first non-injury offense is a civil conviction. Injury-related DUI offenses constitute either a Class D or Class F felony. Second through fourth offenses are criminal misdemeanors that carry time in the county jail, with a fifth offense moving up to the felony level. (And, as we hear about at least once a year in Wisconsin, if you lose your license, you can always drive your tractor to the liquor store.)

For a full list of Wisconsin’s criminal drunk driving penalties, click here.

(In addition to being a civil conviction, Wisconsin law is even lighter on drivers with blood alcohol content between .08 and .1. For a summary of the .08 law, click here.)

While higher criminal penalties are one way other states go after repeat drunk drivers, they aren’t necessarily the only option.

25 states have opted for mandatory ignition interlock systems for some drunk drivers. Wisconsin is one of 20 states that allows ignition interlock devices to be installed “at judicial discretion,” which is weaker than some states that make the interlock devices mandatory in some or all cases. Several studies show drunk driving recidivism rates drop between 50 and 95 percent when ignition interlock devices are utilized. While some fear that these devices are too easy to circumvent (such as by having someone else blow into the tube for them), newer technology is arriving that makes that more difficult. For instance, some new devices include breath pulse codes, hum-tone recognition, and “blow-and-suck patterns.”

From the NCSL report on ignition interlock systems:

Four states have taken the lead on ignition interlocks by making them mandatory for all convicted drunk drivers, even first-time offenders. New Mexico was the first state, with a law passed in 2005, to require ignition interlocks for all offenders. The state has seen a 28 percent decline in alcohol-related fatalities since the new law went into effect.

Since then, three more states-Arizona, Illinois and Louisiana-have passed similar laws that mandate an ignition interlock for every convicted drunk driver. Oregon and Washington require ignition interlocks for all offenders who want to have their driving privileges reinstated. Colorado, Kansas and New Hampshire make them mandatory for repeat offenders and those convicted of so-called “high BAC” offenses. Sixteen states require them in some circumstances, while 20 states and the District of Columbia allow interlocks at the discretion of the courts.

Five states at some point have employed either special license plates for drunk drivers, or required a sticker be affixed to their license plate. The effectiveness of these programs seems to be mixed, as Oregon let their pilot program lapse without reauthorizing it, and Iowa repealed the law altogether. According to NCSL, five states considered new license plate laws in their 2008 sessions.

27 states have passed laws creating enhanced penalties for driving drunk with children in the car. (In 2003, one Louisiana woman was found passed out in her car with five children, ages 4 to 9, in the car with her.) 16 states have increased the penalties for refusing chemical blood alcohol tests.

A new Wisconsin law could employ any number of these strategies. But it must be done right, and it has to pass the common sense test to which it will undoubtedly be subjected to by the public.

Quite often, well-intentioned legislation goes bad. Such a case exists in Massachusetts, where a well-meaning law meant to broaden the standard for rape has now turned into a national punchline.

Under the new legislation, it would be a felony to have sex with someone under false pretenses. In other words, you could go to jail for lying to someone in order to get them to have sex with you.

The bill states:

Whoever has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with a person having obtained that person’s consent by the use of fraud, concealment or artifice, and who thereby intentionally deceived such person so that a reasonable person would not have consented but for the deception, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or any term of years. As used in this statute, ‘fraud’ or ‘artifice’ shall not be construed to mean a promise of future consideration.

The bill was meant to correct legitimate instances of deception such as the time a sleepy Massachusetts woman had sex with her boyfriend’s brother, thinking it was actually her boyfriend. In another case, a medical technician pretending to be a doctor conducted a full pelvic exam on a woman after telling her he was licensed to give the exam. (Perhaps the fact that the “doctor” was eating a ham sandwich during the exam might have been a tip-off.)

But think about how broad this language actually is. Lying for sex? Is there really any other way? If women really knew what we were like, there’d be no chance any male would get any action. Every guy has some bogus story about what a good job we have, how we spent time on a Greenpeace boat, how this is our real hair, or some such nonsense. Every man pads the resume a little, hoping to cash in before reality sets in. (Although saying the words “I’m a blogger” might be the most effective birth control known to man.)

Even if there’s not overt lying going on, there are implied lies. Suppose your girlfriend cheats on you with Roger Clemens. And suppose, had you known about the affair, you never would have slept with her again. But she doesn’t tell you about the affair, and you continue to have your monthly sexual encounter. Your girlfriend could actually be guilty of rape, since she concealed information that would have kept you from having sex with her.

The list goes on. Tell a girl you will always love her? Get an orange jumpsuit. Cougar looking to score a younger guy at the bar tonight? Better be honest about your age, or you’ll be making license plates soon, sweetie. Telling a man he’s a great lover to keep the love train going? (Never a problem in my case, incidentally.) Get ready for the big house.  Tell a girl you work with she looks like Pam from “The Office?”  Well, no worries there, since she’ll probably opt not to talk to you ever again.

(As long as we’re handing out sentences, the words “I can’t wait to see the ‘Sex and the City Movie’ out of any guy’s mouth should be punishable by death.)

In 1975, a man named Marty Evans was sued by a woman claiming he lied to get her in the sack, and it went all the way to the New York Supreme Court. In his decision in People v. Evans, Justice Edward Greenfield said:

“So bachelors, and other men on the make, fear not. It is still not illegal to feed a girl a line, to continue the attempt [to obtain sex], not to take no for a final answer, at least not the first time. . . . [A] male [will] make promises that will not be kept, . . . indulge in exaggeration and hyperbole, or to assure any trusting female that, as in the ancient fairy tale, the ugly frog is really the handsome prince.Every man is free under the law, to be a gentleman or a cad.”

Of course, should this bill actually become law, there are fiscal implications, as well. For instance, it might be expensive to turn the State of Montana into a prison big enough to house the entire male population of the United States.  Then again, the entire human race may be eradicated within a decade due to the end of procreation.

(Via the Volokh Conspiracy.)

The Wisconsin State Journal reports Sunday on Marshall Middle School in Janesville, which has taken a portion of their classes and separated the students out by sex.  According to the article, Marshall is one of six public schools in Wisconsin that have begun to sort students by gender.

While same-sex classes aren’t necessarily a new idea (in the old days, “same sex” education meant “girls don’t get to learn to read”), this would indicate that more and more schools are actually getting serious about their students’ education.  While same sex education might not be a panacea (studies on the efficacy of such programs in Wisconsin haven’t been completed), enough anecdotal evidence exists to make the program worth continuing.  From the article:

Jennifer Williams is one of the eighth-grade teachers whose interest in single-gender classes sparked the experiment at Marshall. She ‘s pleased by the changes she sees in classes and said bluntly, “I wouldn ‘t go back to coed. ”

William ‘s (sic) last-period science class is 28 girls who were also not shy about offering their take on being on the single-gender team. The majority of their comments were positive, especially when it came to academics.

“If you ‘re in a boys and girls class if you want to say an answer, they might make fun of you, ” said Evita Deupree.

“I think it ‘s easier to work because you aren ‘t distracted, ” added Chelsie Hardenstine. “I pay more attention than I did last year. “

Naturally, among the boys, opinions are mixed:

“They ‘ll make fun of me for being in here or call it the gay team, ‘ ” said Tyler Kraus. But he liked that class “is more laid back, you can express yourself ” and guessed it ‘s “probably helped my grades a little. ” Vaughn Garza agreed that “it is more academic because when you have girls around you tend to show off. ” But Thomas Murphy preferred a co-ed class, saying it hadn ‘t helped him: “I like the other way better.”

Somewhere, noted “girl enthusiast” Thomas Murphy’s parents are cringing.  Note to the Murphys – it’s time to have “the talk” about where babies come from with little Thomas.

Of course, single sex classes are opposed by the ACLU, who view such arrangements as tantamount to “separate but equal” segregation-era classrooms.  From an AP article in 2007:

“Too many schools feel they can carry out a social experiment with students’ education with really the flimsiest of theories,” said Emily Martin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project.

Single-sex schools are an “illusionary silver bullet,” said Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations for the American Association of University Women. They distract from real problems and do not offer proven solutions such as lower class sizes and sufficient funding, she said.

In November of 2006, the U.S. Department of Education made a change to allow such classes to exist:

Previously, single-sex classes had been allowed in only limited cases, such as gym classes and sex education classes. But the new rules allow same-sex education any time schools think it will improve achievement, expand the diversity of courses or meet students’ individual needs.  Enrollment must be voluntary and any children excluded from the class must get a “substantially equal” coed class in the same subject, if not a separate single-sex class.

Furthermore, in 2005, State Representative Scott Jensen introduced a bill allowing single-sex public and charter schools in Wisconsin.  The bill was signed into law by Governor Doyle in April of 2006.

As a result, look for more public schools in Wisconsin to make the move toward single gender classrooms – something private school parents have know benefited their children for decades.