Lori Compas is the Fort Atkinson woman who almost single-handedly led the grassroots petition drive to recall 17-year incumbent and Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.
The Decision to "Recall Fitz"
Compas started the "Committee to Recall Scott Fitzgerald" after growing frustrations with Fitzgerald's role as top lieutenant to Governor Scott Walker and due to his lack of concern for Wisconsin's middle class families.
"None of Walker's controversial policies would be in effect today if he didn't have a buddy in the legislature pushing it through," said Compas. With its ALEC Exposed project, CMD determined that Fitzgerald was the former state chair of ALEC and is a member of the ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which crafted the controversial Voter ID bill. As Senate Majority leader, Fitzgerald has played a key role in implementing the Walker agenda, including Wisconsin's version of Voter ID and dozens more from the ALEC playbook. Jeff Fitzgerald, his brother, is the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly.
January 20 marks the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Citizens United v. F.E.C., where a narrow majority of the Court asserted that the Constitution prevents Congress from limiting the amount of money that can be spent influencing our elections. A series of events are planned this week to mobilize opposition to the decision and to generate support for a constitutional amendment to reverse it.
So many signatures were delivered demanding the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and other state officials, that one scribe dubbed it the "greatest popular democracy movement in Wisconsin history." Over 30,000 volunteers collected over 1.9 million signatures and delivered them to the state's nonpartisan elections board on January 17.
Volunteers exceeded all expectations, delivering 1 million petitions for the recall of Scott Walker, an amount equivalent to 46 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial race. Never had so many, in the history of the United States, petitioned for the recall of a governor.
Hundreds of thousands surrounded the Wisconsin State Capitol building a year ago in response and protest of Governor Scott Walker's radical agenda, including his proposed "budget repair bill" to balance the budget on the back of state workers. There to document history in the making, was independent filmmaker Sam Mayfield from Burlington, Vermont. Sam was seen everywhere with her high definition camcorder, at Walker press conferences and climbing though Capitol windows with protesters. In the many months she was in Wisconsin, she obtained hundreds of hours of footage -- often at moments when hers was the only camera present. Among her hundreds of interviews with newsmakers and protesters, the Center for Media and Democracy's Mary Bottari was interviewed for the project on the role that ALEC played in shaping the Walker agenda. "People really need to pay attention to this and start bird-dogging these institutions, these legislators and these corporations and taking back their democracy," Bottari said of ALEC.
It has been a tough holiday season for Scott Walker. The state lost 14,600 jobs in November and a new government report indicates that Wisconsin leads the nation in killing public sector jobs.
With the 2012 legislative season and another episode of the Great American Campaign Circus dawning over the nation, Arizona may find itself the proving grounds for possible reform in the age of "pay-to-play" politics.
That would be breaking news to both traditional press and the online media that have been blocked from ALEC meetings and are increasingly being threatened with arrest.
While Mitt Romney came out ahead in New Hampshire, his front-runner status will soon be under the gun by some very deep pockets backing Newt Gingrich.
As previously reported by CMD, over $3 million dollars worth of ads cut by a Super PAC controlled by Mitt Romney's former aides, dropped Gingrich like a stone in Iowa. Gingrich sank from an overconfident front runner, who told ABC's Jake Tapper "I will be the nominee" on December 1, to an embittered candidate who placed fourth in Iowa a short time later.
After ineffectually whining about being totaled by Mitt Romney's "negativity" in the Iowa primary, Newt Gingrich may have decided that revenge is sweeter. A pro-Gingrich Super PAC is preparing to unleash a barrage of negativity on South Carolina voters.
Newt Gingrich's Baggage
The new Super PACs dominating the air wars in Iowa and New Hampshire were unleashed by the Citizens United revision of the First Amendment to allow individuals and corporations to give unlimited amounts of money to influence U.S. elections. Super PAC spending cannot be directly coordinated with a candidate, but provides candidates with an avenue for negative attack ads that they do not have to put their name on. (Numerous groups are calling for amending the Constitution to overturn the decision.)
The most omnipresent ad by the pro-Romney "Restore Our Future" Super PAC led with the line "You know what makes President Obama happy? Newt Gingrich's baggage." It then went on to detail a scorching list of allegations, including that Gingrich was paid $30,000 an hour by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two organizations that "helped cause the financial crisis."
"I've been Romney-boated," Gingrich complained to the press in Iowa, referring to the ad campaign in 2004 launched by the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, that helped sink presidential candidate John F. Kerry. According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, 45 percent of all TV ads in Iowa have been attack ads against Gingrich, including this no-hold-barred attack by Ron Paul's campaign. (Note that Paul does not hesitate to put his name right on the ad.)
The pro-Mitt Romney Super PAC massively outspent the candidate's official presidential campaign on advertising, reportedly spending $7 million to the candidate's official $5 million so far. While Romney dodged responsibility for the negative ads, Gingrich put is succinctly: "It's very hard to run $3.5 million of negative ads and pretend it's not yours and not have people think you're being dishonest."
"The Man that Destroyed Us"
Now, a pro-Gingrich Super PAC is getting ready to unleash a world of harm on the Romney campaign. According to the New York Times, billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson has cut a $5 million check to the "Winning Our Future" Super PAC. Adelson has long been a Gingrich supporter.
Winning our Future just released a devastating 30 minute film, When Mitt Romney Came to Town, in advance of the South Carolina primary ten days away. The Super PAC has reserved more than $3.4 million in advertising time in the state to air clips of the movie as ads.
The ads and the film claim that as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, Romney bought American businesses simply to shut them down. Romney describes his tenure at Bain as one in which he created "100,000 jobs." But the ad characterizes Romney and Bain "as group of corporate raiders ... more ruthless than Wall Street" and intones, "For tens of thousands of Americans, the suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town." A woman put out of work by Bain, characterizes Romney as "the man who destroyed us," a potent message in a country that currently has 25 million unemployed or underemployed citizens.
Gingrich characterized Romney and Bain as "rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company," but Gingrich of course has his own private equity supporters including Blackstone Group and KKR & Co. according to the Boston Globe.
As for the truth of the matter, an old Bain prospectus obtained by the Los Angeles Timesshows a stunning 88 percent average annual rate of return under Romney's leadership. But did the firm earn this money by creating jobs or destroying them? The Washington Post recently gave Romney three Pinocchios for his unsubstantiated job claims.
Tucson-based civil rights attorney Stacy Scheff believes that Westin Kierland may have violated federal constitutional law when they threw a journalist (and paid guest) out into the dead of night--due to the simple fact that the journalist evicted had written critically of (and was not liked by) the organization hosting a conference at the hotel. (A new story about these events is available here).
Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Indiana) and the state's Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma (R-88), are spearheading an effort to pass the controversial, corporate-backed "Right to Work" (RTW) bill, which has sparked huge protests by Hoosiers. The bill's opponents have called it the "Right to Work (for Peanuts)" bill, the "'Right to be Fired' Without Cause" bill, and other names.
Lori Compas is the Fort Atkinson woman who almost single-handedly led the grassroots petition drive to recall 17-year incumbent and Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau.
Confronted with a report by 
Tucson-based civil rights attorney Stacy Scheff believes that Westin Kierland may have violated federal constitutional law when they threw a journalist (and paid guest) out into the dead of night--due to the simple fact that the journalist evicted had written critically of (and was not liked by) the organization hosting a conference at the hotel. (A new story about these events is available 
Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Indiana) and the state's Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma (R-88), are spearheading an effort to pass the controversial, corporate-backed "Right to Work" (RTW) bill, which has sparked huge protests by Hoosiers. The bill's opponents have called it the "Right to Work (for Peanuts)" bill, the "'Right to be Fired' Without Cause" bill, and other names.