WI treasure John Gurda: Walker loves Milwaukee? We're not feeling it

[PeaceNikki]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/walker-loves-milwaukee-were-not-feeling-it-4f9aijl-200505761.html

It hasn't been this bad since the 1950s. You have to go back more than half a century to find a time when Wisconsin's highest elected officials were so antagonistic to the state's largest city. Then, it was a rural bloc kept in power by skewed legislative boundaries. Now, it's a Republican bloc that has manufactured the same advantage. The results are identical: legislation, passed or proposed, inimical to the city's best interests.

The previous low point in city-state relations came in the years after World War II. Reapportionment, normally done once a decade, had not been addressed since 1921, a result of the Depression, wartime and political resistance.

...

Almost 50 years later, the imbalance has returned in a different form. Republicans considered population in their 2011 redistricting scheme, but they studied voting patterns just as carefully. The GOP packed likely Democrats into supermajority districts and gave their own party the statistical edge in contested areas. The results were not just anti-Democratic but anti-democratic. In 2012, Republicans won only 46% of the total votes cast for Assembly but took 61% of the seats.

Once they had stacked the deck, Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans proceeded to play some serious poker. Walker's opening bets included a proposal to lift the residency requirement for city employees, a move guaranteed to do Milwaukee lasting harm. He denied that it was political payback for the support of the city's police and fire unions, insisting that he was only supporting freedom of choice. The governor of the entire state followed that claim with a gratuitous slap at Wisconsin's only metropolis. "If you want to keep people in the city," Walker piously advised, "you should have a great city."

Much more at link. I adore Gurda....

[ewagner]

1. Read this the other day...

...sums up Walker's wankery very well

[unionthug777]

2. wormy walker

why is he trying so hard to destroy our state??!!! i love living here, and there are very beautiful places around the state. spending a week "up north"...quiet and peaceful....sigh.....he makes me despise him soooooooo much !!!

[Blue Owl]

3. He loves Milwaukee so much he wants to privatize it

n/t

[unionthug777]

4. funny

and he lives in wauwatosa !!