Leadership, Messaging, Strategic Blueprints, Views on News, wispundits • November 13th, 2008

Let the turf war begin

by Chris Lato

Interesting stuff...the first real sign that as Democrats take over the Legislature, it’s still going to be a bumpy ride.

Locking Milwaukee lawmakers out of leadership roles sends a message, suggesting that it will be a Milwaukee vs. the-rest-of-Wisconsin session as the new majority grapples with a multi-billion-dollar budget hole.  

The Assembly Speaker will be Mike Sheridan, a rep from Janesville who used to be a UAW president. Other Dem Assembly leaders come from Kaukauna and Wausau.

Milwaukee may still hold onto key leadership roles on the Joint Finance Committee, where a lot of power resides. We won’t know about those appointments for a little while.

Still, as Mordecai Lee properly points out, the money flows to where the power is…and this is not a good sign for Milwaukee. If they work together as a bloc, the Milwaukee reps have the ability to gum up the works and try to steer things in their direction. It’s not like the rest of the state can just ignore Milwaukee and make them go away.

As Democrat factions line up to tout such budget-busters as universal health care, and the questions begin to swirl around where to cut and where to tax, this is an early sign that although the Democrats may have the majority, finding a way to work together for the greater good will be the key challenge.

The message so far has been clear: the Democrats may be taking over, but a unified direction will be much harder to come by. And if Gov. Doyle gets the call to cut bait and head to Washington D.C., well…let’s just say it probably won’t make matters any better.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 10:22 am and is filed under Leadership, Messaging, Strategic Blueprints, Views on News, wispundits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.