One Wisconsin Now Debuts ‘Meet the Majority’ Cataloging New Legislature’s Extremism, Failed Policies

MADISON, Wis. — The extremism and failed policies advocated by members of the new right-wing Wisconsin legislative majority are available at www.MeetTheMajority.com, a project of One Wisconsin Now. The site currently highlights 13 of the 31 new Assembly and Senate members and more will be added in the coming weeks.

“Here is the new conservative legislative majority, bought and paid for by corporate special interests,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “Wisconsin needs good-paying jobs, not more of the extremist positions, failed policies and campaign kick-backs already coming out of the new conservative legislative majority.”

The initial release of MeetTheMajority.com includes information about the public policy positions and views of seven first-year conservative Assembly members and six first-year conservative Senate members. Among the issues and individuals included are:

• Rep. Kathy Bernier of Chippewa Falls who said the state domestic partner registry to provide some equality for committed same sex couples is “just another burden for county clerks”
• Sen. Pam Galloway of Wausau, who said, “Some companies have taken jobs overseas to preserve jobs here…It isn’t that all jobs have left. It’s important to look at which jobs are leaving, are they worth preserving?”
• Rep. Andre Jacque of Green Bay who said, “I would say that I certainly would support repealing [the 2009 income tax increase on those earning more than $225,000 a year] as well.”
• Sen. Frank Lasee of De Pere, who said, “I want to give our school personnel access to guns to stop those with guns.”
• Rep. Roger Rivard of Rice Lake who said, “You put money in the hands of a bureaucrat or a politician, they’re going to piss it away. They’re like cocaine addicts. You hand a little snort of cocaine to a cocaine addict, what are they going to do with it? Probably snort it.”
• Rep. Jim Steineke of Kaukauna who said, “I propose phasing out the corporate income tax altogether, because I think the corporate income tax doesn’t do anything real beneficial to any of us.”
• Rep. Travis Tranel of Cuba City, who said, “…I do not see any benefit of repeatedly plastering stories of sexual abuse committed by priests on the front page of the [Tribune Herald] day after day.”
• Sen. Van Wangaard of Racine, who said, “I’m 150 percent in favor of [concealed carry]…It’s not like everybody’s going to go out and get a gun…Any police chief of sheriff who says it’s different is absolutely wrong.”

Additional members featured on the site currently also include Rep. John Klenke, Rep. Erik Severson, Sen. Terry Moulton, Sen. Leah Vukmir and Sen. Rich Zipperer.

“The new majority promised their top priority would be to create jobs, but they have already broken that promise,” said Ross. “So far, the new majority has pushed aside job creation to focus on rewarding corporate donors, appeasing social conservative extremists and rigging elections in their favor.”

A video of highlighting some of the features of MeetTheMajority.com is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2wAiZF0Zqw.