Madison, Wisconsin, home of hairy hippies in the sixties and sleepy-eyed stoners in the seventies. How do I know? I don’t want to talk about that. But if you want to know who is in Madison these days, all you have to do is turn on the TV machine. Have you seen that old movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? I give you the sequel, The Three Stooges Go To Madison. Here in my beloved state of Wisconsin we have a Gov’nor, Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker who make the original Three Stooges look like rookies of riposte. For purposes of this blog post, they shall remain nameless. Why? You may have noticed the policy some news outlets follow when covering horrible crimes. They do not name the perpetrator for fear of inspiring copycat criminals. Same deal here.
What was the latest episode of Stooges Go To Madison? In December two state senators resigned their offices. State law calls for Gov’nor to call a special election. He refused, fearing his party might lose. We subsequently had an election day in February and another on April 3rd, but whoops, these open senate seats were not on the ballots. It went to court. A judge whom Gov’nor himself had appointed heard the case. Gov’nor argued it was a waste of taxpayer money to call a special election so late in the year (March?), being that the legislature had already adjourned for the year (March!) Now he would have to call a whole ‘nother election day. Judge lady pointed out he’d had two prior opportunities to fill these seats during regularly scheduled elections. Now go ahead and schedule this election, Mr. Gov’nor! Gov’nor expressed outrage. He appealed, twice. Judges hit him with a frying pan, twice. It was just what you’d expect in any Three Stooges movie. Then the two stooges over in the legislature announced they would convene a special legislative session to change the law regarding special elections. They would make it retroactive. But wait, the reason Gov’nor argued he needn’t call a special election is that the heretofore mentioned legislature wouldn’t meet any more this year anyway. Got that? It’s a perfect Three Stooges movie; our guys are running around in circles yelling yip-yip-yip-yip, and slapping themselves.
Take our State Assembly Speaker (please!) He is eminently qualified for this three ring circus, being that his day job is running a popcorn company (really, check his Wikipedia.) I saw him on TV explaining the logic of this retroactive law outlawing the election of new lawmakers, being that the legislature would not be meeting anymore this year and so they should call a special session of the legislature this year to get this law passed. What a performance! Completely straight faced throughout. There is no doubt that politics is truly a performance art, and this man deserves an Emmy. And he does remind me of Curly; you know, Stooge number three. He’s the guy always getting hit on the head with hammers and such, but it does no apparent damage because the damage, obviously, has already been done. Oh yes, I think Assembly Speaker has been hit on the head by too many hammers.
What really gives me hinder cramps is when these platidudinous porkbarrel politicians pontificate with such pious pomposity, claiming they obviously know best because they were elected by the people. To which I have a one word reply; gerrymandering. Most of these guys reside in districts so badly gerrymandered their political party could elect any of The Three Stooges, even one of those substitutes, like Shemp. Remember Shemp? Most people don’t. He wasn’t a true star like Moe, Larry, and Curly. How did he ever get to be one of the Stooges anyway? Answer; he got elected in a gerrymandered district.
But I am not just a whiner. I am a great solver of problems. (If you don’t believe me, click on Golden Oldies on this blog and read Socks And Tupperware Lids.) My solution to gerrymandering? If The Three Stooges refuse to move the district lines, we will move the voters. I hereby propose that we organize about 10,000 voters who all have (or can rent) camper trailers. These people would be of an independent mind, who you know, might want to watch Laurel and Hardy once in a while instead of Moe, Larry, and Curly. We move them all to Assembly Speaker’s district about six months before the election, and they vote him out of office. It’s a beautiful rural area and I’m sure we can rent a nice farm somewhere to set up a humungous campground. It could be fun. It could be like a modern day Woodstock. Preposterous you say? Not at all! Fess up! Some of you have been at tailgate parties that long.
There is a happy ending to this story. The Three Stooges gave up on their proposed legislation. But that’s like a drunk pulling up his pants after he’s already mooned the camera at the Packer game. Too late, it’s on tape! I wonder what might show up in the next episode. Will they expel liberal Madison from the state and move the capitol to Kansas? (It will save on travel expense, being closer to the Koch brothers.) Will they grant the City of Milwaukee to Foxconn, all of it to be razed for parking? Will they declare war on Michigan in an effort to annex the Upper Peninsula? Will our army of deer hunters be marching against Michigan’s army of deer hunters? Wisconsin, amazingly, has almost 600,000 deer hunters. And I know many of them. I’m confident they could defeat Vladimir Putin on opening weekend.
When it comes right down to it, only Moe knows what The Three Stooges will do next, but I do know that I want to live in a democracy. And don’t be telling me to move to Minnesota. We may have The Three Stooges, but they have that stupid Gopher.
Now, many of my illustrious readers are not from my beautiful state of Wisconsin, and may be unfamiliar with the workings of our state government. For those who wish to do further research on this subject, I am attaching a link to an educational documentary about our Gov’nor, Senate Majority Leader, and Assembly Speaker, right
here. There will be a quiz after.