When the convention for the Wisconsin Democratic Party comes to town Friday and Saturday, June 5 and 6, a lot of delegates will be staying at the convention site (the Potawatomi Hotel) and other nearby venues. But the rooms can be very expensive, and may be in short supply. And that's where you come in.

We're looking for people who are willing to provide housing for out-of-town delegates, usually just for a night or two but possibly as many as three. If you have a guest room, or even a couch or floor that could accommodate some of the younger and spryer folks who might be coming, just fill in a form on our Host a Delegate page. In early May and then on May 16, I will send information about accommodations to the chairs of the county parties (none of the info you provide will be published or accessible to anyone else). The chairs and/or their designees will help match up delegates needing lodging with people who have signed up to host.

It's really a simple way to make sure everyone who wants to participate in party governance can do so without huge expense. And it's also a way for Milwaukee area progressives to meet some of their peers from other parts of the state. A true win-win.

So, Host a Delegate.

Below is a summary of the state budget prepared by the Democratic members of the Joint Finance Committee. 

2015-17 STATE BUDGET AT A GLANCE
Updated March 13, 2015

Gov. Walker’s fiscally irresponsible “Cut and Borrow” policies are preventing economic growth and holding Wisconsin families back. As we work to responsibly balance the state budget, Democrats want to put Wisconsin families first and increase economic opportunities by strengthening our schools, investing in infrastructure and creating quality jobs.

K-12 EDUCATION

• Reduces state support for education and forces local public schools to reduce per pupil spending by $150 on average in the 2015-16 school year.
• Takes funding directly from local public schools to pay for the statewide expansion of Gov. Walker’s taxpayer-subsidized private school voucher program.
• Removes local control of schools by creating an unaccountable and unelected statewide charter school board.
• Provides $6.7 million in additional funding for rural sparsity and high cost transportation
  aid.

HIGHER EDUCATION

• Cuts $300 million from UW schools and forces layoffs across the state.
• Converts the UW System to a public authority model and allows the new UW System Authority to increase tuition.
• Fails to fully fund the Wisconsin GI Bill which provides veterans and active duty members of the armed services with an education at UW and Technical College schools.
• Eliminates public oversight and makes Wisconsin the only state without student protections at for-profit colleges.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

• Merges the WEDC and WHEDA agencies into a new quasi-private authority, the Forward Wisconsin Development Authority, and removes legislative oversight.
• Removes the requirement that the Forward Wisconsin Development Authority be financially audited by the Legislative Audit Bureau –– the non-partisan agency that uncovered the WEDC’s past fiscal mismanagement. 

Voting in Wisconsin has just become more complicated for everyone and may be quite daunting for some otherwise eligible voters.

Our job now is to mobilize as many people as we can

• to find registered voters who lack an acceptable photo ID and help them acquire one;
• to register new voters and help them with obtaining the documents they will need.

Here's what you can do:

Sign up as a volunteer for voter registration. In the comments section, tell us how you would like Grassroots North Shore to organize and support voter registration efforts.

Beginning with an election occurring after April 7, 2015, every Wisconsin voter will be required to show "an acceptable photo ID" at the polling place.  The rules for "acceptable" IDs can be somewhat complicated but here's what the Government Accountability Board specifies:

The Department of Transportation's website specifies what it takes to get a Wisconsin ID from the Department of Transportation. And thanks to an "administrative tweak" the Wisconsin Supreme Court provided when it ruled on the Voter ID law, DMV offices are supposed to be able to locate verifying documents such as birth certificates for applicants at no cost. But it may take some time for the verification process. That's why it's vital that we begin NOW to work with citizens to ensure that everyone eligible to vote will be able to vote in the next election.

Complicating matters further, DMV offices have limited hours. In Milwaukee, DMV service centers are generally open from 8:30-4:45 on weekdays. The Milwaukee-Southwest service Center, at 5500 W. Grange Avenue in Greendale, has Saturday morning hours from 8:30am - noon. In Ozaukee County, the Saukville service center is closed on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it is open from 8:45am - 4:pm; on Wednesdays, it is open from 12:30pm - 6:00pm.

Paul Adair is a 21-year Germantown resident, retired scientist, writer, and lecturer. His blog post was originally published on March 8, 2015 on GermantownNow and is republished here by permission.

Last week, Right-to-Freeload was jammed through the legislature in an "extraordinary" session. Elected officials, who claim to represent you, took an active roll in passing this bill that will likely lower your salary and benefits. Alberta Darling cast the deciding vote in the State Senate and Dan Knodlwas responsible for shoving the bull bill through Assembly committee .

All that is left is for Scott Walker to make a brief Monday stop-over in Wisconsin to sign the bill, which he says that he will do. Walker's decision to enact Right-to-Freeload comes after a long history of misdirection, evasion, and prevarication on the issue. 

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley has served Wisconsin well during her 19 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. She is currently running for a third 10-year term. Grassroots North Shore is endorsing her because she has proven to be an outstanding jurist, one who refuses to take contributions from parties or lawyers with cases before the court. Her rulings demonstrate her commitment to protecting Wisconsin citizens from corporations seeking to sell harmful products to children. She believes that to maintain the trust of citizens, the judiciary must be free of partisanship and of influence from special interest groups, especially from out-of-state groups.

Learn more about Justice Bradley at her website and Facebook page.

Governor Walker’s budget for 2015-17 proposes to decrease funding for the University of Wisconsin system by $300 million, a 13% decrease on top of the 17.5% cut already implemented in previous budgets.  In return, property owners in Wisconsin may see their property taxes decline by $5 in each of the two years of the biennial budget or a total of $10. This property tax “relief” is not only smaller than a pittance; it will also return the greatest “relief” to the owners of the most expensive properties. So the benefit calculations, such as they are, are clear. But what the proposed budget does not explain is how these draconian cuts will play out in the years to come. Before this budget plan is enacted, we need to ask what happens when states cut deeply into the funding for public colleges and universities. Fortunately, we now have empirical answers to this question.