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Congressmen David Obey’s stunning announcement last week that he will not run for reelection is particularly bad news for Mayor Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for governor.

dave obey

Barrett has lost a longtime mentor, and someone who might have helped him as governor by delivering significant federal dollars to this state. Barrett may have also been counting on Obey to deliver voters in his northwest district in the November race for governor, but now that Obey is a lame duck, he may not have the same impact – or the same passion for the effort.

As a long-time ranking Democrat on the powerful House appropriations committee and chairman of the committee since 2007, Obey has been a reliable conduit for federal aid to his district, and for support to the state as a whole.

“If Barrett is governor, his relationship to Obey means a lot,” said former Mayor John Norquist in an interview last fall on Barrett’s future. “That is a good reason for Wisconsin to elect Barrett.”

Barrett and Obey have had a political and personal relationship that goes back to the mid-1980s, when Barrett was in the state Assembly and Obey was in Congress. Losing that relationship is a huge blow for Barrett.

tom barrett

“It’s a blow even if Tom [remains] the mayor,” says Patrick Curley, Barrett’s chief of staff. “It’s a blow to the state.”

Obey campaigned for Barrett in Barrett’s unsuccessful bid for governor in 2002. Obey strongly encouraged him to run again in this year’s gubernatorial race, according to political insiders.

Barrett first learned of Obey’s decision to hang it up in a phone call from Obey on the morning of his announcement. A week earlier, Obey had campaigned with Barrett in Obey’s 7^th district.

Obey apparently will continue to campaign for Barrett. But how effective will a retiring congressman be in delivering votes in a northern Wisconsin district to a Milwaukee-based candidate?

Elected in 1969, Obey had been in Congress nearly 23 years before Barrett won a Congressional seat in 1992. Obey acted as a political godfather to Barrett, opening doors and greasing the skids for federally funded programs to Barrett’s Milwaukee district.

In 1998, Obey lobbied House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to appoint Barrett to the House Judiciary committee. As a committee member, Barrett was thrust into the national spotlight as he questioned independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr during hearings leading to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

A year ago, Obey helped Barrett with a behind-the-scenes deal that finally freed up $91.5 million in federal funds for public transit in Milwaukee. The funds had languished for years in a political stalemate. Most recently, Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker (a Republican candidate for governor) had argued repeatedly over how the funds would be divided.

In the end, the city of Milwaukee received 60 percent of the funds for streetcars, while Milwaukee County got 40 percent for bus service.

“Dave is the one who was willing to help us,” Barrett said last year in an interview.

That kind of help, though, will soon be long gone.

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(note: this story originally ran on April 3)

Across the country, states are modernizing their sales tax to reflect changes in the economy, but not Wisconsin. This state’s sales tax is far less inclusive in what it taxes, meaning less revenue is collected – which might surprise the many observers who’ve long complained about Wisconsin’s tax burden.

A recent study found a total of 168 services that at least some states tax. Wisconsin taxed only 76 of them. A total of 19 states tax window cleaning, but this state doesn’t, according to The New York Times. Neither does Wisconsin tax massage services, taxed by 11 others, interior design, taxed by

ten others, dating services, taxed by eight others, or haircuts, taxed by seven others.

Wisconsin pays more income and property taxes than the national average but less in sales tax, according to Dale Knapp, research director of the Wisconsin’s Taxpayer Alliance, a non-partisan tax watch group.

Like Arkansas, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey and Texas, a study by the Federation of Tax Administrators says, Wisconsin taxes utilities and labor and repair services but doesn’t tax most professional services.

And there’s little motivation to change that, Knapp says. “There have been proposals to tax more services, but they haven’t gotten very far.”

He adds, “States are going to have to rethink the sales tax. The sales tax was created when we were a manufactured-good oriented economy. Now we’ve become much more services-oriented. Those aren’t getting taxed.”

The transition to a service-based economy began happening about 50 years ago, according to Jim Eads, FTA’s executive director, but antiquated state sales tax codes have lagged far behind. Most were written in the late 1920s and 1930s, he says.

States that are busy updating their sales tax, particularly Michigan and Pennsylvania, are adding a host of new services to their codes.

White collar bias?

Wisconsin’s sales tax draws from large blue collar services but not white collar ones.

It taxes landscaping, carpet cleaning, fishing and hunting guides, shoe repair, dry cleaning, swimming pool cleaning, printing, sign construction and installation, tire repair, car washing and towing, bulldozer and tool rentals, repair work, taxidermy, dog grooming, horse training, welding and other services at the state’s standard 5 percent rate.

It doesn’t tax veterinary services, insurance services, investment counseling, loan brokering, real estate services, debt counseling, funeral services, tax return preparation, massage, golf or dance lessons, advertising, newspaper or magazine sales, debt collection, graphic design, private investigation, public relations, security services or work by attorneys, architects, dentists, engineers, accountants, doctors, nurses or pilots.

State sales tax exemptions fall along similar lines, according to a state Department of Revenue publication. Medical, manufacturing, biotechnology and some broadband internet equipment are exempt. When businesses cease operations, they can sell off their equipment without having to return sales tax to state government.

Other labor services are treated differently. A contract is classified as “a consumer when constructing, installing, repairing or servicing real property, such as buildings,” the publication says. “The contractor must pay sales or use tax on materials and supplies used in such activities.” Purchases of tools and other equipment contractors use are also not exempt.

Since 2007, there have been no changes in the services taxed in Wisconsin, according to DOR spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis. One of the biggest sales tax changes, she says, was the expansion of taxes on computer software and digital goods. The state Legislature passed the changes in 2009.

Taxing the Girl Scouts

Eads says Michigan and Florida tried to tax services but “it created havoc and was repealed.” Legislators retreated like they had wandered onto political hot coals.

But Michigan is trying again. Gov. Jennifer Granholm introduced a proposal earlier this week that would raise more money from the tax by expanding its base – while lowering the overall rate. Facing financial ruin, she’s proposing taxes on services to rescue her state’s schools from disaster.

A number of states are turning to sales taxes to prop up their finances as income taxes languish in the recession. But Wisconsin isn’t one of them.

But the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the non-partisan research group that advises the state Legislature, warned in June 2009 that the state could face a $2.2 billion budget shortfall by 2003 if existing policies continued. But by July, budget cuts and an income tax increase for wealthy Wisconsinites had balanced the state budget, state officials claimed.

Raising taxes is never easy. Eads tells a story about repeated attempts in the New Mexico legislature to impose sales taxes on non-profits, which are normally exempt.

Each year lawmakers tried, when they convened a public hearing on the bill, state Girl Scout leaders showed up with a line of little scouts behind them. They offered up dramatic testimony, and the response was always the same. The legislators cracked.

By the end of the hearings, Eads says, at least one of the lawmakers would reassure the scouts, “Don’t worry sweetheart, we’re not going to tax your cookies.”

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(This story originally ran on March 31)

An international firestorm raged last week after lawyers released documents linking the cover up of sexual abuse of children in Wisconsin to Pope Benedict XVI. Yet, there is still far more to the story: an extraordinary tale of how countless officials failed to pursue legal charges against the abusive priest, Father Lawrence Murphy. Among these officials were Archbishop Rembert Weakland and his two predecessors as archbishop, former Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann and his deputy prosecutor, William Gardner, and St. Francis Police.

All knew about the allegations that Murphy abused boys who were students at the St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, as NewsBuzz found in reviewing records released by St. Paul lawyer Jeffrey Anderson. Anderson has represented victims in this and other clergy abuse cases.

Some 200 men have by now accused Murphy of sexually abusing them. Critics have charged that church officials seemed more concerned about protecting the church and the priest from dishonor.

The key document, which was first reported by The New York Times last week, was a letter from Murphy to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Vatican Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and now Pope Benedict XVI. In the 1996 letter to Ratzinger, Murphy, then 75, begs to be allowed to live his remaining days as a priest. Ratzinger did not respond but a decision by his office quoted Murphy’s reasoning when they decided not to kick him out of the priesthood.

Two other documents from the records requested by Anderson are nearly as explosive:

• A letter from Wisconsin bishops to Ratzinger asking that they be allowed to conduct a church trial on the allegations against Murphy. Ratzinger’s office sided with Murphy and refused permission for the trial. The letter that ended the case against Murphy was signed by the Ratzinger’s No. 2 man, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Bertone is still No. 2 to his boss: He is now the Vatican Secretary of State.
• An electronic translation of a transcript of a 1996 meeting in Rome run by Bertone and attended by Weakland, Milwaukee Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba and Superior, Wis., Bishop Raphael Fliss, where they discussed what to do with Murphy. The meeting did not result in any action being taken against Murphy.

As stunning as the revelations in these documents is the manner in which they were obtained. Months ago, Milwaukee archdiocesan representatives told lawyers for the victims that all requested documents had been produced. But Michael Finnegan, a lawyer working with Anderson, said his firm found hints of more in documents produced by the Superior, Wis., Diocese. Murphy had served for years in Superior after leaving Milwaukee in 1974 but remained under the supervision of the Milwaukee archdiocese, so records on Murphy must have been shared by the two dioceses.

“We told Milwaukee that we got stuff from Superior that had come from Milwaukee,” Finnegan tells NewsBuzz. “We told them there had to be more in their files and that if they didn’t produce it, we’d go to court, and they could explain what was going on.”

As it turned out, most of the most damning information eventually came from the Milwaukee files.

Lawyers representing other victims of sex abuse by priests have often fought, without success, to get such records from American archdioceses. Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland has offered contradictory testimony as to what files the archdiocese did or didn’t have.

rembert weakland

Under questioning by Anderson in November 2009 as to whether secret archives existed, Weakland said this in his sworn testimony: ”I’ve heard about it but I’ve never seen those files and I don’t know if the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has such things.” Yet, when he was deposed in 1993 on another abuse case, Weakland admitted he routinely shredded weekly reports about sex abuse by priests. But he said he shredded copies of the records, not the originals.

Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former Benedictine monk who regular follows clergy sex abuse cases, notes on his Web page that every bishop must promise the pope they will keep secret anything revealed to them that would harm or dishonor the church. Sipe goes on to say that the knowledge of sex abuse of minors is widespread in the halls of the Vatican.

Father Murphy served as director of the now defunct St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis., from 1950 to 1974, and was known as a personable, prodigious fundraiser. The documents Anderson provided show archdiocesan officials were aware of abuse early on yet declined for more than two decades to take action against Murphy.

The late Father David Walsh was the chaplain to Chicago’s deaf. When deaf boys he had recruited for the school told of abuse by Murphy in the mid-1950s, he took the matter to Albert Meyer, then archbishop of Milwaukee. Meyer, according to a letter penned by Walsh, said Murphy at first

E. Michael McCann

denied the allegations but later acknowledged that they were true. Murphy was sent on a spiritual retreat and told to return to the school to undo the harm he had done. In a 1970s civil lawsuit brought by a Murphy victim, Meyer’s successor, Archbishop William Cousins, testified that he was aware of the allegations, but that they were unproven.

Walsh continued to hear about the abuse and took the complaints to the Milwaukee bishops repeatedly. When that failed, Walsh eventually contacted the papal nuncio, the pope’s ambassador to the U.S. There is no record showing he ever got a response.

Although no punitive action was taken against Murphy, he was eventually asked by archdiocesan officials to leave St. John’s in 1974. Once transferred to the Diocese of Superior, Murphy continued to function as a parish priest there until 1993 when he was forced to resign. There, Murphy taught religious education classes to 10^th graders, was a popular youth retreat master, taught sign language at a technical college and continued to minister to the deaf community, even visiting them in Milwaukee on many occasions.

Records suggest the abuse by Murphy may have continued. A recent suit against the archdiocese by Donald Marshall claims he was assaulted in 1976 while in solitary confinement at a state juvenile facility. Documents show that church officials determined based on the victim’s description of the abuser that the culprit was Father Murphy.

Murphy’s trips back to Milwaukee were a sore point. Father James Alby, a hearing-impaired Episcopal priest who worked at St. John’s in the early 1970s, wrote to the Milwaukee Archdiocese several times to complain about Murphy showing up at deaf community events here, saying his presence was painful for many former students. In a Nov. 12, 1987, letter to Weakland’s No. 2 man, Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba, Alby asked Sklba to order Murphy to stay away from an upcoming event: “I personally believe that it is time for you to stick your head out since you are empowered by your office of bishop as a custodian of Christian Faith that includes the teaching of morality.”

Sklba’s reply: Alby must “realize that a large segment of the hearing impaired community insists on inviting Father Murphy and this must be dealt with respectfully and prayerfully.”

As recent as last fall, the Milwaukee Archdiocese was saying that all the facts in the Murphy case had been made public years earlier. Jerry Topczewski, spokesman for the archdiocese, told a joint committee of the legislature there had been a police investigation of Murphy – although the investigation by the St. Francis police wasn’t reported at the time – and that he was the subject of many news stories.

Before the recent scandal broke, the only stories to hit the press came in 2006 when Mary Zahn wrote about the case in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She reported that her efforts to tell the story for the Milwaukee Sentinel back in 1974 were thwarted when newspaper lawyers ruled the story could not run because no charges had been issued.

Arthur Budzinski, a former St. John’s student, was among several victims of Murphy who say they went to the office of Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann in 1974 to report the abuse. They met with then-assistant district attorney William Gardner. In Zahn’s story, she quoted Gardner saying the cases brought to him were too old to pursue, though he believed the allegations were true. Budzinski, however, has asked why no one from the D.A. or the St. Francis police went to the school to look for other victims from more recent years.

In some news accounts, Weakland appears almost heroic for his efforts to get rid of Murphy. But documents suggest he tried to keep a lid on the scandal. Yes, Murphy’s name was on a list of abusers released in 2004 by the archdiocese but little information had been made public earlier.

On January 21, 1993, Weakland wrote to Murphy saying he accepted his retirement request for health reasons. “I want to say thanks for the zeal you have shown through the years,” Weakland wrote. “May God continue to bless you in every way and be gentle and kind with you.”

The archdiocese, however, did try to put constraints on Murphy in his retirement. On Dec. 1, 1993, Sklba wrote to Murphy to confirm that he had been ordered to not participate in any sacramental celebrations and “not engage in any unsupervised contact with minors.” Murphy was also ordered to stay out of parish religious education programs.

Yet, five years later, Weakland learned that Murphy listed his contact information in the Wisconsin Telecommunications directory used by the deaf community. “Such an action is either direct and flagrant disobedience or further indication that you still do not grasp the seriousness of the circumstances that have arisen as a result of your past behavior,” Weakland wrote in a July 15, 1998, letter. Any further violations of the orders “will result in the imposition of penalties,” Weakland added.

Murphy died about a month later, leaving an estate of more than $750,000.

The chronically abusive priest was buried in his vestments. Sklba officiated at the funeral and came close to revealing Murphy’s past when he obliquely mentioned in the middle of his remarks that the priest had caused great pain as well as great good. Murphy’s brother James was so irate that he complained to the papal nuncio, saying that many of Murphy’s relatives knew nothing of the allegations.

After Murphy’s death, Weakland wrote two letters, one to Rome saying “we are still hoping to avoid undue publicity;” the other to a nun saying he had ordered the funeral be private. He did so, Weakland wrote, in order to protect Murphy’s good name and reputation.

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(This story originally ran on May 25)

A woman once convicted of stealing from the nursing home she ran as patients suffered from neglect will now go to prison for tax evasion.

Karen Mason, 57, was CEO, administrator and part owner of Havenwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Milwaukee. It closed in 2005 after a raid by state and federal regulators uncovered severe neglect. Some patients were denied baths and clean sheets and one jumped to his death after staff failed to report to his doctors that he was threatening suicide.

wisconsin eastern district federal courthouse in Milwaukee

While patients suffered, federal authorities say, Mason was taking money from Havenwood accounts and buying furniture, carpeting, jewelry, new cars, concert and sporting tickets. In all, police allege, she took over $1 million. She was also accused of spending money on vacations, wedding and honeymoon expenses and payments to the Milwaukee Yacht Club.

A federal judge sentenced Mason to two years in prison last week after she pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion. After her release, she will serve three years of probation.

In 2008, she pleaded guilty in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to charges of theft and abuse of a patient causing physical harm, all felonies. She was sentenced to 15 months in the Milwaukee County House of Corrections and ordered to pay back $20,696 to the Havenwood employee 401(k) account and $64,435 to a bank account belonging to the nursing home.

Federal charging documents say Mason was CEO, administrator and part owner of the nursing home while living in Oconomowoc, Germantown and Menomonee Falls. She was also CEO and part owner of a consulting firm, Avalon Health Care Management.

In the tax evasion case, prosecutors alleged she took in about $642,000 in income in 2004 – $212,000 in salary from the nursing home and consulting firm and the rest from theft – but never filed a tax return.

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The Minnesota Legislature has thrown down the gauntlet. Worried the state is losing border-jumping biotech companies lured by Wisconsin’s angel investor credit, Minnesota has passed one of its own. Now, investors in small, high-tech startup companies can get the same kind of tax credit in either state.  Will the Gopher State snatch away Wisconsin’s advantage?

Even without its new tax credit, Minnesota surpasses Wisconsin in many ways in the biotech field. In particular, it’s a national leader in the development of medical and surgical equipment, the sector that dominates its biotech industry. A recent analysis by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) named Minnesota one of three leaders in the field along with California and Massachusetts (pretty lofty company in the biotech world).

(illustration by adrian palomo)

While Wisconsin was not named a leader in research and testing by BIO, Madison has still garnered a national reputation as one of the country’s strongest biotech cities. Its biotech industry is smaller than Minnesota’s but more diversified: It was one of the few places in the nation BIO found had above-average employment concentrations in all the biotech sectors it studied – from agriculture products and medical research to pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

The biotech industry has helped to soften the economic downturn for both Wisconsin and Minnesota. “The upper Midwest is a real hotbed of (biotech) activity,” says Patrick Kelly, BIO’s vice-president of state government relations. But they’re not the only states luring high-tech business with angel credits, he says. In the past five years, about 20 states have implemented them. The biotech race is on.

Bryan Renk, executive director of Wisconsin BioForward, a biotech industry group, says Minnesota’s new angel credit may cause Wisconsin to step up its game. “It’s going to make us more competitive,” he says. While Minnesota has more biotech jobs, according to Renk, Wisconsin has greater research prowess and a more educated workforce.

The angel investor program is very similar in both states. Both now offer the tax credits to investors in small companies that have received little or no other investment (at rates of 25 percent of the angel investment). Both cap the total credits awarded to investors in a business at $1 million. One difference: while Wisconsin’s credit is tightly worded to favor high-tech industry (particularly biotech), Minnesota’s  leaves the door open to give credits to investors in manufacturing or even mining as well as high-tech industries.

The valley of death

The credits are designed to address what observers have labeled the “valley of death,” a period in the lives of young biotech and other high-tech companies when most collapse for lack of funding. The valley yawns after a company is sustained by early seed money (from personal savings, friends, family or other investors) but before the business is big enough to attract venture capital, according to Dale Wahlstrom, CEO of the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota.

He says his organization identified about a half-dozen Minnesota biotech companies in recent months that jumped the Wisconsin border, presumably to take advantage of tax credits. Renk offers a similar assessment, saying several companies have moved recently to the state, enticed by angel money.

“The Wisconsin angel tax credit has gotten a lot of publicity, and it’s been very successful in creating an environment for investment,” Wahlstrom says. “But at the end of the day, it’s only an incentive.”

BIO finds that states, despite facing tight budgets, are still adding the angel credit incentives. Kelly says biotech companies are expensive to form and need the help. A decade ago, he says, “Venture capitalists were bending over backwards to throw money at you, but those days are long gone.”

Wahlstrom doesn’t think Wisconsin and Minnesota should see each other as antagonists in a biotech battle. But state legislators who create the angel credits rarely think regionally, according to Kelly. “It’s very hard when you start talking to state legislators about programs benefitting other states,” he says.

Observers, however, are beginning to see the Minneapolis, Madison, Chicago and Indianapolis corridor as a region strong in biotech – to the benefit of each state. “You need to have these clusters to attract attention nationally and internationally,” Kelly says.

Does Minnesota need angels?

Even without angel credits, investment was flowing to Minnesota biotech companies. Since 2006, largely due to being a national leader in developing medical equipment, Minnesota companies raked in $1.65 billion in venture dollars. In the same period, Wisconsin companies took in just $295 million, the BIO report says.

Wisconsin, however, has enjoyed more investment in academic research. The state spent $760 million on academic bioscience research and development in 2008, more per capita than the national average. Minnesota spent $509 million on academic R&D.

It’s enjoyed hotter job growth in biotech than Wisconsin. Between 2001 and 2008, the jobs grew about 16 percent in Wisconsin, matching average growth nationally. But in Minnesota, the industry didn’t jog; it ran. Jobs there grew about 30 percent.

In 2008, almost twice as many people were employed in Minnesota’s biotech industry (40,165) as in Wisconsin’s (24,694). Minnesota also leads in the number of Biotech patents issued to its companies and researchers since 2004: 4,608 versus Wisconsin’s 2,187. New medical instruments dominated Minnesota’s patents whereas Wisconsin’s were more diversified.

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A Wisconsin State Supreme Court opinion released earlier this year could lay waste to years of legal precedent in the state. Some attorneys are up in arms about the opinion, which they say runs counter to what’s been standard practice in the state for decades. The decision has started a debate that impacts all areas of Wisconsin law – from criminal to probate to family.

According to a recent column in the Wisconsin Law Journal by attorney and journalist David Ziemer, “Nobody knows, and no one can know, just how much common law has been nullified by this new rule. Hundreds of legal rules that courts and litigants have relied on for decades may have become worthless overnight.”

The issue at stake is whether all precedents set by a state appeals court decision are knocked out when the Supreme Court overturns that decision. If the high court only overrules one of the precedents as it overturns the case, do the rest still stand?

Until a July opinion (pdf) from the court, standard practice in the state was that they did – sections of appeals court decisions, unless specifically overruled by the Supreme Court, were still fair game for use in future arguments. For example, in a personal injury case, the Supreme Court might rule the appeals court misinterpreted a state statute – but express no opinion on its review of damages in the case. The custom, endorsed by the appeals courts, allowed the latter precedent to be cited.

But the majority opinion in the July case says that shouldn’t be happening. Written by Justice David Prosser, it says that “unless this court explicitly states otherwise, a court of appeals opinion overruled by this court no longer retains any precedential value.” The opinion specifically tosses out the old court of appeals guideline that “holdings not specifically reversed on appeal (to the Supreme Court) retain precedential value.”

The case originated in Sauk County where a man, Kevin Blum Jr., was severely injured in an accident with an uninsured pickup truck. He sued his own insurance company, arguing he was owed uninsured motorist benefits guaranteed by state law. The driver of the pickup truck, however, wasn’t its owner and had insurance that covered the man’s injuries. The Supreme Court upheld the appeals court ruling that the man wasn’t entitled to the extra benefits – but disagreed with how the lower court arrived at that decision.

The appeals court used a precedent from a case the Supreme Court had overruled on another issue. That should be a no-no, four out of the seven justices opined.

The dissenting opinion by Justice Patience Roggensack argues that Prosser’s opinion is heavy-handed and dives into a question not really at issue in the case. “Until there is future study, it would be cavalier to decide it,” she writes. The majority’s decision is made, she adds, “without input from the many Wisconsin judges and lawyers who will be impacted by the court’s decision.”

The beginning of a debate

The issue has arisen in previous cases. Tom Shriner, a partner at Foley and Lardner and a specialist in appellate law in the state, tells NewsBuzz the July case “is the beginning, rather than the end of a dialogue about this. This is an important issue the Supreme Court ultimately had to decide. I think this is going to be worked out in future cases that present the issue in different ways.”

Prosser and Roggensack

He adds, “I don’t think what we’ve got here is the answer for all time and forever.”

If cases meet certain standards requiring review, appeals courts must accept them, according to Shriner. The Supreme Court can pick and choose, meaning lawyers often look to appellate decisions to argue cases. “The Supreme Court has not decided every issue of law,” says John Kircher, a law professor at Marquette University.

He says specific precedents set by appeals courts, unless overruled by the Supreme Court, should stand even if another issue in the case has led to its reversal. “It’s illogical if you’re a review court and you’re knocking out one part of a decision to say the whole opinion is knocked out,” he says. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Jay Grenig, also a law professor at Marquette, doesn’t think the rule will be terribly disruptive. “Lawyers will not find this that impossible to deal with,” he says. “It avoids the problem, for better or worse, of trying to decide if the court decided on an issue or not. It does provide a simple bright-line test.”

Roggensack recommended referring the issue to the Wisconsin Judicial Council, a panel of judges, lawyers, state officials and legal experts that advise the Supreme Court and the state Legislature.

So far, the Blum case has had a relatively low profile. Grenig says he’s not sure how many lawyers in the state have read the opinion and realize what it means. “Some attorneys are going to get surprised in court,” he says.

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Drivers fled from almost a third of the auto accidents police investigated in Milwaukee in 2009 but only about 11 percent statewide, records say.

The consequences vary from paint scuffs and scratches to major injuries like the one 44-year-old James Johnson suffered when he ran afoul of an impatient driver where West Burleigh Street crosses North Sherman Boulevard.

Johnson’s tibia, the second largest bone in the human body, snapped when a small, dark-colored passenger car struck his right leg as he crossed the boulevard under a crossing signal.

“Every lawyer in town was calling me. They started calling while I was still in the hospital,” he said. But Johnson didn’t know who to sue.

According to records provided by Milwaukee police, 2,907 of the 9,387 accidents officers investigated in 2009, including Johnson’s, were classified as hit and runs. Drivers struck moving cars, parked cars, road signs and buildings but neither waited for police to arrive nor contacted authorities later.

Statewide, police classified 11,234 of 106,866 accidents that occurred on public roads in 2009 as hit and runs, preliminary data provided by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation states.

Rates are highest in inner-city zip codes

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Employment and Training Institute are watching the problem. In a study of risks facing MPS students, they surveyed hit and run statistics from nine inner-city zip codes and found two where drivers fled from over 40 percent of recorded accidents in 2008.

(photo by Adrian Palomo)

In a near south side zip code, 53204, “which includes a sizeable unlicensed immigrant population,” the report says, almost half of the accidents were hit and runs. And in 53206, “one of the poorest neighborhoods on the North Side,” drivers fled from 42% of crashes, according to data from the city’s Community Mapping and Analysis for Safety Strategies program.

Johnson, who lives in one of the nine zip codes ETI studied, hoped to work for the U.S. Census in 2010, but the break dashed his plans. He was between jobs when the car hit him on Dec. 1. A massive cast encasing his right leg didn’t help his employment search.

Uninsured, he’s out $1,800 so far and expects to pay several thousand more and undergo physical therapy. His cast, the latest of three, could come off in March.

It’s the suspensions, stupid

ETI Director John Pawasarat says drivers flee because they lack a valid driver’s license or carry criminal baggage and want to avoid police. “More and more people don’t have a driver’s license,” he said, thanks to Wisconsin’s strict suspension and revocation policies.

According to DOT, the leading reason the agency suspended or revoked licenses in 2008, by a wide margin, was failure to pay a fine.

Of the 419,756 suspensions and revocations handed down, about one for every 13 people living in the state, almost half were “failure to pay forfeitures.” The second leading reason, driving while intoxicated, accounted for about 17 percent.

Pawasarat described what he says is a common trap for impoverished drivers. A traffic or parking ticket goes unpaid. Municipal Court and DOT suspend the car’s license plate. Later, police ticket the driver for operating the vehicle with a suspended plate. The driver’s license is suspended. Finally, facing possible revocation, the driver flees an accident.

“It’s not a Milwaukee problem. It’s just more concentrated here,” says Nichole Yunk, director of the Driver’s License Recovery Program, which provides legal assistance to drivers who lost their licenses, mostly due to FTP forfeitures. The group is funded by city government, private foundations, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and other agencies.

She says excessive suspensions burden courts and that the reason for such a glut is largely financial. “When people say it’s about personal responsibility, that’s a very unfair accusation,” she argues.

Nabbing drivers who run

While bum licenses and no insurance may account for many hit and runs, arrest warrants and intoxication can, too, according to Officer Christopher Bruns of the Milwaukee police Crash Reconstruction Unit. He’s worked in the division, which is involved in all hit and run investigations, for 11 years.

Bruns estimates that about a third of reported accidents in Milwaukee are classified as hit and runs, a conclusion matched by records. In recent years, he says, the rate has held steady. According to DOT, the rate also held steady statewide with police calling about 11% of accidents hit and runs.
MPD records say officers alleged about 900 violations of hit and run laws in 2009, about one citation or arrest for every third offense.

Vehicle descriptions and license plates can lead police to hit and run drivers, Bruns says. Also, under a state law adopted in 2005, vehicle owners can be cited for a hit and run committed by another driver — unless they provide persuasive evidence that someone else was driving the car and identify the person.

Police can enforce penalties ranging from a municipal citation to a Class E felony carrying up to 15 years in prison after finding a suspected hit and run driver, depending largely on the severity of injuries. When no injury results, according to Bruns, officers may choose between writing a municipal citation and alleging a misdemeanor.

What surprises Johnson now, thinking back on the accident, was how the driver who later fled at first came to his aid. “He said, ‘Anything I can do, anything,’” Johnson recalls. “The man sounded apologetic.” The victim was lying on a twisted leg and growing cold in his extremities as shock began to set in. The driver offered his coat.

Medics, the first responders to arrive, pulled the coat off the shaken man and took him to a hospital just a few blocks away. But sometime before police arrived, the driver fled.

Hit and run rates

1) Near South Side / MPD District Two / 41%

2) North Side / MPD District Five / 36%

3) West and North Side / MPD District Three / 32%

4) Northwest Side / MPD District Seven / 28%

5) Downtown and East Side / MPD District One / 28%

6) Far South Side / MPD District Six / 26%

7) Far Northwest Side / MPD District Four / 23%

(source: Milwaukee Police Department)

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Landlord and tenant disputes continue to be a top source of consumer complaints in Wisconsin, second only to telemarketers. As innumerable apartments change hands in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin this month, many disgruntled renters are learning of the patchwork of government agencies and nonprofits in place to protect their rights. It’s a system that cools many tempers and keeps a lot of renters out of court, but it has limits.

In 2009 and 2008, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) received almost equal numbers of written complaints related to disputes between landlords and tenants – 1,650 and 1,646, respectively. So far this year, the state database that tracks complaints registers about 600 rental disputes, but department spokesman Brock Bergey says he expects the number to rise as more are recorded this year. “We’re on track to have a similar year,” he says. “Those numbers are very consistent.”

(photo by adrian palomo)

Like cats and dogs, tenants and landlords are always fighting. What do they fight about most in Wisconsin? According to the department, security deposits are a leading point of contention and account for about a third of all complaints. When landlords fail to return the deposits, delay their reduction or make unfair deductions, tenants can file a written complaint with the department.

“A number of state laws are in place to protect tenants from being cheated out of their security deposits,” says Janet Jenkins, administrator of DATCP’s Division of Trade and Consumer Protection. State law regulates what landlords can legally deduct from the deposits. They can deduct the cost of repairing damages but nothing for “normal wear and tear” such as the cost of a carpet shampoo to prepare the apartment for a new tenant.

But the department doesn’t enforce the laws – it acts as mediator. For enforcement, cases have to be referred to district attorneys or the state Department of Justice. Still, the threat of legal action is enough for most landlords. “Most people just don’t want to deal with any possible recourse,” Bergey says. In small claims court, landlords can be sued for twice the value of the security deposit.

In 2007, about 70 tenants and roommates won a $300,000 class action lawsuit settlement against Milwaukee landlord Tim Brophy Jr., who was accused of failing to return security deposits. While security deposit claims are a substantial portion of  the cases handled in small claims courts, class action suits against landlords “are really, really rare,” says Brenda Konkel, executive director of Wisconsin’s Tenant Resource Center, which recently opened a new office in Milwaukee.

“We’ve been trying to get an office in Milwaukee for forever because the need is so high,” she says. Until the opening of the new office, the Center’s headquarters in Madison handled inquiries from renters seeking advice. “The biggest reasons people call are evictions, repairs, security deposits” and advice on breaking a lease, Konkel says.

Calls go up in the late summer as apartments are changing hands at a frenzied pace – one driven in part by the start of the fall semester on university campuses in Milwaukee and around the state. Renters may not like what they find upon moving in. In Milwaukee, if the source of their displeasure constitutes a building or fire code violation, they can call the Residential Code Enforcement Program at the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services.

The city isn’t interested in mediating disputes, only evaluating code violations.  But building codes have teeth, and the city will take landlords to court over unpaid citations. According to the city, the average court-ordered fine for violating one is about $820. Failure to pay can lead to an arrest warrant.

“We try as much as possible to stay out of the whole relationship,” says Dave Krey, residential code enforcement manager for the city’s DNS. “We try to be as objective as we can.”

The program received about 20,000 complaints in 2009 related to residential properties, including rentals. Krey says some tenants file complaints as a way to get back at a landlord. He encourages them to call the landlord about the issue if they haven’t already.

“We get a lot of complaints, and sometimes when we start digging, we find that sometimes the tenants are the issue,” he says. But in other cases, such as complaints about damaged roofs and flooded basements that followed last month’s massive rainstorm, he adds, renters’ concerns are justified.

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