Alan J. Borsuk – Page 101 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

A “Paper-Shuffling Bureaucrat” at Center Stage in Wisconsin Politics

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 20, 2012
Post category:Election Law Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Speakers at Marquette

Kevin Kennedy refers to himself as “just a paper-shuffling bureaucrat. – I haven’t moved to rock star status.”

But sometimes, timing is everything. So that’s why there were a gaggle of television cameras, a cluster of reporters, and about 200 others in the room when Kennedy joined Mike Gousha for an “On the Issues” session at Eckstein Hall on Thursday.

Kennedy is director and general counsel of the Wisconsin Governmental Accountability Board. Now in possession of petitions with about 1.9 million signatures calling for recall elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and for four state Senate seats currently held by Republicans, the board is at center stage for one of America’s hottest political scenes. What the GAB decides in handling the petitions and setting the course for the elections that are almost sure to result will have a major bearing on Wisconsin’s future and become a vivid part of Wisconsin’s history.

“It’s an honor to be part this process,” Kennedy told Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy. ”And it’s definitely energizing. You can’t help but get juiced when you’re working on something this challenging.”

Providing Straight Information on Public Opinion in a Historic Political Time

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 19, 2012
Post category:Election Law Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

Amid the amazing tumult on the Wisconsin political scene, with partisanship and passion running so high, how can you get straight information about what voters are thinking?

One good answer: You can run a large-scale polling project, adhering to the highest standards of professionalism and non-partisanship. You can poll repeatedly throughout the year, so that you can follow trends. You can make all the results available promptly to anybody. You can go to lengths to give others a chance to see what you’ve found out.

That is what the Marquette Law School Poll is going to do. It will be the most extensive polling project in Wisconsin history, and we are fully committed to making it an independent effort that will have no agenda except to find out as much as we can about public opinion in Wisconsin and share it with all.

In fact, consider this your invitation to tune into the poll’s results. We are launching the first round of polling on Thursday, Jan. 19, and will release the results next Wednesday, Jan. 25.

Amid Differences, a Call to Work Together to Improve Mental Health Treatment

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 12, 2012
Post category:Civil Rights Health Care Public Speakers at Marquette

It wasn’t part of her prepared remarks, but Prof. Lucinda Roy of Virginia Tech University may have offered an especially important point as she began her keynote address at a conference Wednesday at Eckstein Hall on mental illness commitment laws and other issues related to mental illness.

It had been an intense, and at times tense, morning before a full house of more than 200 in the Appellate Courtroom. Meg Kissinger, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, described “Imminent Danger,” the large project she authored which ran in the newspaper in recent weeks. It described how a revolution in American mental commitment laws, which began with a federal court ruling in a case involving a West Allis woman in 1972, had led to far more people with mental illnesses living outside of mental institutions. Some of them refuse treatment and a few have committed violent acts.

Kissinger and the newspaper had been strongly criticized by some members of the audience who thought the series was sensationalistic and left people with a harmful and wrong image of those with mental illnesses as dangerous. One speaker, Tom Zander, a psychologist, lawyer, and long-time prominent advocate for alternatives to mental commitment, had sharply attacked the series as based on what he regarded as false premises, including the notion that the West Allis case had led to specific horrible crimes. (Zander is an adjunct professor at Marquette University Law School.)

Throughout the morning, which included presentations by experts and by family members of people who had long-term mental illnesses, the difficulties of dealing with mental illness, the failings of the current system for helping people, and the high emotions that the subject raises were clear.