The Morning After: Lessons From the Wisconsin Budget Battle

At last the end game has arrived for the budget bill, after more than three weeks of deadlock in Madison.  Indeed, it was obvious to everyone that the impasse could not persist, and that the only two options available were either a compromise (unlikely) or the eventual adoption of Governor Walker’s bill intact.

Wisconsin’s largest newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has largely failed to take a coherent editorial position on the budget debate.  In fact, the entire local media, both print and television, seem to have bent over backwards in order to appear sympathetic to the arguments of both sides.  In this regard, the local media seems to see its role as something akin to the role of an arms dealer during a civil war: issue statements generally supportive of both sides and hope to sell your product to the widest possible audience. 

However, I believe that there are larger lessons to be learned from the budget battle, and that the issues raised over the last three weeks transcend partisanship. 

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Doing the Basics Right: Wendy Kopp on the Road to Education Transformation

I remember watching a television interview in which a famous tennis player described his first appearance in a big-time tournament. He said he always wondered what was said during breaks in such matches when the player and his coach conferred. He figured there must be some kind of sophisticated strategy talk fit for the top of the sport. But when he came to the first pause in the action, what did the coach tell him? Keep your eye on the ball. Swing smoothly. Concentrate. Which, of course, is what you would tell anyone playing tennis.

There are no magic tricks, no silver bullets. Do the basics, and do them well.

That was a central theme of Wendy Kopp, the founder and CEO of Teach for America, during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” visit to Eckstein Hall this week. Teach for American now has more than 8,00o “corps members” working in high-needs schools across the US, including in Milwaukee.

Kopp, one of the most influential figures on America’s education scene in the last 20 years, gave a decidedly optimistic message about the future – or possible future – for the education of students in schools that have long been associated with poor outcomes. One of her favorite words is “trajectory,” and she is convinced that the trajectory of millions of children can be changed so that they are on a path to academic success.

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Two Models of Sociolegal Change

My article, Constitutional Safety Valve: The Privileges or Immunities Clause and Status Regimes in a Federalist System (previously mentioned here and commented on here), is finally out in the current issue of the Alabama Law Review. (Pre-publication version here.) This article represents the end point of a fairly long process that began with a seminar paper in law school. In 1996, I was impressed with the tenor of the debate in Congress over the Defense of Marriage Act; there were several statements to the effect that failing to wall off the status of legally married same-sex couples would lead to the downfall of society. It reminded me strongly of the rhetoric in Dred Scott that recognition of Scott’s citizenship would have calamitous effects. As I dug into it, I found even stronger parallels in antebellum debates in Congress over travelling black Northern citizens in Southern states, and the extension of slavery to the territories. Congress seemed, then as now, appeared alarmed at the prospect of a state-recognized social status to destabilize the societies of states that didn’t recognize that status, merely by virtue of individuals with that status travelling.

The antebellum debates were ultimately resolved by the Fourteenth Amendment, and in particular the Privileges or Immunities Clause. So I wrote a paper about how the Privileges or Immunities Clause had a forgotten purpose that would mediate an entrenched conflict between states over an inconsistently codified sociolegal status. Of course, that argument will have the most contemporary relevance if such a conflict in fact develops. But it’s not at all clear that we are heading that way. There’s another model of sociolegal change when it comes to anxiety over travellers bearing destabilizing statuses: divorce.

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