The GOP power grab

Different view on C-sections

I would like to thank Jacqueline H. Wolf for her social history perspective on the current rise of the use of C-sections. It is true we do have more technology today than years ago and we use it for the best outcome of a healthy baby.

I might offer a medical perspective of the rise of the use of C-sections.

I was a nurse trained in the late 1960s with the use of the intermittent fetal stethoscope. Depending on how busy the nurse was determined how often the heart rate of the baby was taken. The doctor only came in for the delivery. Conditions such as a breech baby (bottom down) were not considered to be a need for a C-section although complications often arose.

I have two daughters who are practicing obstetricians so we often talk. I can tell you, they are not basing their decisions to do a C-section on whether their payment will be higher or for their convenience (they are in the hospital all night when on call). With 11 years of medical training apiece, I feel that they use their judgment to provide the best outcome for both mom and baby. Isn’t that what we really want rather than a lower C-section statistic?

MaryAnn Dude, RN

New Berlin

The Republicans aren’t even pretending any more. They’ve usually had some rhetorical rationale for the partisan measures they passed in Madison, but the lame-duck session is all about raw, bare-knuckled power.

Limits on early voting, curbs on the new governor’s authority, and expanded legislative oversight of the executive branch have nothing to do with governing. These measures are political thuggery, and they mark a greedy, graceless departure from any Wisconsin tradition I recognize as home-grown.

The fact that this power grab is occurring in broad daylight, in the 21st century, is terrifying. In their anti-Democratic zeal, the Republicans have become profoundly anti-democratic.

The chief offenders are state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) — grim, gray little men, cheerless operatives of a chilling new order. Whatever notion they once had of the common good has evidently been replaced by a totalitarian fantasy of permanent Republican control.

They don’t even seem to grasp that what they’re doing is wrong. Fitzgerald dismissed the changes as “innocuous.” Vos said his aim was to create a “level playing field,” even though it already tilts sharply to the right.

For the record, guys, when you change the operating rules to benefit your own party, you’re throwing sand in the gears of representative democracy. When you manipulate the very structure of government for partisan ends, you’re violating principles as old as the republic.

Your behavior is, in a word, un-American, and it’s cowardly as well. Are Republicans so afraid to compete in the marketplace of ideas that they have to rig the map and jigger the rules to guarantee their impact?

There are sound alternatives, including nonpartisan reapportionment, open primaries, and renewed limits on big money. All would work, but not until we the people reclaim the power now being so flagrantly abused in Madison.

Editor’s note: John Gurda, a Milwaukee historian, writes a monthly column for the Journal Sentinel.

John Gurda

Bad government at work

The extensive series of bills literally written in secrecy and passed in the dead of night during a lame-duck legislative session is democracy at its worst.

Those who rationalize this action by saying Democrats would have done the same excuse and endorse behavior that is wrong. Every parent and teacher is familiar with the reaction of kids after being admonished for bad behavior: They point a finger at someone else for a similar transgression. This type of rationalization is childish and petty.

True leaders and people of character call out bad behavior whenever they see it. Thank goodness for people like Republican Sheldon Lubar and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum who denounced the undemocratic moves. The idea that good policy can be introduced, get public airing, discussed and passed in three days is absurd.

Elizabeth Kruck

Genoa

Not buying this argument

I just received a long email from state Rep. Dale Kooyenga in which he earnestly tried to persuade me that the lame-duck legislation passed in the middle of the night with no public input is good for the state. Regarding incoming Gov. Tony Evers, “I wish him tremendous success as governor because his success is our success.”

I’m not buying it. If that were true, why is Kooyenga doing what he can to diminish Evers’ effectiveness? He and his fellow Republicans have no intention of working with Evers, for the simple reason that they place party loyalty over what is good for Wisconsinites. They don’t want Evers or any Democrat to be successful. Staying in power is what the Republicans value most, and they do it any cost — voter suppression and gerrymandering are their tactics.

Jennifer Madej

Brookfield

Minimize abuse in state prisons

Would it surprise you to know that there were 132 claims of staff-on-inmate and staff-on-staff sexual abuse occurring within the Department of Corrections in 2017? Would it surprise you to know that for sexual abuse, alone, Wisconsin paid out $800,000 during the last decade in damage claims just for sexual abuse? Finally, would it surprise you to know that there is a tool that can be used to minimize this sort of aggression and a variety of other correctional center abuses?

That tool is something called “monitoring and oversight.” It involves placing an entity, such as a board or an ombudsman, in a statutorily codified position to observe and investigate prison behavior. It’s an idea just beginning to gain attention in the U.S. but an idea that already has been operating effectively in a number of European countries.

Why do these mechanisms work? “Oversight” is the regular monitoring and investigation, when needed, of prison conditions. In other words, what oversight is about is making a prison’s operations transparent and also creating internal accountability procedures. This can occur when an independent board or ombudsman’s staff both have meetings on the prison site and access to prison staff, administration, inmates, and the prison’s records.

With transparency, the public as well as the prison’s administration knows whether the objectives of the prison are being achieved. Too, staff are less likely to treat inmates and each other inappropriately when they know that an independent board or department with transparent access can review their actions. This, in turn, helps to professionalize the behavior of staff.

What are some of the other benefits? Experiences elsewhere suggest that those include lawsuits and injuries averted, improved health conditions, less violence, less use of force, improved morale, improved programs and less recidivism. Monitoring and oversight: Why not?

R.L. McNeely

Chair Felmers O. Chaney Advocacy Board

Please email your letters to jsedit@jrn.com, or mail them to Letters to the editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, P.O. Box 371, Milwaukee, Wis. 53201-0371. Letters should be about 200 words.