|
Monday Morning
Review 2.18.10
(A monthly
report from Brad Boycks with WBA to update us
on what is happening at the
Capitol)
Supreme Court Supports Free
Speech
In mid-January the
U.S. Supreme Court handed down a much anticipated decision in the Citizens United v FEC case. Court watchers
have been expecting this case for the past few months and recently the decision was finally announced.
In a 5-4 decision the court decided that:
• Corporate spending on issue advocacy communications cannot be restricted, which will bar provisions of
McCain-Feingold and efforts by states to place restrictions on when issues ads can be aired before an election.
• Disclaimer and disclosure requirements are permissible for independent expenditures and issue advocacy
communications.
• Direct corporate campaign contributions still may be prohibited. In other words, states like Wisconsin that
forbid corporations from making direct contributions to candidates and political action committees may continue to
do so.
“Good government”
groups have issued statements that this change will have a horrible effect on Campaign 2010. Others noted that they
believed this decision was going to go even further by allowing direct corporate contributions to campaigns and
political action committees and would also forbid government from disclosure requirements.
The attorney that WBA and the Building Industry Council (BIC) uses for election and grass roots lobbying
matters summarized the decision like this. “As expected, Citizens United is a landmark campaign finance decision
that will have direct implications on political speech in 2010 and beyond. In the next few weeks, regulators will
need to decide how to try to address unconstitutional regulations while legislators will need to try to address
unconstitutional state laws that conflict with today’s holding. Government bodies that do not act quickly are
likely to face litigation challenging speech restrictions that remain in place. We will, of course, continue to
study and evaluate the broad effects of Citizens United on state or federal campaign finance law as well as other
areas of political speech.”
Save the Date: April 21, 2010 for NAHB Legislative
Conference
This year NAHB’s annual lobby day is set for
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 in Washington D.C. Members can begin registering on line starting this coming Monday,
February 8, 2010.
Much like our Business
Day in Madison this is the last opportunity to join other members from throughout Wisconsin and the country to
advocate for important housing issues directly to your member of Congress.
For more information
including a draft agenda, please visit www.nahb.org/Legcon.
Kanavas decides against 3rd full term in State Senate;
Rep. Zipperer frontrunner
In a surprise announcement State Senator Ted Kanavas
(R-Brookfield) announced that he would not be seeking a third full term in the state Senate. Kanavas was first
elected to the state Senate in a special election in the summer of 2001 to replace Margaret Farrow who was selected
by then Governor Scott McCallum to serve as Wisconsin’s first female Lieutenant Governor.
It was rumored that
Kanavas was leaving the state Senate to explore a run against U.S. Senator Russ Feingold but by the end of the week
Kanavas announced that was not in his future plans. The bottom line on why Kanavas decided against another run for
the state Senate in his very safe, very Republican Senate seat is he wanted to spend more time perusing business
opportunities in the private sector. In other words he wanted to make more money at a job outside of politics.
Quickly after Kanavas’
retirement announcement Representative Rich Zipperer (R-Brookfield) announced he would not run for re-election to
his state Assembly seat in order to run for Kanavas’ state Senate seat.
Zipperer is the early
front runner for this seat for a number of reasons starting with the fact that his current assembly seat is a 71.5%
GOP seat, he was endorsed today by former Lieutenant Governor and state Senator Margaret Farrow, and it is very
likely he will receive the early endorsement of both Kanavas and Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner (Zipperer
served as a longtime staff member for Sensenbrenner).
All of the above
reasons in addition to the fact that Zipperer received 59% of the vote in the Republican primary for his current
Assembly seat in a five way primary.
Convention fundraiser recap
Thank you to those who hosted and attended the
fundraiser during our state convention to raise funds for the WBA Building a Better Wisconsin PAC and the NAHB
BUILD-PAC. I am happy to report that your efforts on this
event helped raise over $5000 for both PACs.
A
special thank you to our special invited guests, Rep. Roger Roth, Reid Ribble and Sen. Kapanke, all members running
for Congress in 2010.
We
look forward to incorporating an event like this to be part of WBA conventions in the future!
CO bill passes State Senate & assembly
Recently the bill to require the installation of carbon monoxide detectors in one and two-family homes (SB 415) was
passed by the state Senate and state Assembly. The bill passed the state Senate on a voice vote and the state
Assembly by a vote of Ayes 69, Noes 27.
You may remember
that part of the 2009-2010 WBA GA Agenda, which was approved by the WBA Board of Directors in October 2008,
included a provision to support legislation that would require carbon monoxide alarms to be installed in Wisconsin
homes. Existing homes would be required to install a plug-in alarm and any new one or two-family home would
be
required to install a hard-wired carbon monoxide alarm.
| 
