Richard Leinenkugel, a 1980 graduate of Marquette University, was recently appointed commerce secretary of Wisconsin by Gov. Jim Doyle.
Before taking on the position in September, the secretary served as vice president of sales and marketing at the Chippewa-Falls based Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, which has been in his family for five generations. Already, Leinenkugel has translated the skills and language of this experience into governmental administration.

“Selling and marketing beer is first and foremost a people business. You develop a mindset of being customer-focused. State government needs, first and foremost, to have a customer-service perspective,” said Leinenkugel. “Part of my job is selling the state of Wisconsin.”

Leinenkugel said this mindset was especially important in Department of Commerce’s recruitment capacity, which attracts businesses and investments into Wisconsin. Customers also include the developers and architects raising buildings, which Commerce regulates, licenses, and investigates for safety, and low-to-moderate income citizens benefiting from community block-grant developments which provide affordable housing.

Commerce is also the primary agency which works with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help people in times of crisis, most recently after the summer’s severe floods.

Commerce employs specialists in fields as diverse as housing and community and development, agri-business, importing-exporting, geology and engineering. Geologists are employed to inspect all in-ground and above-ground petroleum tanks in the state to inspect leakage and safety. Leinenkugel said the department recruits from the engineering schools at Marquette and the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin.

When asked what advice he had for students graduating in economically uncertain times, Leinenkugel drew analogy to the crisis at the time of his own 1980 graduation, when mortgage interest and inflation rates were in double digits and gas prices had doubled since over the last decade. Still, Leinenkugel said “There are still many, many opportunities for college students.”

“It’s not all doom-and-gloom,” he said, and advised students looking into careers in business to seek internships and student organizations that would expose them to contacts in their chosen fields.

Leinenkugel said the economic downturn is “directly” affecting the size of the $3 billion state spending deficit projected for the 2009-10 two-year budget. This year, income tax revenues are down four percent, and those from sales tax were down 10 percent.

Though Wisconsin has strong manufacturing companies tied to automotive, home building and office building-construction, Leinenkugel said these “big-ticket item” industries could face hard times.

Leinenkugel said Wisconsin’s leading paper industry had faced several mill closings, but that the business is “highly cyclical.” He also said agri-business was “strong,” especially in the areas of dairy products and bull’s genetic material for insemination, which Wisconsin is “one of the biggest exporters of.”
Investments in technologies are also concerns for Commerce, including biotech and renewable fuels. Commerce is currently examining research on the conversion of wood products into biofuels, said Leinenkugel.

In 1980, Leinenkugel graduated from Marquette, where he had been a Naval ROTC scholarship winner. He continued his military career for three years, in which he toured the West Pacific twice in six-month increments, stationing out of Hawaii. Deployment let Leinenkugel “see the world,” working in such diverse locales as Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Oman.

After the military, Leinenkugel began work in sports marketing for Kempner Sports Management, a Chicago-based firm which organizes golf tournaments. For three months out of the year, Leinenkugel worked on site in either Maui or Kauai as tournament director for the LPGA Women’s Kemper Open Tournament.

Around the same time the Leinenkugel Brewing Company was purchased by Miller Brewing, Leinenkugel began work at the family business, where he would achieve the title of vice president of marketing and sales.

When asked whether he observed in his 21 years selling beer if consumers drink more or less during a poor economy, Leinenkugel said, “There are different schools of thought. One is that beer is a relatively affordable luxury. Even [Leinenkugel brand] is maybe a dollar more per six-pack. It’s one of life’s simple pleasures people still want to enjoy with friends and family, and cheaper than a $20 or $30 bottle of wine.”
“I would think people still want to be social; I wouldn’t look to beer to suffer in hard times,” said Leinenkugel.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Regional Transit Authority of Southeastern Wisconsin is not a particularly new concept. It was started in 2005 by the Wisconsin State Legislature and Governor Doyle. Since that time, the task of the RTA has been to find funding for a commuter rail and/or public transportation for the counties involved with the RTA. Currently those counties include Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Racine.

The RTA wants to include Waukesha County to try to move things forward. The reason they are looking to Waukesha County could be seemingly obvious, as there are a lot of people in Waukesha County, and a lot of money in Waukesha County that the coalition wants. It would be unfortunate for the citizens of Waukesha County if they do become involved with the RTA because it would create a funnel for their Waukesha County tax dollars to go to public transportation.

The problem is that if the RTA is able to build the commuter rail between Milwaukee and Kenosha, it will instantly become a sink hole for money. The fares will not pay for it, and it will have to be supplemented by the tax payers of the counties involved.

The way it stands now, Marquette students are already supplementing Milwaukee County Transit Systems, to the tune of $41 a semester which is expected to rise next year. The claim is that the proposed increase is because of higher gas prices.

Marquette students already have enough on their tuition bills, with the increasing tuition prices, the increasing student activity fee, and health services, among other things. The last thing that Marquette students need is to have to worry about a costly commuter train being built that would cost the tax payers of Milwaukee County, and Marquette students more money.

Popularity: 13% [?]

In its profile of the Wisconsin Governor’s race, the New York Times said incumbent Democrat Jim Doyle “comes off more as a technocrat than an ideologue.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines a technocrat as “a technical expert, especially one in a managerial or administrative position.”

Jim Doyle was re-elected yesterday by the voters of Wisconsin because he’s more of a technocrat than a politician. He’s a man of small ideas, not grand visions, and sometimes, often actually, voters like that.

On values issues, Doyle is a liberal’s liberal. He’s often wielded his veto pen to please the pro-gay marriage crowd, the pro-abortion groups and the gun control crowd. During the campaign he characterized his veto as the only thing stopping enactment of Republicans’ “extreme right-wing” social agenda, and he prodded liberals to get out and volunteer for his campaign.

But even with gay marriage and the death penalty on the ballot, Wisconsin voters choose Doyle based on his perceived moderate stances on economic and social questions. Doyle’s “Affordability Agenda,” which encompassed issues like health care, education, jobs and taxes, seemed to find solid center-left ground upon which to stand.

Health care
Doyle’s health care plan is a story of conflicting tax breaks. On the one hand, Doyle supports expanding the tax deduction for an employee’s share of the cost of health insurance. But on the other, Doyle is the only governor in the nation to veto a state tax deduction for health savings accounts. Still, tax credits and deductions are more moderate that standard liberal health care welfare programs.

This summer, Doyle created a bi-partisan “Healthy Wisconsin Council” to look at pooling catastrophic insurance purchasing in Wisconsin. What Doyle really wanted to do was replicate such a program in New York, but he lacked the political will. It may turn out to have been a campaign-season stunt to make Doyle appear concerned about health care. But if the Council’s Republicans get on board, it may become a bi-partisan program that saves the state and businesses on their health insurance premiums.

Doyle’s campaign ran a TV ad touting his work on FamilyCare, which allows some seniors to choose to stay in their homes rather than being placed in a nursing home. Because home care is generally cheaper than staff-intensive nursing homes, this program saves the state money. With bi-partisan support, FamilyCare will likely expand statewide over the next four years. This is typical of Doyle’s moderate tendencies: Find a program that saves taxpayers and provides state benefits for seniors. Education
Doyle has assiduously crafted his image as “the education governor.” So far, he’s pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into public schools. No doubt this school-spending spree will continue during his second term, which will make the teachers’ union very happy indeed. Still, do not expect Doyle’s second term to produce a comprehensive revamp of Wisconsin’s education funding system, which analysts on both sides of the aisle believe to be terribly broken. It is doubtful Doyle and Legislative Republicans could ever find an agreement that meets the needs of Doyle’s teachers’ union pals and Republicans’ anti-tax agenda.

Doyle’s “Wisconsin Covenant,” which guarantees high-performing eighth-graders admission to a college in Wisconsin, has already secured significant support from both public and private institutions of higher learning. This initiative’s success will be his signature second-term accomplishment for higher education.

Jobs and taxes
Here again, Doyle has managed to seek out a mushy center-left existence. During his first term, Doyle signed Jobs Creation Acts I and II to repeal various environmental and other regulations and reform the single-factor sales tax to help business in Wisconsin grow. He also signed two minimum wage increases, but only after convincing business interest groups to endorse the proposals and the Republican Legislature to pass them.

Given Doyle’s environmentalist campaign rhetoric and endorsements, it is highly doubtful that in his second term Doyle will pass any new regulatory relief. It’s also pretty unlikely Wisconsin will get another minimum wage increase after passing two in recent years. Rather, it is expected that Doyle will focus on passing a “Living Wage Tax Credit.” As a refundable tax credit, it is basically a welfare program – we’ll see if the Republicans in the Legislature bite.

On taxes, Doyle vetoed a strong Republican property tax freeze, and then used his line item veto pen to write his own watered-down property tax freeze. Still, however weak, it was a property tax freeze. In his second term, taxes will continue to grow incrementally, as Republicans continue to pass tough budgets and Doyle continues to use his veto pen to craft weak “freezes.”

Alternative Theory
The overall prediction is that Doyle will continue to govern from the mushy middle. On values questions he will wield his veto pen to stop Republicans from passing concealed carry, abortion restrictions etc. On social questions, he will continue his current track of spending more on education and using targeted tax credits and deductions to help working-class families.

Wisconsinites will see taxes continue to inch up incrementally under a quasi-freeze, but Doyle won’t be able to stray too far because his starting point will always be the Republican Legislature’s budget.

Yet Doyle suggested on WISC-TV this campaign is “quite possibly my last.” (Republicans have capitalized on these rumors to motivate their base, suggesting that Doyle has only been moderate during his first term because he wanted so badly to be re-elected. Once the need to appeal to independents and moderates is removed because he’s not running again, Doyle will govern from his hard-left heart, as the theory goes. Only time will tell if that theory is proven true; regardless, Doyle will still be limited to governing from the common ground he can find with Legislative Republicans.

Conclusion
No one will accuse Doyle of being the heir to John F. Kennedy. He’s bald and bland on the stump. But maybe that’s why the undecided voters went with him – he’s safe. He makes the trains run on time. He’s not flashy, but he not threatening either. And he’s a technocrat, not a politician. So even though only 32 percent of voters think Wisconsin is headed in the right direction, the incumbent governor wins. In a quintessentially purple state, Doyle navigated the last four years just right. He used his veto pen to keep his liberal base happy, and he used his bully pulpit to push small ideas that appeal to moderates. Toss in $12 million of television advertising, and in a heavily Democrat cycle you clinch four more years. What he’ll make of them will be as much up to the Republican legislative majority as Doyle himself.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Very few on campus know that come this next election the position of Secretary of State is up for grabs. In fact, I’d bet some do not even know Wisconsin has such a position.

The Republican candidate for the position, Sandy Sullivan, could be considered a political novice, as this is her first attempt at a public office. Sullivan was born in Mauston, Wis. She is 65 years old. Sullivan attended the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point and later went on to Madison for her graduate degree.
Continue Reading

Popularity: 15% [?]

Very few on campus know that come this next election the position of Secretary of State is up for grabs. In fact, I’d bet some do not even know Wisconsin has such a position. The Republican candidate for the position, Sandy Sullivan, could be considered a political novice, as this is her first attempt at a public office. Sullivan was born in Mauston, Wis. She is 65 years old. Sullivan attended the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point and later went on to Madison for her graduate degree.

Her opponent, incumbent Democrat Douglas LaFollette is also a UW graduate, but from Madison. He is 66 years old. He was elected to the office of Secretary of State in 1974 and 1982, and has been re-elected ever since 1986.

LaFollette believes he has had many accomplishments during his tenure. “We have modernized the office and brought it up to standards,” said LaFollette. “We have also been computerizing and microfilming records for preservation.”

LaFollette also said that as the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, he had succeeded in protecting a large portion of the land that the government manages. They have also used some of this land for development. From this development the Board of Commissioners has been able to generate $25 million in revenue which has been put towards Wisconsin public schools.

When asked about his chances for victory in the election, LaFollette said, “I’m optimistic. While I was out around the state this summer and fall, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from people.”

For Sullivan, the motivation to become involved in politics came when she was taking care of her ailing father.

“After I had written my book, ‘Green Bay Love Stories and Other Affairs,’ during my father’s illness, I needed to sell my books so I went to any venue that would let me talk about my book.” said Sullivan. “After each of those venues, people would come up to me saying how honest and forthright I seemed and that they thought I should run for public office.” After investigating what positions were up for election, she decided on Secretary of State.

Sullivan has attracted media attention from outlets as diverse as Fox News and Comedy Central for her book, which details her various sexual and other adventures with Green Bay Packers players in the 1960s.

“I want to restore the position [of Secretary of State] to the way it used to be before LaFollette, when it was in charge of the State Election Board. I want to be able to go out to the world to promote Wisconsin business and encourage foreign investment in the state,” she said.

Popularity: 15% [?]

“Shall section 13 of article XIII of the constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?” (Exact wording of the Nov. 7th statewide referendum regarding the Wisconsin Marriage Protection Amendment)On Nov. 7, Wisconsin’s state Legislature will issue a referendum to voters to decide whether or not the noted passage above should be included as an amendment to the state’s constitution, effectively banning same-sex marriages and all civil unions without marriage licenses.

The ban, which has been passed in the state’s legislative branch twice, will go into effect and become law if Wisconsin’s majority votes “yes.” If the referendum fails, the question of whether or not its predominately conservative supporters will push to try again is up in the air.

Wisconsin currently has no definition of a marital union that can apply to same-sex couples, civil unions or heterosexual “domestic partnerships.” The latter are essentially unmarried couples, gay or straight, who live together but have not been joined in traditional civil or religious ceremonies. Civil unions are similar, except a legal proceeding has taken place to give the couple certain rights and benefits otherwise reserved for traditionally married couples. New Mexico and Rhode Island are currently the only other states in the country that have an “unknown or undefined” set of rules to either recognize or to deny non-traditional partnerships. Seven other states will issue an amendment referendum like Wisconsin’s in November.

Eighteen states have passed full constitutional amendments like the proposed Wisconsin one, and 24 others ban civil and same-sex unions with statues. Just five states and the District of Columbia recognize domestic partnerships, while two – Connecticut and Vermont – allow civil unions.

Massachusetts alone recognizes same-sex marriages, following a State Supreme Judicial Court decision in 2003. The “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, however, throws the Massachusetts decision into a controversial limbo; the clause requires states to accept and enforce the judicial proceedings of other states. However, the Defense of Marriage Act, signed during Clinton’s presidency, allows states to refuse recognition of same-sex marriages in other states. The discrepancies between DOMA and the clause, therefore, make it impossible for a state denying civil unions (i.e. Alabama) and one upholding them (Massachusetts) to find common ground. In simpler terms, if two men legally joined in Boston moved to Alabama, the state of Alabama – citing its own laws and DOMA – would consider their Massachusetts marriage license nothing more than a piece of paper.

Scholars believe this issue will be in question until a national standard for marriage is set or the U.S. Supreme Court tries a case of precedence. The issue has become as much of a legal debate as it has a moral one. The beliefs of Fair Wisconsin, an anti-amendment group based in Madison, are perhaps best expressed by their motto: “A Fair Wisconsin Votes No.” According to Fair Wisconsin’s Web site, they maintain that the constitutional addition “hurts loving and committed lesbian and gay couples who live in every part of Wisconsin” and “endangers existing legal protections for all unmarried couples.”

The organization has received a great deal of help spreading their “Vote No” campaign message at Marquette, with a chapter being established as an official student group on campus just weeks ago.

Pro-amendment groups include the Family Research Institute of Wisconsin and Vote Yes for Marriage, both of which also support a nationwide marriage referendum. Vote Yes for Marriage asserts that the “traditional one-man-one-woman marriage is good for men and women [and] is the best environment for children.”

FRIW, in defending its stance, cited a July 2006 UW-Madison Survey Center statewide poll, which found that about 53 percent of those surveyed supported the amendment while 44 percent said they were opposed. WisPolitics.com and Diversified Research conducted a more recent poll, released in early October, that showed 53 percent of respondents in favor of the amendment and 39 percent opposed.

The Catholic Church in Wisconsin encourages the population to vote in favor of the amendment, calling it “the prudent thing to do in light of judicial and legislative actions in other states.” The bishops listed both secular and religious reasons for their views, but stressed their desire to remain respectful and sensitive to both homo- and heterosexual couples of all types. In their open letter to Wisconsin’s Catholics, the bishops articulate their stance: “Our support of this amendment has as its only motive the strengthening and defense of marriage, and should not be interpreted as hostility to any group.”

Although the Law School hosted a debate on the topic in early October, Marquette’s administration has not yet issued an official university statement regarding the amendment.

Both sides have urged students to voice their opinion on Nov. 7.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Jonah Goldberg sat at the end of the first row of Varsity Theater ten minutes before he was scheduled to speak last Thursday, keeping to himself while reviewing his presentation.

Several excited students shuffled down the aisle, discussing their anticipation. At 7:00 p.m, Goldberg, the editor-at-large of National Review Online, stepped up to the podium, looked over dozens of eager eyes, and began a 90-minute oration filled with witty remarks and sharp insights.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 13% [?]

Newspaper consolidation is in the works again. Journal Communications, the parent company of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, announced in mid-January that Community Newspaper Incorporated (CNI) in New Berlin will be realigned under Journal Communications.
Continue Reading

Popularity: 14% [?]

Business students gathered in David Straz Hall to hear Dean David Shrock’s vision for the College of Business Administration, November 9. The forum, which lasted about an hour, focused on the college’s reputation as a nationally renowned program.

Although the college lags behind many of the country’s highly reputed business institutions, Marquette’s program is ranked 87th in the country, beating a fair amount of competition.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 12% [?]

As Walker and Green’s recognition and support creep upward in the polls, members and groups within the political arena are beginning weigh in on issues of the campaign.

Continue Reading

Popularity: 9% [?]