Civic Minute

Your electric bill is set by state regulators who answer to elected officials. The utility can donate to those officials' campaigns.

When your utility asks to raise your electric rates, three people decide whether the increase is justified. They're the Public Service Commission — appointed by the governor, not elected.

If you buy your health insurance on the marketplace, your premium went up in January. For people who get help paying, the amount they owe more than doubled on average.

Diesel passed six dollars a gallon in September. Before the war with Iran began in February, it was under four.

Wisconsin caps what one person can give a candidate for governor at twenty thousand dollars.

Back in 1899, when state legislators still elected U.S. senators, a copper baron named William Clark bribed enough of them to win a seat.

We've talked about gerrymandering — how politicians draw district lines to choose their voters instead of the other way around.

Last year, a redistricting war broke out. Texas redrew its maps to favor Republicans. California hit back to favor Democrats.

Your federal return doesn't show your whole tax bill. There's payroll tax on every paycheck. Sales tax at every register.

If you're a conservative in Madison, your state representative is a Democrat — and that's not changing. If you're a liberal in Wood County, your rep is a Republican — and that's not changing either.

Taxes pay for roads, schools, and the military. But where do the taxes come from? Mostly, we tax work.

For decades, Washington ran a two-step. Step one: cut taxes. Step two — years later, when deficits grew — declare that we can't afford our programs, and cut those too.

In 1974, economist Arthur Laffer sketched a curve on a napkin for two White House aides: Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

In 1960, the tax rate for the top bracket — that is, income earned beyond the first four million or so in today’s dollars — was ninety-one percent.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a tax reform built on a simple principle: a dollar is a dollar.

So if multi-member districts with proportional representation are such a good idea, why don’t we have them? Two reasons.

Here’s a question. If you live in a district where sixty percent of voters lean one way, what happens to the other forty percent?

Something feels broken. You vote, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Your representative doesn’t listen to you. Elections feel like they’re decided before they start.

Did you know that half the states in the country have passed resolutions asking Congress to propose a constitutional amendment on election spending?

The redistricting war is over — and nobody won. Texas, North Carolina, and Missouri redrew their maps to favor Republicans.

In the last presidential election, ninety-four percent of all campaign events happened in just seven states. That means the vast majority of Americans were completely ignored.

Here’s something that might surprise you. Across Wisconsin, fifty-six counties and dozens of municipalities have passed resolutions calling for nonpartisan redistricting.

In 2022, under Wisconsin’s old gerrymandered maps, only four out of ninety-nine state Assembly races were decided by fewer than five points.

You may have noticed something about gas prices. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, prices shot up almost overnight.