Many individuals who strongly embrace the principles of the Democratic Party bristle when they hear Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele claim to be a Democrat, considering his actions over the past four years.
Abele has refused to try to work with the locally elected county supervisors, who on a daily basis are listening to the needs of their constituents and neighbors. Instead, Abele chose to work with the Republicans in the state Legislature, who are not elected by Milwaukee County voters, to undermine the control the Milwaukee County taxpayers have over their own local government.
Unfortunately, Abele is interested in privatizing as much of Milwaukee County as he can and is not opposed to what appear like sweetheart deals for his wealthy friends. His principal advisor is a right-wing Republican and his policies have been essentially anti-working people in favor of his wealthy class. He also has contributed heavily to Republican elected officials.
Abele’s behavior has gotten so extreme that some people are arguing that the new Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, an ethical woman, should begin to propose some basic standards for elected officials like Abele who run in nonpartisan elections with heavy Republican support, but who claim to carry the mantle of the Democrats.
Now there is a small moment of truth. The latest scheme dreamed up by the national right-wing think tanks and passed by legislative Republicans along with the support of Abele will continue to chip away at the power and control of the Milwaukee taxpayers and parents to administer their local schools. In this latest scheme, Abele, a college dropout, gets to appoint a commissioner to run low-performing schools as essentially an education czar over schools that are primarily black and Hispanic. His new czar can move to privatize the various schools under his or her control in a variety of ways. In response to this new law, a coalition of at least 22 local civic and religious groups concerned about the education of our lower income children are requesting that Abele appoint a commissioner who is very strongly opposed to privatizing our public schools. It is important that this appointee have a strong record on this issue of privatization because Abele has a history of lying to organizations to get their support and then afterwards doing a complete about-face and stabbing the organizations in the back.
So the question is, will Abele continue to pander to his Republican friends and work to privatize Milwaukee Public Schools, or will he act like a Democrat and look after the interests of regular working people in Milwaukee by empowering parents and taxpayers?
|
|
