Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!

The television advertisements kicked off in the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin this week. Steve Kagen’s first TV ad says he’s “Rejected Money from Big Oil.” Is that a virtue? What else does it mean?

It’s hardly a news flash that a liberal Democrat like Steve Kagen is trying to score points by attacking energy companies. And he consistently votes against expanded American energy production in Congress (as Gard’s first ad points out quite effectively). Instead, Kagen takes money from the environmental lobby that so virulently opposes drilling:

The League of Conservation Voters Action Fund has donated over $4,000 to him in six chunks over the past two years. The Sierra Club PAC pitched in $7500 as well.
The environmentalists’ lobbyists also help Kagen out as well. The law firm of K&L Gates contributed $1500, while WHD’s PAC contributed $2300 - both lobby for the Environmental Defense Fund (K&L Gates also represents the Environmental Defense Action Fund).
Of course, the Queen of the No Drilling Ever Team is San Fran’s Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She’s given $28,000 to Kagen from her campaign and leadership PAC.

So ask yourself - would you prefer that Steve Kagen was taking money from energy companies that want to see Congress expand American energy production, or from environmental activists who think that $4.50/gallon gas was the best thing since Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize? My answer is pretty simple - drill drill drill!

Steve Kagen’s hired a self-admitted sleaze peddler to do his direct mail in the upcoming cycle. In 2006, DCCC and Kagen used The Campaign Network to do its mail box dirty work (though it’s very high quality dirty work - these folks have a shelf of Pollies), including a piece illustrating John Gard with a Pinnochio nose. The Daily Show with John Stewart interviewed TCN’s team shortly after the 2006 election on its “Dirty Jobs” segment. You can watch the hilarious video here.

GOP3’s Northwoods correspondents report that the head of TCN has been up in the 8th recently, attending community events with Cong. Kagen and getting photo material for the campaign ahead. Expect to see more of the same from a premier Democratic attack firm.

Republicans should not be providing political cover for Democrats on gas prices.

For the last several weeks, John Gard has been hammering incumbent Democrat Congressman Steve Kagen on gas prices. In press releases and telephone and local town hall meetings, Gard has pounded Kagen’s votes against expanded domestic oil production.

Kagen’s response is that typical of a politician without a plan: he empaneled a committee. That way, whenever a reporter or constituent asks about gas prices, he can say, “I’ve brought together some of the best minds in the district to talk about this issue, and we need to wait another few weeks to hear their recommendations in a report,” or something like that.

However, for such a committee to have credibility, it can’t be seen as an assembly of the Congressman’s donors. And that’s where the unfortunate news lies. Republican Mayor Tim Hanna of Appleton and Republican former mayor Paul Jadin of Green Bay are both members of Kagen’s committee.

I understand that for whatever reason they may not like John Gard, and that they may even lust after that particular seat themselves. But then you simply sit the race out, don’t help Gard at all, and wait for 2010. Joining the Congressman’s Energy Advisory Committee is hurting the Republican Party by providing political cover for a vulnerable Democrat, and that’s very unfortunate.

Rick Sense of the new and improved Inside Scoop points out that Steve Kagen recently sponsored legislation to loose the lawyers on OPEC. The legislation subjects the OPEC nations to the same anti-trust laws of U.S. companies (how he gets around sovereign immunity is beyond the scope of this article, but an interesting question). The basic theory goes: you’re not producing enough oil for American consumers to keep prices down, so we’ll sue you.

Of course, under that liability theory, we should all sue Steve Kagen and Nancy Pelosi for stopping America from producing more oil by doing things like drilling for it!

The headline of a press release today from the office of United States Representative Steve Kagen, D-Naive.

“U.S. Rep. Kagen: Asks Chinese Ambassador to share our values.”

Good luck with that. Maybe if you passed them a warm rock, they would stop being communists.

The Hon. Steve Kagen, Member of Congress, is posing for holy pictures on immigration. He knows that in a district like Northeastern Wisconsin, the polling is pretty clear that holding the line on illegal immigration is a hot button issue.

So Kagen hopped on the bandwagon with Heath Shuler’s SAVE bill, which is supported by Tom Tancredo and the Immigration Reform Caucus.

But don’t be fooled! Steven Kagen is NOT the strong borders guy he’s trying to act like.

He voted to allow illegal immigrants to form unions in the United States. (House Roll Call 117)
He voted against full funding for the construction of the border fence as mandated by Congress. (House Roll Call 490)
He voted to make it easier for illegal immigrants to receive federal housing assistance, instead of ensuring that the funds go to the low-income Americans. (House Roll Call 628, 814 and 875)

That’s Congressman Steve Kagen, D-WI-8, standing next to a gentleman from the Fox River Navigational Authority and Congressman Jim Oberstar, D-MN-8. After an official tour of the Fox River area with Congressman Oberstar, who chairs the House Transportation Committee, on which Kagen serves, there was a separate campaign fundraiser with Kagen and Oberstar.

The same day that Rep. Kagen was towtowing to Chairman Oberstar, and using him to raise money from the road builders, I got an email from Citizens Against Government Waste. CAGW is a highly respected outfit out in D.C. that fights against pork, earmarks, and other wasteful government spending by members of both parties.

The email announced that Chairman Oberstar had been designated the August “Porker of the Month.”

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named House Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) Porker of the Month for August, 2007. In the wake of the bridge collapse in the congressman’s home state in which at least nine people were killed, Chairman Oberstar’s immediate reaction was to propose a “temporary” 5 cent increase in the gas tax to raise $25 billion within three years for a new bridge trust fund. …
The 2005 highway bill contained $2 billion annually for bridge reconstruction. During its markup of the bill, the House Transportation Committee considered increasing that figure to $3 billion a year. The committee not only failed to include the higher level of bridge repair funding, it opened the door for members of Congress to stuff the bill with nearly 6,500 pork-barrel projects worth more than $24 billion, about the same amount now being sought by Rep. Oberstar with his proposed tax increase.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported recently that Rep. Oberstar is the second-greatest transportation porker in the House:

“As part of a spiking trend of congressional ‘earmarks,’ legislators are wrapping up a $284 billion transportation bill with more than 4,100 special projects selected by members of Congress themselves. One of the principal beneficiaries is Rep. Jim Oberstar, the longest-serving House member in Minnesota history and the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. Under a version of the bill passed recently by the House, Oberstar would claim $151.6 million in special projects - half the state’s total of $302 million in earmarked funds. It’s the second-largest haul of any member of Congress, after Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska. Young’s district is his entire state.”

In an October 2006 press release, Steve Kagen promised he would “end all pork-barrel projects.” His campaign website promises to “free our government from the influence of political insiders and corporate special interests.” But when he has the opportunity to raise campaign cash from an interest group by featuring the man who hands out the pork to that interest group, he has no problem doing so.

1. Steve Kagen and Medical Marijuana:
From failed US Senate candidate Ben Masel in a 2005 DailyKos comment:

Spent some time with him [Steve Kagen] at Fighting Bob Fest. Good first impression.
It should be no suprise that my first question was drug policy. He came out unequivocally for hemp as an agricultural commodity, and was fairly knowldgeable on its advantages, especially for a district whose economy is dominated by the paper industry.
Turning to medical marijuana, I was in for a suprise. He supports its use only in non-smoked forms. Turns out that 25 years ago he published a paper on mold and bacterial contamination of street marijuana, and thus considers it unsafe.

Steve Kagen’s position on Marijuana in the House this last week:

Shamefully, one of those was Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Steve Kagen, who joined Republicans Jim Sensenbrenner, Paul Ryan and Tom Petri in voting against Hinchey to continue funding federal efforts aimed at subverting state medical marijuana laws. His fellow Democrats, Tammy Baldwin, Ron Kind, Gwen Moore and David Obey all voted to protect patients in the 12 states with state laws.

Someone doesn’t want to tick off suburban moms…

2. Prudence and Proportionality
I showed up on Mirror of Justice this week (MOJ is the nation’s main Catholic legal thought blog) with an email comment responding to a very misguided fellow comment-emailing-reader. This, in turn, set off a series of posts on Catholic considerations in the voting booth. It was an interesting exchange…

3. Driving Potential Students Away, Part 47In the May edition of COLUMBIA, the worldwide magazine of the Knights of Columbus, there’s an article from the Catholic writer Russell Shaw on “Dissent and Human Dignity.” In it, he takes on Dan Maguire’s arguments one by one. He also makes it pretty likely we won’t get any new admissions candidates whose dads read the magazine… (You can find the hardcopy of the magazine in the Raynor, 2nd floor, right by the bathrooms)

A statement today from John Gard (HT: Sykes):

“Today, I’ve taken the first steps towards gathering the resources I’ll need to run a winning campaign to represent the 8th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. I believe the people of Northeast Wisconsin deserve a congressman who will look out for the best interests of our hard-working families and fight for our Wisconsin values.

“Steve Kagen and I have some very real differences on some of the most important issues facing our country.

“Since his election to Congress, Steve Kagen voted for a budget that would pave the way for the largest tax increases in American history. I believe families are seeing too much of their paychecks taken up in taxes. I would have voted differently.

“Steve Kagen voted to spend Social Security dollars on other government programs. I believe Social Security dollars should be spent on Social Security only. I would have voted differently.

“Steve Kagen voted against fully funding the construction of a fence to guard our borders, and he voted to allow illegal immigrants to have access to federal housing assistance funds. I believe we should stop rewarding illegal behavior and start protecting our borders – immediately. I would have voted differently.

“I think it is also telling that 75% of Steve Kagen’s campaign contributions are from Washington, D.C. special interest groups. It certainly shows where the bulk of Congressman Kagen’s support lies.

“I’ll make a final decision later this year, but Cate and I are looking forward to traveling Northeast Wisconsin to talk about how we can build a better and brighter future for all of our families.”

I am hopeful that this tone of contrast, that focuses on Kagen’s record in Congress, continues. In 2006, we were stuck with nasty, personal ads talking about whether he took Medicare patients or whether he ever hired an attorney. Now that we have a year of votes in Congress, Gard’s campaign can do the simple, classic: He voted this way. I would vote the other way. Which way would you vote?

UPDATE: Minutes after posting this, I received an email “Gard Gazette” with the statement. The bottom italics paragraph gives the campaign’s brief Gard biography: “John Gard represented Marinette, Brown and Oconto Counties in the State Assembly from 1987-2006. Gard was the architect of Wisconsin’s groundbreaking welfare reform initiative, and he helped pass the largest property tax cut in state history. Gard and his wife Cate live in Suamico. They have two children.”

UPDATE II: I see the release now on Wispolitics and also they’ve got a very good story with reaction from Lassee, Wieckert, Jadin, and NRCC. Lassee would be Terri McCormick all over again. Wieckert and Jadin would both be more serious candidates, and Wieckert specifically discounted the role of the state and national Republican establishment in designating the candidate. None the less, the NRCC has its man: “John Gard is a battle-tested candidate and a proven leader who we believe has what it takes to defeat Steve Kagen,” NRCC spokesman Ken Spain said.

The release has Mark Graul as the contact person - Graul is the grand poo-bah of Wisconsin GOP strategists… he managed Green’s successful upset of Jay Johnson in 1998, his subsequent reelects in the 8th, the 2004 Bush campaign in Wisconsin, Green’s failed 2006 gubernatorial effort, and the successful 2007 judicial election of Annette Ziegler to the WI Supreme Court.

A wonderful (relatively) new blog out there called Little Miss Sunshine brings to our attention new advertisements up in the 8th Congressional District:

I just got in and turned on the 6:00 news. Right before my weekly dose of the Insider and celebrity gossip, I see a Steve Kagen ad.
It touts his vote to increase minimum wage, veterans benefits, some other accomplishment I missed while I had to run to the restroom to puke, and now his ‘work to make drugs more affordable.’
The closer: “Steve Kagen is off to a good start.”

The ad is run and funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most liberal members of today’s union movement.

I’ll echo Little Miss’ closing comment:

Yuck. It’s early for these kind of ads. Seems Dr. Millionaire knows he’s vulnerable …