Blog Features

Hey all!

I just wanted to let you know some of the features I've created on the blog. If you look under the title of blog you will see a reel of news headlines. Click on any one of them to get the most up to date news about the race. Also, if you look in the right hand column of the page you will see a section call "pages." If you look at the link you will see that I have posted the web newsletter from Van Hollen. If you keep looking back over there I will keep that section updated with each newsletter that the candidates produce.

I hope you check out some of the new features and I will definitely be putting up some more soon!

Robyn

Let's Meet the Candidates-Part 2

Scott Hassett

Scott Hassett is the Democratic challenger for the Attorney General seat. Hassett was a trial attorney for 22 years and was chosen to lead the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in 2003. His main message is:

"It's time for a change in the Attorney General's office. People all around Wisconsin have urged me to run for Attorney General. They know we need an AG who doesn't politicize that office, who will help keep our communities safe, who will fight polluters and stand up for consumers."

Hassett has been quoted saying that Van Hollen knew about the Kratz sexting scandal. Essentially, Kratz is the Calumet County district attorney, and he sent some 30 sexually suggestive texts to a domestic abuse victim whose case he was prosecuting. If you don't know what that whole thing is about, check out these links:

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20101004/SHE0101/310040159/Calumet-County-DA-Kratz-resigns-amid-sexting-scandal

http://www.htrnews.com/article/20101005/MAN0101/310060011/Resignation-may-not-end-Ken-Kratz-s-woes-after-sexting-scandal

According to Hassett, Van Hollen knew about the whole thing and did nothing. According Politifact.com, Hassett's accusations are false. They say that Van Hollen did pressure Kratz to turn himself in. But, honestly, that is all he did. He did not turn him in to the Governor, who has the power to remove district attorney's from office, he did not even really pursue a case against him. The Department of Justice had the case open for a few days, then closed it without even interviewing Kratz. I'm with Hassett on this one. Van Hollen should have done a lot more. Our attorney general should have the public's best interest in mind, and if a victim of abuse is scared to go to the police because her prosecutor is harassing her, and then the Department of Justice does nothing, then I think our Attorney General is NOT doing his job.

If you want to check out the Politifact.com argument yourself, here is the link:

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2010/oct/04/scott-hassett/challenger-scott-hassett-says-attorney-general-jb-/

And, if you want to check out Hassett's website, click here:

http://hassettforag.com/

See you soon

Robyn

Let's Meet the Candidates

J B Van Hollen

J B Van Hollen is the current incumbent holding the position of Wisconsin Attorney General. He is a Republican and he won his office in 2006. This is the list of the Department of Justice's accomplishments his website has chosen to list as the highlights of his incumbency:

• Eliminated backlog of DNA evidence in Wisconsin State Crime Laboratories
• State Crime Labs worked 4,013 DNA cases in 2008 compared to 1,983 cases in 2007 - a 102% increase.
• Developed new relationship with ICE to arrest more than 300 criminal illegal aliens
• Expanded Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force by over 150 agencies compared to just 22 affiliates prior to 2007. Nearly 3oo arrests of child sex predators
• Recovered or entitled to recover more than $40 million in Medicaid fraud restitutions
• Awarded the Political Openness Advocate of the Year Award from the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council for "ongoing commitment" and Vigorous affirmation" of public records law
• Issues more formal and informal Attorney General Opinion than his two predecessors combined between 1996-2006
• Charged 17 individuals with crimes related to election fraud
• Judgements of more than $7.5 million in environmental enforcement actions.

Van Hollen has not really received a lot of press. On PolitiFact Wisconsin.com there is only 1 statement that has been made by VanHollen and only 1 by his challenger, Scott Hassett. Van Hollen claims that there at least 22,000 IP addresses in Wisconsin that have downloaded child pornography, and the site shows that this seems to be true. The statement by his opponent, however was a lie. Van Hollen is being painted in a pretty positive light at the moment.

The Rhinelander Daily News posted an article, most of which is Van Hollen's own opinion about himself, where Van Hollen says that "Wisconsin voters are frustrated with incumbent office holders...he's one of the few incumbents that voters have not expressed that frustration about." If you have watched TV at all lately, you would see all the negative campaigning that has been going on, so I would definitely agree that Wisconsin voters are frustrated, but I would like to see a poll that says whether its the incumbents they are frustrated with or just the politicians in general. About Van Hollen though, no one has seemed to discount his statements at this time.

A dim spot on Van Hollen's record is the accusations of him bringing forth a frivolous lawsuit against the Government Accountability board. His lawsuit revolved around that claims that the board wasn't doing the proper voter identity checks. On Van Hollen sides, they claim that this suit would have prevented fraudulent voters from casting ballots. On the opposing side, they claim that this would just cause long lines and confusion on voting day and many voters would end up not getting to cast their vote.

Van Hollen also tried to block the implement of the national health care bill earlier this year.

If you want to look up more on Van Hollen for yourself, here are some useful links:

Van Hollen's official campaign site

http://www.vanhollenforag.com/Home.aspx

Some of the news sources cited in this post

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/32540724.html

http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/104520079.html

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/92707809.html

Politifacts Wisconsin: All statements that deal with JB Van Hollen

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/jb-van-hollen/statements/

Check back soon for my profile of the Challenger, Scott Hassett

L8er

Robyn

Welcome!

Hey all! Well, to start off this blog is going to follow the 2010 election of the Wisconsin Attorney General. I'm doing this blog for my Political Science class at Cardinal Stritch University.

So I figure the best place to start is the beginning. My first topic is: what the heck does the Attorney General do?!

Honestly, I have no idea, and I would be willing to bet that most people don't know what he does. The problem with finding the answer is that every site I have looked at have been extremely vague. He is the head of the Department of Justice. That's it. Most sights seem to think that that is enough information for the public. The only site that seemed to have more than a few lines of information was the National Association of Attorneys General. This is what they say the Attorney General has the power to do:

"authority to issue formal opinion to state agencies; act as public advocates in areas such as child enforcement, consumer protections, antitrust and utility regulation; propose legislation; enforce federal and state environmental laws; represent the state and state agencies before the state and federal courts; handle criminal appeals and serious statewide criminal prosecutions; institute civil suits on behalf of the state; represent the public's interests in charitable trust and solicitation; and operate victim compensation programs."

This is the best I could find online. It's pretty to the point, but not quite as in "lamens terms" as I would like. This answer still hasn't quite satisfied me though. SO I think it would be best to send the WI Attorney General a letter. I'm going to ask what he does on a daily basis, and maybe suggest that the public is provided with a good source of information on what the responsibilities of the Attorney General are. So the letter is going out tomorrow, and hopefully we will get a reply :)

As for what's coming up, check back in by Wednesday for full profiles of each of the candidates.

Until then, if you want to see what the NAAG website says about the Attorney General for yourself, here's the link:

http://www.naag.org/what_does_an_attorney_general_do.php

Until Wed

Peace

Robyn