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