Blaska, taking one for the useless team

I'd say it's almost comforting to see perpetual Madison gadfly, David Blaska, still alive and at his usual lame antics, but at this point it's just tiresome and wasteful.

What's he up to now, you ask in morbid curiosity? Why, suing the Madison school district and MTI, of course!

A conservative legal group sued Madison’s school district, school board and teachers union Wednesday over what it calls illegal labor contracts the district continues to honor. 

The lawsuit was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of David Blaska, a well-known conservative blogger living in Madison, according to Dane County Circuit Court records. 

The suit alleges the district’s contracts with Madison Teachers Inc. for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years violate Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s signature 2011 legislation that all but eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public employees. Blaska requests a declaration that the contracts are illegal and void, and an injunction to prohibit the contracts from being enforced, according to a copy of the lawsuit provided by WILL. 

Thing is, the district and MTI negotiated their current contract before the state Supreme Court made its final ruling upholding Act 10 as constitutional (which is a whole other can of worms). So, it's pretty straightforward to say that the current contract is perfectly legal. Once it's up for renewal, then you'd have a legitimate fight on your hands.

But that would never stop political hacks like Blaska (and everyone's favorite conservative hack defender, Rick Esenberg, president and general counsel of WILL) from staging wasteful theatrics like this.

It's almost like someone's paying him to take all the flak to make the big, bold conservative statements du jour so as to keep the more valuable politicos free from such public stain. It would be a familiar tactic, anyway (cough J.B. Van Hollen cough).

A tale as old as time

I'm just gonna go ahead and pseudo-quote Kanye here: "Scott Walker doesn't care about black people," which makes this latest little battle is especially rich (i.e. gross). Walker hasn't had one word to say about the damning Race to Equity report, did nothing good for extremely segregated Milwaukee County while its executive, and has passed a series of measures that have a disproportionately negative effect on minority communities--but yeah, now that it's campaign season, it sure is expedient to pretend you give a crap about the non-white, non-rich citizens of your state. It's a tale as old as time...

To wit:

Gov. Scott Walker took the campaign against Democratic opponent Mary Burke to her front door Wednesday, accusing the one-term Madison School Board member of not doing enough to improve black students’ graduation rates in Madison. Walker argued that the Madison School Board could have put more money toward raising graduation rates and academic achievement if it had taken advantage of his controversial 2011 measure known as Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers, instead of choosing to negotiate a contract with its teachers union for the 2015-16 school year earlier this summer. 

Read more.

The truth is that the graduation rate of African American students statewide, but especially in Milwaukee and Madison, should be viewed as an inexcusable shame on us all. No one gets to pass the buck here, especially not Walker. But it's telling that the governor is beginning to lash out willy-nilly like this, now that his polling numbers aren't looking as hot and various scandals just keep nipping at his heels.

Welcome to shitty politics 101.