It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Rebecca Blank, incoming chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Sure, the acting U.S. commerce secretary, set to start in July, will make $500,000 a year — plus benefits and perks, including a university residence and car, money for travel and entertainment, and an unpaid academic appointment for her husband. But she’ll be stepping into a host of controversies, drawing flak from all directions. As one UW-Madison student quipped, “Blank is not starting off with a blank slate.” Lawmakers cry foul over UW's reserve There’ll be ongoing fallout …

As the dust settles on the epic battles over union rights for public workers in Wisconsin, two new major works aim to put these events into perspective.  The first is “Citizen Koch,” a documentary by award-winning filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. It aired at the Sundance Film Festival in January and the Wisconsin Film Festival this month.  The second is “More Than They Bargained For,” a book by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.  Both recount how newly elected Gov. Scott Walker in February 2011 “dropped the …

For more than two decades, the rent-to-own industry, which leases such goods as televisions, appliances and furniture, has been fighting to free itself from certain provisions of Wisconsin law. Throughout, it has lubricated the gears of change with campaign donations and lobbying outlays. “It’s something you have to do — what everybody does,” says Jeff Lebakken, president of the Wisconsin Rental Dealers Association, the main group pushing this change. Lebakken, the owner of an Eau Claire-based rent-to-own company with 11 state stores, has given more than $33,000 to Wisconsin political …

In 2010, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated a criminal conviction against Dimitri Henley. Afterward, his lawyers filed a motion arguing that Justice Patience Roggensack should have recused herself from taking part, given her role in a case involving Henley’s co-defendant. This motion was later denied, on a 4-3 vote. What surprised and even shocked some court observers was that Roggensack took part in this ruling. “Justice Roggensack’s participation in judging her own conduct showed astounding disregard for legal ethics and every litigant’s right to impartial justice,” thundered the New …

On Tuesday, Wisconsin will hold a primary election for state Supreme Court, narrowing the field from three candidates to two. Then the race will begin in earnest.  Justice Patience Roggensack, who has already served one 10-year term on the state’s highest court, is expected to survive the cut. Her challengers are Ed Fallone, a Marquette University Law School professor, and Vince Megna, a Milwaukee lawyer specializing in suing auto companies. The general election is April 2. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 4, according to the most recent reporting, Roggensack had raised about $200,000, compared to …

During a recent news conference at the state Capitol, Lisa Graves, executive director of the Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy, made an astonishing claim. “This past election, in 2012, was the most expensive election in U.S. history,” Graves said. “In fact, it was the most expensive election in the history of the world.” She later pointed to articles that backed this up, at least in terms of total amount. The Jan. 22 event, before a mostly empty room, highlighted a new report tracking spending in the 2012 elections, the first since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens …

Mark Grapentine is a seasoned observer of state politics. He was an aide to then-state Rep. Scott Walker and a policy adviser to then-Gov. Tommy Thompson. For the past decade, he’s been a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Medical Society.  In this capacity, he’s pushed for tougher state drunken driving laws — and noticed that, despite an absence of pushback, these laws have stayed mostly the same. “It has been interesting to watch how there has been a lack of progress in an area where there seems to be a tremendous amount of agreement on the need to do something,” Grapentine says. Wisconsin remains …