Do You Know Who Dennis Smith Is? More Decisions Without Public Input or Legislative Oversight

Just over 15 years ago, both my mother and grandmother lost their battles with breast cancer. Mother and daughter dying six months apart from each other – it was the most heart wrenching, saddest time in my life, and after all these years I still struggle with my grief.

My sister, Dawn Anderson, worked through her grief by taking action, first by chairing the Northshore Relay for Life for several years and then by moving on to become the President, and now Executive Director, of the Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition (WBCC). 

The WBCC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that serves as our state’s premier resource on breast cancer policy issues. Their mission is to eradicate breast cancer – by January 2020. Since our government is the nation’s largest funder of cancer research, the WBCC focuses on policy and legislative solutions to secure funding that explores breast cancer causes and improved treatments.

For many years now, I have had the honor of accompanying my sister to both our state and national Capitols to communicate to our elected officials and lawmakers about the WBCC’s and the National Breast Cancer Coalitions (NBCC) priorities.

This week was the WBCC’s annual State Lobby Day, which meant another trip to Madison with Dawn. My heart always starts to race a bit as we drive up East Washington Avenue and I see our beautiful Capitol building. When we arrived with all our materials in tow, we were fortunate to be able to reserve a room on the fourth floor of the Capitol where we met with our amazing breast cancer survivors and co-survivors.

Our morning  was spent going over the priorities that we want them to discuss with their legislators, and in the afternoon we break into groups and meet with our legislators or their assistants. This year had to be the most disturbing for all of us – the atmosphere is heavy and no one is happy.

Our meetings with the legislators and their aides were difficult, as they all seemed to feel powerless – Republican and Democrats alike. According to some of the Legislative Aides we met with, nobody talks to anybody – they just go straight to their offices and close the door. It is unfortunate that the lack of leadership from the Governor’s office has caused this polarization of our government and state.

One of our main priorities this year was to state, emphatically, that we are opposed to giving the Secretary of the Department of Health Services, Dennis Smith, unprecedented power to make changes to Medical Assistance programs without public input and without legislative oversight.

So, for example, even if Sen. Darling (R-River Hills) votes to restore funding to the Wisconsin Well Women Program, which she did, Dennis Hill can simply wipe it out with a stroke of his pen. Unfortunately, Sen. Darling allowed her colleagues to pass this odious provision through Joint Finance via the Budget.  We literally begged our legislators, who have fought so hard to win their seats, not to give away their voice – and ultimately the voice of their constituents – to an unelected bureaucrat.

Our current law states that Medical Assistance provisions can only be codified into law after being heard by the public and debated by the full state legislature. We have until July 1 to appeal to our legislators’ sense of duty and have them remove this provision from the Budget Repair Bill and the FY2011-13 Budget. We elected them to speak for us, not to give their checks-and-balances power away to an unelected bureaucrat.