Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jun 2002
Source: Marshfield News-Herald, The (WI)
Copyright: 2002 Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2236
Author: Gary Storck

PLEDGE SIGNING WAS ONLY A GESTURE

Editor: Regarding the June 19 letter from Steven Schmidt of Americans for 
Tax Reform, lauding state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, for signing the 
Taxpayer Protection Pledge sponsored by Schmidt's group.

While Suder's signing the pledge was a nice gesture, that it all it really 
is, a gesture. It should not be seen as reason to vote to re-elect Suder 
this fall.

Suder is neck deep in the caucus scandal, the kind of politician who does 
what Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen tells him to do, with no questions 
asked. That is how he came to be the chair of the Assembly's Criminal 
Justice Committee despite only first being elected in 1998.

Suder used his position as chair of the committee to carry out Speaker 
Jensen's orders to bury this session's bipartisan medical marijuana bill in 
committee to make sure it never received a fair hearing. Suder and Jensen's 
actions came despite the findings of a February 2002 Chamberlain Research 
Poll that found over 80 percent of Wisconsinites support the legislature 
passing a bill like the one Suder so coldly killed in his committee.

While the poll found little difference in support for medical marijuana 
between Democrats, Republicans or Independents, Jensen and Suder insisted 
on making it a partisan issue, leaving sick and dying Wisconsinites forced 
to continue breaking the law, risking arrest and jail, and being forced to 
obtain their medicine from drug dealers in back alleys, or to not break the 
law and suffer needlessly.

In examining voting habits of respondents, the poll had more interesting 
findings; for those who said they voted in every election, support for 
passing a bill was 75.9 percent, for those who said they voted in almost 
every election, the figure was 82.9 percent, and those saying they voted 
only in major races, it was 83.1 percent.

Suder may be there to sign meaningless gimmicky pledges about taxes, but 
when it comes to real flesh and blood issues like medical marijuana, he 
follows orders and exhibits a total lack of compassion. Suder could have 
been a hero to sick and dying Wisconsinites, had he given the bill a fair 
hearing, and let patients, doctors, families, caregivers and others weigh 
in. Instead he was nothing but Scott Jensen's hit man. It's time to clean 
up state politics, and that means it's time to vote Scott Suder back to 
private life.

Gary Storck Madison
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom