Governor Walker Signs Teacher Licensure Bill

Representative Joel Kitchens

Kitchens visited Elizabeth Gierhahn on Monday, March 7, at the Door County YMCA as part of the Take Your Legislator to Work Campaign, organized each year by the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities. During the visit, Kitchens got to see community-integrated employment in action and learn more about the value it brings to the employee, employer and greater community. Elizabeth shared her passion for assisting members and talked about how much she truly loved her job working in the Aquatics Department of the Sturgeon Bay YMCA Program Center. When people with disabilities work in the community at a competitive wage, they are less likely to rely on publicly funded programs, and, 87 percent of customers say they would prefer to patronize businesses that employ people with disabilities. The Take Your Legislature to Work Campaign aims to bring awareness to these programs that benefit so many in our community.

Source: Door County YMCA press release

Governor Scott Walker

Governor Scott Walker signed Senate Bill 449 into law March 8 at Brown Deer High School. Senate Bill 449 creates an experience-based licensure process for teaching vocational education subjects similar to the process created for technical education subjects in the 2015-17 biennial budget. Under this bill, vocational education subjects include: agriculture; child services; clothing services; food services; housing and equipment services; family and consumer education; family and consumer services; home economics-related occupations; health care-related occupations; business education; and marketing education. Teachers hired by a school district are issued an initial three-year teaching license by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and once that license is expired, DPI may issue a professional teaching license to the applicant as long as they have successfully completed the curriculum, which is determined by the school board that established that curriculum.

Source: Walker press release

Representative Reid Ribble

Ribble released the below statement following the passage of his Gray Wolf Management Amendment on the House floor with a vote of 232 to 171: “At the end of the day, if a judge is allowed to overrule the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to relist a species under the Endangered Species Act, they can also overrule them to delist an animal. My amendment protects the Endangered Species Act and simply allows the decision of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the gray wolf in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wyoming to stand.”

Source: Ribble press release

Senator Tammy Baldwin

Baldwin called on her Senate colleagues to work together in the spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship to address vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court and 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, the longest-standing federal court vacancy in the country. On the Supreme Court vacancy, Baldwin said, “It’s the constitutional duty of the President to select a Supreme Court nominee and the Senate has the responsibility to give that nominee fair consideration with a hearing and a vote. Our job is to fulfill our constitutional duties and Senate Republicans need to end their partisan obstruction and do their jobs on this high court vacancy.” Baldwin also called for swift Senate action on the nomination of Donald Schott to represent Wisconsin on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. “This vacancy on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is now six years old and it is past time to put an end to the longest-standing federal court vacancy in the country,” Baldwin said.

Source: Baldwin press release

Senator Ron Johnson

Johnson released the following statement about repealing “Obamacare”: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has not lived up to its name in Wisconsin or the rest of America. In spite of President Obama’s repeated assurances, millions of Americans and thousands of Wisconsinites lost health insurance they liked and could afford and have also lost access to doctors they trusted. For many, premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums have skyrocketed instead of being reduced by $2,500 per family per year as President Obama and other proponents of Obamacare also promised…. We need to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that preserve patient freedom and choice, constrains cost increases, and improves access to higher quality care.”

Source: Johnson press release

President Barack Obama

The President and First Lady Michelle Obama released the following statement upon notice of the death of former first lady Nancy Reagan, who died at the age of 94 on March 6: “Nancy Reagan once wrote that nothing could prepare you for living in the White House. She was right, of course. But we had a head start, because we were fortunate to benefit from her proud example, and her warm and generous advice. Our former First Lady redefined the role in her time here. Later, in her long goodbye with President Reagan, she became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer’s, and took on a new role, as advocate, on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives. We offer our sincere condolences to their children, Patti, Ron, and Michael, and to their grandchildren. And we remain grateful for Nancy Reagan’s life, thankful for her guidance, and prayerful that she and her beloved husband are together again.”

Source: White House press release