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Responses to Voces de la Frontera questionnaire

Ben Manski
Manski for Wisconsin
August 23, 2010

 

2010 Legislative Questions

Voces de la Frontera Action

Action c-4

1.      Do you think state and local government should be involved in enforcing immigration law?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

State and local governments have a duty to protect all of their residents, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. Not only should state and local governments avoid any attempt to enforce federal immigration law, they must be certain to avoid providing assistance to the federal government in violating the human rights of undocumented immigrants.

I have always been a strong advocate for the rights of immigrants and for a liberalized immigration policy in the United States. Immigrant rights are personal for me:

  • My grandfather is a Polish Jewish immigrant who survived the Holocaust; the policies of the Roosevelt administration were infamous for their discrimination against Jews fleeing persecution.
  • I was born in Pittsburgh, but my family emigrated to Israel when I was very young. As a result, when we returned to the United States, I was enrolled in ESL for several years and experienced some of what it is like to come to the U.S. from a distinct culture; not easy.
  • My mother was an ESL teacher for many years, and because of her, and also my own experience, many of my childhood friends were either immigrants or children of immigrants.

I support open borders for people, not property. To get a sense of how I personally feel about local government participation in federal immigration enforcement, please read the following column I wrote two years ago for the Isthmus:

THE PLANSKI: Dave Mahoney’s immigration policy makes this ‘Doughface County’

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney vows to continue his collaboration with the feds regarding "aliens."

Under Mahoney, the Sheriff's Office has reported upwards of 400 immigrants to ICE, the latest incarnation of the former INS (where do the feds come up with these acronyms, anyway? Immigration and Customs Enforcement? Operation Iraqi Liberation? Brilliant!). That's a substantial increase from the record of the previous sheriff, Gary Hamblin, for whom cracking down on undocumented immigrants was not a priority. Hamblin explained his overall approach to immigration issues to The Capital Times in 2003:

“There's a perception out here that people who are here illegally and become victims of crime are reluctant to report the crime because of fears of the immigration service coming for them. Nobody wants to see anybody victimized, so this goes in the direction of letting people know it's in the county's policy that you will not be reported.”

What changed? Hamblin was replaced by Mahoney. And petitions, resolutions, letters, public outcry of all kinds have not budged him. This local elected official says responding to his constituents on this issue "is not going to happen." No. His first priority? Cooperation with the feds.

It makes you scratch your head. The former sheriff, a Republican, takes a pass on the immigrant-bashing bandwagon. He gets replaced by a Democrat, and suddenly Dane County becomes a haven for immigrant-haters. Why?

Most people I've talked with describe Mahoney as an old-school lawman who has taken his interest in interagency cooperation to an extreme. If they are right, that makes Mahoney a Doughface.

A "Doughface?" Yes. That's what some northern Democrats of the 1850s were called by their Liberty Party, Free Soil, and Republican critics. In the national conflict over the enforcement of federal slave law -- particularly the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 -- there were those who urged resistance to the feds, and those who collaborated. Advocates of slavery appreciated the collaborators, exulting as Rep. John Randolph of Virginia did:

“They were scared at their own dough faces -- yes, they were scared at their own dough faces! -- We had them.”

And the immigrant-haters have Mahoney. Regardless of whether or not he is one of them, he is doing their business -- and so, by extension, are all of us.

Link:http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=22681

2.      Do you support driver card legislation for immigrants in Wisconsin who currently do not have access to driver’s license and auto insurance?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

Absolutely. I will sponsor this legislation, as well as any related legislation that you need me to champion.

Since my website went live on July 10th, the following pledges have appeared there, and been key elements of my campaign:

Link: http://votemanski.com/we-people

As of today, August 19th, I am proud (and sorry) to report that I remain the only candidate running in this race who has clearly articulated an immigrant rights plank on their website, or in their campaign literature.

3.      Do you support in-state tuition rates at public universities and colleges for undocumented students in Wisconsin?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

Yes. See my response to Question 2, and then please allow me to expand on my response as follows . . . .

As Madison’s newest legislator, I will work with you to achieve a Wisconsin in which all residents are treated equally, regardless of U.S. citizenship or immigration status. Wisconsin should have one standard, and one standard only, for determining qualifications for education, welfare, voting, driving, and other rights and privileges. An Illinoisan or New Yorker who moved to Wisconsin one year ago should have no more, and no fewer, rights or privileges under state law than someone who moved here from Mexico at the same time.

4.      Do you support Badger Care for pregnant women regardless of immigration status?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

Yes. Please see my previous responses, and please allow me to add that I am convinced that on health policy, Wisconsin must the lead the way, as it did years ago on so many other vital progressive reforms. As a state representative, I will work to pass a statewide single-payer program modeled on Senator Mark Miller's Health Security Act. That reform has long been the dream of health reform advocates senior to me. Like them, I refuse to accept the alternative -- that people will suffer or die for lack of the ability to pay.
 

5.      Do you support the mandatory expansion of E-verify programs, which depend on databases from SSA and DHS to determine a worker’s eligibility to be employed, despite high numbers of inaccuracies?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

No. In researching this question, I have seen abundant evidence that, as you state, there are an exceptional number of inaccuracies in E-verify programs, and that further, those inaccuracies disproportionately impact foreign-born workers and people of color, and that those negatively impacted by E-verify are rarely informed of their right to challenge their ineligibility ruling.

6.      Do you support bilingual education?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

Yes, and I will work to secure additional state support for bilingual education programs. As I stated earlier in my responses, I am a former ESL student, my mother was an ESL instructor, and I know the importance of providing educational opportunities in students’ native languages. At one time in Wisconsin’s history, bilingual education meant Norwegian and English, and then later, German and English. I have always opposed English-only, and you can count on me to do the same in the legislature.

7.      Do you support an elected school board for MPS?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

Yes. I will am a strong defender of local democracy -- especially in communities that are already shut out of the process in so many other key areas of public policy -- and I opposed the attempted mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Some of my closest friends and allies have been involved in the leadership of that fight, including Todd Price, who was recently the Green Party’s candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and has been my colleague in the movement for democracy and education since 1994.

8.      Do you support the use of taxpayer money to pay for vouchers that can be used to pay private school tuition?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

No. I have always been an opponent of school voucher schemes. Yesterday I had the good fortune to receive a call from Madison Teachers, Inc., our largest local teachers union, to the effect that their membership had voted to endorse my campaign. I would like to share with you some of what I told them in their interview process:

I am as strong a proponent for our public schools as you will ever meet. I have spent over twenty years advocating for public education. I have organized and participated in sit-ins, student strikes, labor strikes, and, in one case, a five-day hunger strike for funding for our primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools and colleges. I teach sociology at MATC-Truax, and am a member of AFT 6100. My mother taught for two decades at Madison West and was an MTI steward; she is today a fellow AFT member, working at UIC in teacher evaluation and certification. My wife, sister, father, aunt, uncle, other aunt, other uncle, and grandmother are all educators. The field of education defines my family.

Public education is under a deliberate and constant assault by corporate lobbyists and neoconservative ideologues. They have used our state and federal legislatures to effectively starve public education, and then, to force feed teachers, students, and parents a regimen of vouchers, charter schools, standardized testing, union-busting, and generational debt. The price already paid in this assault on our youth – particularly working class youth and youth of color – is unbearable.

I have worked side-by-side with MTI leadership and staff my entire adult life to resist these attacks, and have long been of the mind that, to quote a great Wisconsin strategist, “the best defense is a good offense.” For that reason, I have played a leadership role in developing a counter to the corporatization of education, working to build movements for campus democracy.

Specific examples of my work along these lines have included:

• Democratizing Education Network (DEN) – A national network of faculty, staff, students, and community leaders which I founded in 2004. See: www.DemocratizingEducation.org

• TAA AFT 3200 Political Education Committee – I was a proud member of the TAA and served on the PEC during the TAA strike of 2004.

• Books not Bombs National Student Strike – This 2003 national student strike was a protest against war spending and its impact on education funding. I helped to initiate and organize this protest.

• 180/Movement for Democracy and Education (180/MDE) – A national organization that was a precursor to the DEN (see above), running from 1998-2003, which I cofounded.

• Associated Students of Madison (ASM) – I served on the ASM Council at UW-Madison and as chair of the UW’s Shared Governance Committee.

• Democracy Teach-Ins (DTI) – From 1995-2002, a series of national “Teach-ins on Corporations, Education, and Democracy” took place on over 400 college and high school campuses. I served as national coordinator of the DTIs in their first four years.

• Mobilization for a People’s Budget – In 1995 and in years following, I was proud to work with various MTI, AFT, AFSCME and other education sector labor leaders in organizing mass protests for full funding for education and other key services.

• Students for Education Reform (SER) – In 1990, as a student at Madison West High School, I helped form and lead this regional activist group. We helped to achieve the adoption of state legislation protecting student free speech and restoring open campus, and mobilized students in support of the statewide teachers union rally that happened that year.

9.      Do you support requiring voucher schools to meet the same academic and licensure requirements as public schools?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

So long as Wisconsin still provides subsidies to private schools through vouchers, yes. Furthermore, I support the creation of a section of Wisconsin corporate code specific to schools. All incorporated entities are, after all, public, not private, institutions. If a group of individuals wish to take advantage of the protections that the State of Wisconsin provides to corporations, and to incorporate a private school, it is the responsibility of our state to ensure that that private school meets or exceeds that same standards as other schools.

10.  Do you support workers’ rights to organize collectively?  Yes or No.  Please explain.

I am a member of AFT 6100. I have been a member, in the past, of AFT 3200, and of the UW-Madison Federation of Labor and the Student Labor Action Coalition. I have been a member of the IWW since I was 16 years old. I spent several years organizing support for the struggle of the members of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, or PCUN, Oregon’s farmworkers union.

Yes, I strongly support the right to organize. As my platform reads, I will work to:

  • Strengthen respect for the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of association, assembly, and speech on the job. Without those rights, Wisconsinites do not control their labor power, are not free to contract, and are at the mercy of their employers.

Link: http://votemanski.com/prosperity

11.  What is your strategy to generate good jobs in the State of Wisconsin?  Please explain.

“Competitiveness” should never be used as an excuse for a no-win “race to the bottom” which reduces state revenues, worker pay and protections and protection for our environment. For too long, our state’s leaders have offered corporate tax breaks as their sole means of promoting economic growth, attempting to remake Wisconsin in the image of  low-wage, low-regulation, anti-union states in the South.

Wisconsin must grow by building on our strengths, including a highly skilled workforce and a well-protected natural environment that makes our state a desirable place to live and locate a business.  My economic plan would build on Wisconsin’s strong tradition of worker-owned and community-owned cooperative businesses. State economic development programs should give a strong preference to cooperative businesses (Madison’s Union Cab and Isthmus Engineering are just two examples), because worker-owned businesses stay where they are -- no worker-owned business has ever extorted a tax break from government by threatening to relocate to a low-wage, low-tax state.

A state preference for worker ownership and community ownership is taxpayer protection, ensuring that our economic development dollars stay in our state. Wisconsinites should understand this idea better than anyone, because it’s the reason why the community-owned Green Bay Packers are still in Green Bay.

12.  Do you think the Arizona law SB 1070 is a good law?  Please explain.

Arizona’s SB 1070 is an atrocity. My latest heroes are the thousands of activists who have gone to Arizona to put an end to that racist law.