The more campaign seasons I experience the more grateful I become to the people who invented the “mute” button on my remote control.
It seems as more and more money is poured into election campaigns, the greater the number of negative advertisements that offer little to voters beyond appeals to their anger, fear, and resentment. And voters respond by tuning out and staying home.
We often debate the issue of how much government should do, but that rarely ends the argument. For even when we can agree that government has a role in addressing an issue, we often debate which level of government is best suited to do so.
Our Catholic social teaching can help us consider that question. The tool it offers is the principle of subsidiarity.
The party that wins the most seats in a November election gets to control the state Senate and the state Assembly for the following two years. But when the election occurs in the same year as the census, the stakes are even higher.
Whoever controls the legislature in 2011 will have to reapportion the state’s 99 Assembly districts, 33 Senate districts, and eight congressional districts to reflect the population shifts recorded in the 2010 census. The district boundaries drawn by this reapportionment process will govern legislative elections until 2022.
As we enter another campaign season, candidates and others are sharing their views on the role of government at the local, state, and national levels.
This year especially, the role government plays in society is a hot topic of discussion. In many races candidates are making it the defining issue.
If there is an off-season in state government, summer of an even-numbered year qualifies. The campaign season is beginning and, to the extent they can, politicians will avoid controversial decisions until after the election.
But that doesn’t mean all policy work stops. In both the legislative and executive branches, our leaders are setting the stage for the debates of 2011.
June 1 is the day on which candidates for the fall elections may begin to circulate nomination papers to secure a place on the primary election ballot. As such it marks the official beginning of the campaign season.
As this season begins, it is important to remember how we as Catholics can engage in faithful citizenship. The Wisconsin Catholic Conference’s (WCC) Guidelines for Church Involvement in Electoral Politics, first approved by the bishops in the early 1980s and periodically updated, share “dos and don’ts” for involvement by church organizations in election campaigns.
No political leader can fulfill every promise, right every wrong, or solve every problem. Nor can a body like the Wisconsin Legislature achieve perfection over the course of its 16 or so months of legislative activity.
So it is no surprise that the 2009 to 2010 legislative session that ended on April 22 did so with a mixed record of accomplishments and disappointments.
As the public becomes more concerned over the health of our environment, Catholics and Church leadership at multiple levels have engaged environmental issues.
In recent years, Catholics in the U.S. have participated in environmental advocacy through the efforts of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, Catholic Relief Services, and other groups.
Family, Community, and Participation is an important theme of Catholic social teaching. This theme reminds us of our need to foster public policies that are “family friendly.”
Policies that affirm and support parents in their role as the primary educators of their children certainly fall into this category. In recent weeks, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) has given testimony on two proposals that offer such support to parents of school children.
Since Wisconsin does not permit capital punishment, the most significant action government can take is that of depriving a person of his or her freedom.
This loss of freedom makes the stakes in any criminal proceeding of great importance to the accused. That is why fairness is critical to our system of criminal justice.
