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Written by Cory Liebmann
Aug 12, 2011
The final two recall elections on Aug.16 are as important as ever. The match-ups pit incumbent state Sen. Bob Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, against corporate attorney Jonathan Steitz and Sen. Jim Holprien, D-Conover, against Tea Party leader Kim Simac.
The outcomes of these two races are critical for a number of reasons, including the fact that both Republican challengers are extremists who oppose LGBT equality.
Kim Simac is the founder of the Tea Party group Northwoods Patriots. By her own account, the group was formed after she sponsored a showing of several paranoid fundamentalist films in her community. The films allege an imaginary effort to “silence” her particular brand of Christianity.
Simac repeatedly refers to her political opponents as “the enemy,” and describes people who disagree with her as “ungrateful, self-centered, disrespectful Americans.” Appearing on a fundamentalist television show when Democrats controlled state government, she remarked with a dismissive laugh that Wisconsin should be called the “socialist State of Wisconsin.”
Simac is against science and its teachings. She opposes the separation of church and state. She’s compared American public schools to the Nazi regime. What makes her comments even more outrageous is the fact that she and her Tea Party group seek to influence the public school curriculum.
The more that we learn about corporate attorney Jonathan Steitz, the more extreme he also turns out to be. While attending law school in Illinois, he was a member of the right-wing Federalist Society. Founders and other prominent members of the group have taken extreme positions in the areas of reproductive rights, Miranda rights, discrimination law and state sodomy laws – just to name a few.
Steitz was strongly endorsed by the gay-obsessed Wisconsin Family Action group. He responded to the endorsement by crowing that he “strongly agrees with their mission.” Steitz went on to say that he looks forward to “working with the organization in the future.”
The new extremist brand of Republicans who control Wisconsin have made their plans very clear. They have not only shown that they will push extreme candidates like Simac and Steitz, but they have also made it obvious that they will funnel massive amounts of dollars into the most extreme organizations to accomplish that goal. We have not only seen this with Wisconsin Family Action but also in the funding and forming of new groups.
It is worth noting that a leader of one of these new right-wing organizations, Media Trackers, recently graduated from the unaccredited Baptist College of Ministry. Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported that the Menomonee Falls school describes itself as “unashamedly fundamentalist and militantly separatist.”
With its chosen candidates, operatives and new organizational allies, the Republican Party of Wisconsin has shown where it wants to take this state – to a place that is intolerant of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to a rigid and increasingly extremist worldview.
The best way to fight their effort is by working against the extremists they’re currently seeking to install in public office. If you live in one of the two districts facing recalls, vote Democratic on Aug. 16. You can also help by educating and motivating other voters through the various “get-out-the-vote” efforts in those districts.
The last thing we need is more right-wing extremists in positions of power in Wisconsin.
