When a recession hits, we all focus on the government policies that are most immediate to the economic downturn: unemployment, income, taxes, debt, etc.  But in the “never waste a crisis” vein, it appears Wisconsin Democrats are trying to parlay the recession into a major change in the way we deal with those who have committed crimes.

The most obvious example to date is Governor Jim Doyle’s plan to save the state money by granting early release to up to 3,500 “nonviolent” offenders in state prisons.  Somehow, in a budget that Doyle claims “cuts” $5.9 billion, he was able to spend $500 million more on K-12 education to pacify the teachers’ unions, while reducing prison spending by $20 million.  Perhaps the citizens of Wisconsin should form the “Association of People Who Don’t Like Being Stabbed in the Head,” give Doyle some campaign cash, and he might change his mind about letting criminals back on the streets early.  Of course, these offenders will be hitting the streets at the very same time unemployment in Wisconsin has exceeded 8.5%, meaning they’re not exactly going to rush back to lives of productivity.

But legislative Democrats have an answer – they have begun circulating a bill they’ve dubbed the “Job Opportunity Tax Credit” that they boast gives businesses tax credits to hire certain people – veterans, poor high school students, ex-felons, people in vocational rehabilitation programs…

Oh, did I skip over that one too quickly?  I’ll say it again.

 EX-FELONS.

You read that right –  their proposal would actually give a business a tax credit for hiring an ex-felon.  Naturally, this gives the business a financial incentive to hire criminals over people who, say, may have managed to avoid molesting children or gunning someone down in the street.  (I believe the bill exempts killing someone softly with love songs.)

Of course, we should encourage people who have served their time to make a living.  Ex-cons (and even current-cons) are already protected by state law against employment discrimination for past arrest or conviction record, which gives them a decent chance at getting a job with employers who are fearful of a lawsuit if they don’t hire them.  If they emerge from prison and can’t find meaningful employment, society is asking for a world of hurt.

But actually giving criminals preference for jobs simply goes too far.  The world is officially upside down when someone can live on the straight-and-narrow their entire life, then lose out on a job opportunity specifically because someone else couldn’t.  (Note to self:  During my next job interview, I should actually jump over the desk and dump battery acid on the boss- then explain to his charred skeleton he should hire me because he’s now eligible for a tax credit.  Everyone wins!)

Side note: How do you think veterans feel about being lumped in with ex-felons?  If you hire an ex-con who is also a veteran, do you have to immediately have to make him the CEO of your company?

Showing that they also have a sense of humor, legislative Dems have also begun circulating a bill draft (LRB-0910) that would impose a one-year prison sentence on any legislator that engages in lobbying within one year of leaving office. The bill is an attempt to convince the public that legislators no longer in “the club” are the cause of corruption in our state – not the current legislators who agree to be corrupted by lobbyists.  As if everyone will forget who a representative is a full year after they leave office.  Maybe we should erase their pictures from all the old Blue Books just to be safe. 

So, apparently, our prisons are so overcrowded, we have to let 3,500 offenders out, but we have plenty of room for “violent” offenders like lawmakers who get a job lobbying after they quit. 

Here are some crimes considered to be “nonviolent” by the state:

• Possession of explosives 
• Burglary 
• Incest 
• Causing mental harm to a child 
• Manufacture, distribution or delivery of drugs 
• Theft

So all you guys in the “incest” line – you can all go free.  You legislators over there – you can take their cells.

Obviously, the recession hits everyone hard (except for, of course, state government, which will continue to grow.)  But using the financial crisis to socially engineer changes that benefit those who have harmed others isn’t the “stimulus” we need.

It has been a month and two days since State Representative Jeff Wood was arrested for drunk driving and possession of marijuana.  Just yesterday, he was officially charged with his 3rd OWI and the drug charges.  At the time of his arrest, I had a little fun at Wood’s expense, although I now admit I probably went a little overboard.

Needless to say, Wood picked the wrong time to get busted drinking and driving.  Newspapers across the state have declared a fatwa against drunk driving, publishing story after story in an attempt to get lawmakers to toughen up Wisconsin’s OWI laws.

But what’s most interesting to me isn’t necessarily the fact that Wood was finally charged – I’m more interested in why we still care about what he did.  It’s not like legislators driving drunk is a new phenomenon – one seems to get popped every couple of months.  Yet those cases disappear in the public’s consciousness within days.  (Except, most notably, in the case of the state’s top cop, former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.)

It’s not even as if Wood’s urinating on the side of the road is unprecedented.  Former State Assemblyman Frank Boyle famously ran his car into a concrete barrier and urinated in his pants before cops picked him up.  Boyle went on to be re-elected twice more by his constituents – a fate that currently seems out of Wood’s reach.

This brings us to what I’d call “The Wood Paradox,” which is this:  The reason Wood’s case is so titillating to the public happens to be due to the least dangerous and offensive thing he actually did.  I am referring, of course, to the charge of marijuana possession.

As I mentioned, elected official drunk driving arrests come and go, and usually elicit yawns.  But Wood’s became statewide news because he had marijuana – an illegal drug – on his person.  Suddenly, this arrest was outside of the mold we have set for elected official arrests, which made it exponentially more newsworthy.

But honestly, what’s really the most dangerous thing he did that night?  It was climbing into his car and trying to make a 4 hour drive home while drunk.  But somehow, that’s just boring to us now.  We need a little sizzle to our legislative arrests.

Which brings me, mercifully, to my main point.  Who really cares if a 39 year old guy has marijuana on him?  It impacts my life exactly zero percent if a guy decides to go home, smoke up, and watch reruns of The Jeffersons all night.  If you’re working the counter at a gas station all day, go ahead – what do I care? Dying of cancer?  I’ll buy you a bong. (Naturally, it would be an issue if Wood were high and driving around – but it appears in this instance, alcohol was the drug of choice.)

Normally, when people are compelled to write columns about marijuana use, they have strong opinions about whether the law should either be strengthened or weakened.  I, on the other hand, have a different perspective – I’d strenuously argue that the law is pretty much fine the way it is.  (When I eventually run for office, my signs will say “Vote Schneider for a stronger status quo!”)  It’s just tough enough to scare high school kids wanting to go to college away from trying it, but lenient enough that the people who really want to smoke up don’t really treat it like it’s illegal.  It really takes minimal effort to skirt the law.

Marijuana opponents would say that weed makes people stupid and lazy.  Perhaps this is true.  But in the event these people are already dumb, a good argument could be made that marijuana actually keeps them at home and out of my grocery lines.  And that could be a potential benefit.  A friend of mine warned that marijuana also makes people think they can play the guitar – and one day, a terrible, high guitar player might attempt to woo my daughter.  So, basically, this column could be ruining her life.

What Jeff Wood did was terrible.  The fact that he has now been pinched three times for it is even worse.  But the fact that he had marijuana on his person really means nothing.  It didn’t make a single person in this state either more or less safe – so we should stop feigning indignance at his newfound status as a drug offender.  We shouldn’t be saying “oooh, drugs!” instead of “you know… he really could have killed someone.”  Drunk driving should never be more socially acceptable than carrying around a dime bag.

Quite often, well-intentioned legislation goes bad. Such a case exists in Massachusetts, where a well-meaning law meant to broaden the standard for rape has now turned into a national punchline.

Under the new legislation, it would be a felony to have sex with someone under false pretenses. In other words, you could go to jail for lying to someone in order to get them to have sex with you.

The bill states:

Whoever has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with a person having obtained that person\’s consent by the use of fraud, concealment or artifice, and who thereby intentionally deceived such person so that a reasonable person would not have consented but for the deception, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or any term of years. As used in this statute, \’fraud\’ or \’artifice\’ shall not be construed to mean a promise of future consideration.

The bill was meant to correct legitimate instances of deception such as the time a sleepy Massachusetts woman had sex with her boyfriend\’s brother, thinking it was actually her boyfriend. In another case, a medical technician pretending to be a doctor conducted a full pelvic exam on a woman after telling her he was licensed to give the exam. (Perhaps the fact that the \”doctor\” was eating a ham sandwich during the exam might have been a tip-off.)

But think about how broad this language actually is. Lying for sex? Is there really any other way? If women really knew what we were like, there\’d be no chance any male would get any action. Every guy has some bogus story about what a good job we have, how we spent time on a Greenpeace boat, how this is our real hair, or some such nonsense. Every man pads the resume a little, hoping to cash in before reality sets in. (Although saying the words \”I\’m a blogger\” might be the most effective birth control known to man.)

Even if there\’s not overt lying going on, there are implied lies. Suppose your girlfriend cheats on you with Roger Clemens. And suppose, had you known about the affair, you never would have slept with her again. But she doesn\’t tell you about the affair, and you continue to have your monthly sexual encounter. Your girlfriend could actually be guilty of rape, since she concealed information that would have kept you from having sex with her.

The list goes on. Tell a girl you will always love her? Get an orange jumpsuit. Cougar looking to score a younger guy at the bar tonight? Better be honest about your age, or you\’ll be making license plates soon, sweetie. Telling a man he\’s a great lover to keep the love train going? (Never a problem in my case, incidentally.) Get ready for the big house.  Tell a girl you work with she looks like Pam from \”The Office?\”  Well, no worries there, since she\’ll probably opt not to talk to you ever again.

(As long as we\’re handing out sentences, the words \”I can\’t wait to see the \’Sex and the City Movie\’ out of any guy\’s mouth should be punishable by death.)

In 1975, a man named Marty Evans was sued by a woman claiming he lied to get her in the sack, and it went all the way to the New York Supreme Court. In his decision in People v. Evans, Justice Edward Greenfield said:

“So bachelors, and other men on the make, fear not. It is still not illegal to feed a girl a line, to continue the attempt [to obtain sex], not to take no for a final answer, at least not the first time. . . . [A] male [will] make promises that will not be kept, . . . indulge in exaggeration and hyperbole, or to assure any trusting female that, as in the ancient fairy tale, the ugly frog is really the handsome prince.Every man is free under the law, to be a gentleman or a cad.\”

Of course, should this bill actually become law, there are fiscal implications, as well. For instance, it might be expensive to turn the State of Montana into a prison big enough to house the entire male population of the United States.  Then again, the entire human race may be eradicated within a decade due to the end of procreation.

(Via the Volokh Conspiracy.)

While the Wisconsin Legislature continues to struggle with allowing individuals to carry firearms to protect themselves, I think I\’ve found a middle ground.   There\’s no doubt that Democrats and Republicans alike can agree that we should let people carry concealed pitchforks.

From Madison:

Madison police responded to a call early Tuesday morning about a scuffle in which pitchforks and knives were drawn to stop vandals from ruining a tent near a fraternity on the 200 block of Lakelawn Plaza near Langdon Street.

Police said only threats were exchanged and no participants suffered injury. The report said an officer at the scene of the crime heard somebody say, \”I just had a pitchfork pulled on me.\”

This may be new to the people of Madison, but this is the type of violence rural communities been putting up with from rough farmer gangs for years.  Be thankful you haven\’t been the victim of a drive-by pitchforking.