The following is an edited version of a report of the activities of the Wisconsin Jewish Conference during the 2005-06 legislative session.
In another busy year, the Wisconsin Jewish Conference worked on issues ranging from the death penalty to long-term care, the state budget and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
In addition, the WJC launched a new website at http://www.wijewishconference.org/.
On May 4, the Wisconsin legislature concluded regular business for the 2005-2006 session. The Assembly and Senate will still meet to consider a limited number of items, which they held over in “extraordinary session.”
The legislature may convene to attempt to override any vetoes by Governor Jim Doyle or for a very limited number of other minor measures. The session formally adjourns on July 12.
Key legislative proposals for the session included:
• Taxpayer Protection Amendment or Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR):
TABOR has been introduced in several forms over the years, but all have features in common: an amendment to the state’s constitution to place strict, formula-driven limitations on state and local governments’ ability to raise revenue, and to allow that formula to be exceeded only by a referendum.
The WJConference opposes the concept for many reasons, primarily that the constitution is not the place for fiscal policy, and that TABOR will adversely affect Wisconsin’s safety net social programs, K-12 public education, the university system, and other publicly funded programs.
A new proposal unveiled in February called the Taxpayer Protection Amendment (TPA) became the focus of the debate this session. On May 4, the Senate failed to pass it by a vote of 11-21, killing it for the session.
• “B.C.E.” Textbook Bill: In January 2006, Senator Tom Reynolds (R-West Allis) introduced a bill that would prohibit a school board from adopting any textbook that uses the terms “C.E.” or “Common Era” and “B.C.E.” or “Before the Common Era” instead of “A.D.” and “B.C.” when referring to years.
The proposal had a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Education. Despite Reynolds’ statement at the hearing that he was surprised anyone would object, WJConference and others from the faith community did so. It never came up for vote in committee and is dead for this session.
• Death Penalty: Proponents of the death penalty are attempting a new legislative strategy this session. Rather than introducing a bill to establish the death penalty in Wisconsin, which repeatedly failed in the past, they introduced a resolution that would require a statewide advisory referendum calling for the death penalty in certain cases.
Death penalty opponents are concerned that a referendum supporting it will put pressure on some lawmakers to support subsequent legislation. WJConference opposes any efforts to bring the death penalty back to Wisconsin.
The Senate Committee on Judiciary, Corrections and Privacy held a public hearing on Dec. 8, 2005, at which the Wisconsin Jewish Conference registered in opposition to the proposal.
• Same Sex Marriage: The WJConference opposes the proposal to amend the state constitution to prohibit same sex marriages and possibly all forms of civil unions in Wisconsin.
After easily passing both Assembly and Senate in two consecutive sessions, the amendment now heads for the final step in its ratification, a statewide referendum that will be on the November 2006 ballot.
• Concealed Carry: Legislation to allow the concealed carrying of firearms in Wisconsin, which the WJC opposed, has failed after the legislature narrowly sustained the governor’s veto for the second straight session.
• Mental Health Parity: Early this session, a bill was introduced to increase the limits for insurance coverage of nervous or mental health disorders or alcoholism or other drug abuse treatment by providing a cost of living increase for the mandated minimum benefit levels currently required. While not “parity,” this modest proposal is a step in the right direction.
The Senate version of the bill, SB 128, came out of committee by a unanimous 5-0 vote in November. However, the committee amended the bill to phase in the cost-of-living adjustment over five years.
Many thought the amendment would make the bill more politically acceptable to legislators on the fence, but it puts consumers behind five years as they try to catch up to the cost of living adjustment. Nonetheless, the bill was never scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor.
Budget issues
Last spring, the legislature amended and passed the governor’s budget proposal. Doyle signed the budget into law in July after using Wisconsin’s partial veto power to rewrite significant areas, particularly in education.
Here is a summary of a few key issues that the Wisconsin Jewish Conference focused on:
• Medical Assistance, BadgerCare, SeniorCare: In a bipartisan effort the legislature and governor were able to preserve Wisconsin’s public health insurance programs without changes in eligibility, covered benefits or recipient cost-sharing. It remains to be seen if Wisconsin can continue its programs in this fashion into the future, but for at least this two-year budget cycle, the programs are safe.
• Long Term Care: The final budget preserved the governor’s proposal to move people receiving long-term care services in institutions into the community. The “community relocations” proposal would move 1440 additional nursing home residents to the community over the biennium as part of the Community Integration Program (CIP-II).
• Elderly and Disabled Transportation: The legislature approved the governor’s recommendation for a $6 million increase for the elderly and disabled transportation (“85.21”) program. This represents a significant increase for this meagerly funded program (23.9 percent increase in the first year of the budget and 19.3 percent in year two).
Michael Blumenfeld is director of the Wisconsin Jewish Conference, a statewide community relations organization established in 1987 by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
Evolution is right and no problem for Judaism
By Edward Blumenthal, Ph.D.
The recent commentary by Ivan Lang in the May 5 Chronicle was an attack on the theory of evolution.
Lang is certainly a “professional biological scientist,” but a reader of his piece might get the impression that Lang’s views are representative of a significant number of biologists and are firmly based on modern biological science. Neither is true.
Briefly stated, the theory of evolution posits that living organisms change over time as a result of mutation and natural selection. Within a population of organisms, mutations sometimes arise, and some of these mutations are beneficial and result in their hosts having more offspring.
Over time (often a very long time), different populations of an organism can diverge so much, both behaviorally and physically, that they can no longer interbreed and so become separate species.
This is the basic theory put forth by Charles Darwin 150 years ago. Today, the broad framework of Darwin’s theory is not only accepted by the overwhelming majority of biologists, but it also provides the context in which virtually all biological data are interpreted.
Some of the details of Darwin’s original theory have not held up. Lang gives the example of gradual change.
Darwin believed that evolution had occurred steadily over time; but it is now widely accepted that there have been bursts or “explosions” of speciation, often driven by cataclysmic climate changes.
Other details, such as whether mutations are always random, are still hotly debated by biologists. Such revisions, in the light of new experimental or fossil evidence, are the stuff of scientific progress and are secondary to the overarching acceptance of the broad tenets of evolutionary theory.
Incorrect and flawed
Several other statements in Lang’s column are either factually incorrect or logically flawed. For example, he writes that “no scientist has ever observed random mutation of a gene that was positive for the organism.”
In my laboratory, I work with fruit flies. If one takes a strain of flies with a deleterious mutation, one will often observe, after only a few months, that the strain gets healthier due to the accumulation of beneficial “modifier” mutations in other genes.
Second, Lang writes that “no Darwinian mechanism accounts for the evolution of a closed system like the DNA-protein cycle.” In fact, the evolution of this system is well-understood, due in large part to the discovery of some genetic elements that can replicate without the help of any proteins.
Third, Lang states that “any child can prove the existence of gravity” but no scientist can prove the existence of evolution. I would argue that dropping something and watching it fall does not prove the existence of gravity; it proves that things fall when you let go of them; but understanding why they fall is hardly child’s play.
Finally, Lang argues that the probability of life having evolved randomly on earth is so low as to be impossible. However, any specific event might be improbable until it happens.
At the moment of my own conception, a specific and unique combination of my father’s and mother’s DNA came together to form my genome. The probability of that particular combination of genes coming together is infinitesimally small — this is why no two people, excepting twins, are identical — and yet it happened. By Lang’s argument, I should not exist.
As for the relationship between Judaism and evolution, though evolution is certainly not the “religion devoid of facts or purpose” posited by Lang, I personally do not see any conflict between evolution and religion.
For ages scholars have debated the place of free will within Jewish theology, and my understanding is that most Jewish scholars do not see a conflict between free will and the existence of G-d. It seems to me that an acceptance of evolution and natural selection can be similarly incorporated into Jewish theology.
In the end, what I have always found satisfying about Judaism is that it is rooted in the rational interpretation of the facts that we are given.
If G-d gave us the Torah at Sinai, so, too, did He give us the DNA sequences, physical structures, and behaviors of every living creature on this planet; and the rational interpretation of these data can lead to only one conclusion: that all forms of life on this planet ultimately descended from a single common ancestor.
Edward Blumenthal, Ph.D., is assistant professor of biology at Marquette University.
New Orleans Jews need more
By Allan Bissinger
New Orleans (JTA) — We have never asked them to come, but come they have, from California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Baltimore, Seattle and everywhere in between.
The Jewish communities of North America have made it their collective cause to help sustain the Jewish community of Greater New Orleans through hands-on volunteering, by donating much-needed items, by raising funds for specific projects in the community, through the involvement of national religious movements and, of course, through the efforts of the United Jewish Communities, which has and continues to be the single largest donor of financial assistance to the New Orleans Jewish community.
And, for the best of all reasons, the requests to help have not stopped. One day it’s a temple in Philadelphia, the next an active donor from Los Angeles who simply wants to come down with her daughter and spend a few days being hands-on.
Finally, it’s a group of young adult leaders from the UJC, coming with gift cards in hand and with their muscle, removing debris from the homes of Jewish people.
But for all of this assistance, even eight months after Hurricane Katrina, the Jewish and general communities of New Orleans are still in need of volunteers for both hands-on projects and financial assistance. The community still has:
• A list of people who need their homes cleared of damaged contents before they can begin to decide what their next step is.
• A senior home that always could use some smiling faces.
• Shut-ins who need people to deliver “meals on wheels” and people to prepare that food.
And this is only the start of a long list of projects — physical and other — that a volunteer who wants to come down to Greater New Orleans can take part in during a two- to three-day stay.
And for those who are not able to come down and help, for whatever reason, being here is not the only way you can contribute. Gift cards from major national retail chains are always useful for people who have lost everything — clothes, furniture, appliances and books.
And sending donations to the federation’s Katrina Fund so that our organizations can operate and run programs for our members is equally as important as being here.
North American Jewry’s response to this crisis with donations and direct assistance brings to mind the community’s response during the 1967 Six-Day War, when Jews got on planes and flew to Israel to help.
It is appreciated beyond words. We can give you a simple “thank you,” where a “thank you” is not enough, but that’s all we have to give.
And we know that whether you come down and assist or help via a donation of one kind or another, you will touch and improve the lives of people whose lives have been shattered in more ways than one can describe.
For more information, email terigross@jewishnola.com, or go to www.jewishnola.com.
Allan Bissinger is president of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.
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