PLEDGE SIGNING WAS ONLY A GESTURE

Editor: Regarding the June 19 letter from Steven Schmidt of Americans for
Tax Reform, lauding state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, for signing the
Taxpayer Protection Pledge sponsored by Schmidt's group.

While Suder's signing the pledge was a nice gesture, that it all it really
is, a gesture. It should not be seen as reason to vote to re-elect Suder
this fall.

Suder is neck deep in the caucus scandal, the kind of politician who does
what Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen tells him to do, with no questions
asked. That is how he came to be the chair of the Assembly's Criminal
Justice Committee despite only first being elected in 1998.

Suder used his position as chair of the committee to carry out Speaker
Jensen's orders to bury this session's bipartisan medical marijuana bill in
committee to make sure it never received a fair hearing. Suder and Jensen's
actions came despite the findings of a February 2002 Chamberlain Research
Poll that found over 80 percent of Wisconsinites support the legislature
passing a bill like the one Suder so coldly killed in his committee.

While the poll found little difference in support for medical marijuana
between Democrats, Republicans or Independents, Jensen and Suder insisted
on making it a partisan issue, leaving sick and dying Wisconsinites forced
to continue breaking the law, risking arrest and jail, and being forced to
obtain their medicine from drug dealers in back alleys, or to not break the
law and suffer needlessly.

In examining voting habits of respondents, the poll had more interesting
findings; for those who said they voted in every election, support for
passing a bill was 75.9 percent, for those who said they voted in almost
every election, the figure was 82.9 percent, and those saying they voted
only in major races, it was 83.1 percent.

Suder may be there to sign meaningless gimmicky pledges about taxes, but
when it comes to real flesh and blood issues like medical marijuana, he
follows orders and exhibits a total lack of compassion. Suder could have
been a hero to sick and dying Wisconsinites, had he given the bill a fair
hearing, and let patients, doctors, families, caregivers and others weigh
in. Instead he was nothing but Scott Jensen's hit man. It's time to clean
up state politics, and that means it's time to vote Scott Suder back to
private life.

Gary Storck Madison