A Public Affair Patty Peltekos, Carousel Bayrd, Ali Muldrow, Allen Ruff, & Esty Dinur

There are two seats open on the Madison Metropolitan School Board. Incumbent Nicki Vander Meulen is running unopposed for Seat 7, and there is a competitive race for Seat 6. We speak with both candidates for that seat on today’s A Public Affair.



First, we talk with Badri Lankella about his decision to run and what he sees a the board’s biggest hurdles.

Badri Lankella works as a computer engineer at the Department of Natural Resources, and holds a Masters in Business Administration at UW-Madison. He’s the father of two kids enrolled at Vel Phillips Memorial High School. He’s served on a variety of organizational and governmental boards. He’s running for Seat 6 on the MMSD Board of Education. You can find more about his campaign here: https://badrilankella.com/ 



Then, we are joined by Blair Mosner Feltham who tells us about her campaign and what she would bring to the table if elected to the school board. 

Blair Mosner Feltham is a former Madison Metropolitan School District teacher with 12 years of experience in public schools. She worked in MMSD for 7 years, as a teacher, coordinator, and coach at West High School. Before that she worked in in two districts in California. Now, she works in a public school in a neighboring district and is running for Seat 6 on the MMSD Board of Education. You can find out more about her campaign here: http://bmf4mmsd.com/ 

Election day is Tuesday, April 4th. Early voting is happening now. You can preview your ballot at myvote.wi.gov

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Kadjata Bah has been named Wisconsin’s Journalist of the Year by Wisconsin Journalism Education Association (WisJEA). The award is open to high school seniors with student media experience. Kadjata has that and more. She is an education reporter and teen editor for the Simpson Street Free Press, which is where she got her start when she was 11. She has served as editor for East’s school newspaper and literary magazine.

She has also completed internships with The Cap Times and Madison Magazine, and he has written for the Eastside News.

Kadjata joins us on A Public Affair to tell us about being a young journalist and the joy of telling stories.

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Pulitzer on the Road is coming to the Overture Center tomorrow, Tuesday, March 28th at 7pm. The panel discussion will focus on the role of local journalism to keep residents and workers safe. Joining us on A Public Affair ahead the event is panelist and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Raquel Rutledge. Rutlege is a 2010 Pultizer Prize in Local Reporting winner for her reporting on the fraud and abuse uncovered in a child-care program.

Her 2021 investigation “Wires and Fires,” (co-reported with John Diedrich and Daphne Chen) was a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist. The series uncovers how electrical code violations and fatal fires are rampant in the Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods. Rutledge joins us to talk to us about that reporting and the importance of local reporting.

Raquel Rutledge is a public service investigative reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She is the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting winner.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

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Madison is hosting the 20th Catholic Worker Midwest Faith and Resistance Gathering this weekend, March 24 – 27, 2023. It will be a weekend of relationship-building, reflection, music, art, meals and direct action opposing F-35 fighter jets, militarism and war.

It begins tonight, Friday 24th with the presentation of the documentary Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA took Hollywood.

The weekend will culminate with a nonviolent resistance action to the F-35 fighter jets on Monday.

Updated event and location details can found on The Catholic Worker website or on Safe Skies Clean Water Wi’s page.

Joining us on A Public Affair are event organizer Janet Parker, and featured speakers Kathy Kelly and Brian Terrell.



Kathy Kelly is a peace activist, author, and board president of World BEYOND War. Kathy’s activism and writing are focused on Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza, and domestic protests against US drone policy. In the past thirty-five years her activism has led to her arrests at home and abroad. She lived in war zones, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US–Iraq wars.

Brian Terrell organizes with Strangers & Guests Catholic Worker and Nevada Desert Experience. He will be speaking this weekend on the international efforts of Catholic Workers regarding his resistance experience at the nuclear sharing bases in Europe, most of them set to receive F-35s soon.

Janet Parker is a mother, gardener, musician and war abolition activist in Madison, Wisconsin. Since last April, Janet and friends have held 27 War Abolition Walks in Madison to push for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine, and all wars. With Stefania Sani, Janet co-coordinates the new Madison chapter of the international war abolition organization World BEYOND War

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One value of “How to Save Democracy: Advice and Inspiration from 95 World Leaders” is the hope and optimism it instills in readers. It brings poetry to the fight, but, as vital to triumphing over demagoguery and corruption, it outlines seven key principles of democratic success.

-Eli Merritt on his recently released book

Merritt joins on on A Public Affair to discuss the threats facing democracy and how we might combat them.



Eli Merritt is a political historian at Vanderbilt. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others. His Substack, American Commonwealth, explores the origins of the United States’ political discontents and solutions to them. 

He is the editor of How to Save Democracy: Inspiration and Advice From 95 World Leaders (Amplify, March 2023) as well as of The Curse of Demagogues: Lessons Learned from the Presidency of Donald J. Trump (Spotlight Press, 2022). His book Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution is forthcoming (University of Missouri Press, June 2023). 

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There a few state wide referendums that are the spring ballot: two that would amend the state constitution and another that would gauge popular opinion. We cover them all in today’s program.

In the first half Dustin Brown from the UW Law School breaks down the two constitutional amendment referendums. The questions on the ballot address conditions of release before trail and the ability of a judge to impose cash bail. Dustin explains the process of amending the state constitution and what would happen if the referendums passed.

Then, we talk about the advisory referendum that asks “Shall able-bodied, childless adults be required to look for work in order to receive taxpayer-funded welfare benefits?” Equity and Justice Scholar Professor David Pate and Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner Ruth Conniff join us to explain how welfare already works and point out that “able-bodied, childless” welfare recipients are already required to seek jobs.

To see what is on your ballot you can visit https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Whats-On-My-Ballot

Election day is April 4th, and state-wide early voting has begun.

 



Dustin Brown is a Senior Staff Attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Dustin joined the Initiative following four years on the law school’s Legal Research and Writing faculty and nearly a decade in private practice, most recently with Godfrey & Kahn in Madison. He has litigated in state and federal courts on matters ranging from electoral redistricting, public records access, and defamation to insurance coverage, products liability, and deceptive trade practices.

David Pate, Jr. is the Equity and Justice Scholar in-residence at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Human Ecology and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Collaborative Center of Health Equity at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner.  Her book “Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers” won the 2022 Studs and Ida Terkel Award from The New Press.

Image by Yinan Chen from Pixabay

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