Milwaukee County Wisconsin

Here is the latest Wisconsin news from The Associated Press:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Milwaukee County District Attorney's office says its review of 2,100 homicide convictions from the last two decades found no need for DNA testing to ensure that an innocent person wasn't sent to prison. District Attorney John Chisholm said yesterday his office looked for cases with untested evidence that would likely challenge a conviction's integrity.

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Former Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz is asking that a federal sexual harassment lawsuit against him be thrown out. Stephanie Van Groll is suing Kratz for sending racy text messages while he prosecuted her ex-boyfriend for domestic abuse. In a response to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Green Bay, Kratz contends it should be dismissed because he did not violate Van Groll's constitutional rights.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A campaign aide to Tim Pawlenty says the Republican presidential hopeful raised $4.2 million in the fundraising period that ended on Thursday. A Pawlenty spokesman said yesterday that the former Minnesota governor has more money in the bank than the party's 2008 nominee, John McCain, had at this point in the race.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Bayer CropScience will pay $750 million to settle several lawsuits with Midwest farmers who claimed a strain of the company's unapproved genetically modified rice contaminated their food stocks. The litigation goes back to 2006, when Bayer disclosed that its experimental strain of Liberty Link GMO rice was found in U.S. food supplies.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

COMMENTARY: Milwaukee County Board hits pause ... - Wisconsin Reporter

Add in the environment of public employee unions and teacher unions in a mad rush to lock down contracts before the state’s collective bargaining bill becomes law at the end of the month, the county’s long history of backing union rights, not to mention the county’s electoral history of backing Democrats, and it made a near perfect recipe for kowtowing to public employee unions and other unknown, behind-the-scenes shenanigans. In the work around, new county hires would see their retirement age rise to 64 from 60. New employees would see the county’s pension contribution lowered from 2 percent to 1.6 percent of the new employee's salary, and the number of furlough days governing county employees would shrink. In the meantime, the county would continue with its negotiations with the AFSCME local. If any union contracts were to be rammed through by the board, such an action would have been done during Thursday's meeting, because the board doesn't meet again until after the law is finalized.  So barring the calling of a special meeting of board to deal wholly with the union contracts — which just began to be negotiated — the next time the contracts could come up would be July 28. That's the next scheduled board meeting since the Milwaukee County Board only meets in regular session the third Thursday of every month. Kevin Binversie is a Wisconsin native who has been blogging on the state’s political culture for more than eight years. He has served in the George W. Bush administration from 2007-2009, worked at the Heritage Foundation and has worked on numerous Wisconsin Republican campaigns in various capacities, most recently as research director for Ron Johnson for Senate. Contact him at kevin.binversie@franklincenterhq.org.