H -°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°As a society, we hold politicians to notoriously low standards. Whether it’s soliciting gay sex in a Minneapolis airport (Larry Craig, R-Idaho), sexting aides and interns (Mark Foley, R-Florida), or blowing as much as $80,000 on high-class — oxymoron warning — prostitutes (Eliot Spitzer, D-New York), it takes a lot to surprise the American public. So, the question is: how is State Assemblyman Jeff Wood, I-Chippewa Falls, and his five OWI arrests any different?
Well, for one thing, he could have actually killed someone. For another, all the other aforementioned politicians had the common decency and basic sense of shame to resign (at least initially).
Well not Rep. Wood. Like a friend trying to grab his keys, Wood keeps swatting our hands away. After resisting calls to step down following OWI number four last September, Wood jumped bail and picked up the magic number five before Halloween.
We understand people make mistakes, and by no means should we rush to expel every member the state Legislature who has so much as an underage. Nevertheless, at some point a line needs to be drawn, and we feel like somewhere around the fifth OWI is probably lenient enough.
The Assembly doesn’t seem to share that same sentiment, however. Perhaps afraid of their own closet skeletons, or perhaps loath to lose the entertainment at their annual Christmas party, a motion to expel Wood failed to garner the required two-thirds vote early Wednesday. Instead, the brave lawmakers decided to censure Wood, a move that will go on his permanent record along with that one time he got sent to Gov. Jim Doyle’s office for shooting spitballs — basically, it doesn’t matter.
Given his actions, Wood should be busy explaining why we shouldn’t fire him. Instead, he and his lawyers are grasping for any excuse they can find. Well, it doesn’t matter if he was hopped up on moonshine or Robitussin. If you can’t see straight, you shouldn’t drive. And if you repeatedly demonstrate you are incapable of making that distinction, you shouldn’t be allowed to represent the people of Wisconsin, either.
Picking up two OWIs in one month, for a career total of five, serves as a clear indication that one is unfit to decide state policy, among other things. Moreover, allowing Wood to maintain his seat only reinforces the impression in Wisconsin that “drunk driving just isn’t that big of a deal.”
Drunken driving is that big of a big deal. It accounted for nearly half of traffic-related deaths in 2007, and Wood even said as much in December when he voted to strengthen our (still) laughably weak OWI laws.
The most frustrating aspect of this whole scenario is that just hours earlier the Assembly seemed poised to expel Wood. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, a Republican partisan, had been pushing such a resolution since last fall. Coupled with Tuesday’s announcement that Democratic leader Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville, had plans to bring a similar resolution to the floor, it seemed Wood was heading for the chopping block. In the end though, the bill didn’t even come close to passing.
It turns out there is something weaker than our state’s OWI laws after all. Unfortunately, it happens to be the Assembly’s spine.
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What about the fact that Rep. Wood just got sentenced to 45 days in jail? How’s he supposed to serve his constituents and the rest of the state from behind bars?
While I personally feel such matters should generally be left to the voters, 3 DUIs within a year is really pushing it, especially when they’ve come in such quick succession and his ability to carry out his duties as a legislature has been so adversely affected.
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The Democrats need his vote for the bills they are going to take up today, end of story.
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Enough with the playing on words already.
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wood you ever consider possibly writing a title without an obnoxius pun?
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how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood
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The majority Democrat controlled Assembly is thanking him for crossing idealogical lines to help them ram the legislation through the process in this last week.
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Wood is still contesting two of his charges, and only one of his arrests has led to a jail sentence. As Representative Hubler said, this should hardly amount to an expulsion. Also, his voters did not vote to recall him and expelling him from the Assembly would have left his constituents without representation until the next election. Granted, today was the last full session so all of this is fairly irrelevant.
I am not making light of drunk driving. It is a serious crime and a serious public safety issue, particularly in this state. However, I think a little compassion could be directed towards Wood. He clearly has a substance abuse problem and his life is virtually falling apart. With a jail sentence, a revoking of his license for two years, and a fine, I think the judiciary has punished him effectively. It is not the Legislature’s job to act as a criminal justice system. Again, the choice to expel Wood should have ended when the voters decided not to recall him.
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What are the rules for expulsion? You should address that in your article. Your paper has covered all of the exaggerated hyperbole, but you have not described the expulsion rules. I can personally just look at the arrest photo of Wood and see that he clearly should be expelled. But I assume the expulsion rules do not include being “photographed in a clearly drunken state with disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes and unshaven” as grounds for expulsion.