Sue S Conley – ABOLISHmke

Contact Representatives to Block Snitch House Legislation!

UPDATE 6/16: The snitch house bill is likely to pass the legislature today. Please join the action to demand governor Evers veto it.

UPDATE 6/11: Yesterday the Joint Finance Committee put $1 million into the budget for snitch houses. The full assembly will vote on slew of bills on Wednesday June 16, including this and other fake police reforms. Please contact assembly representatives (listed below) before then to demand they vote against any bill that will expand police funding or scope of work.

Here at ABOLISHmke, we’ve put a lot of attention on the snitch house (AB258) bill (also known as COP house) ever since it passed the senate with unanimous support. Well, that attention is starting to register victories. On June 2nd the Committee on Local Government held an executive session on it, and every democratic representative voted against it. Despite this, it still passed the committee — republicans dominate the legislature in Wisconsin.

Snitch Houses Take from Communities to Expand the Role of Police

“Shhhh… don’t tell” Taylor playfully whispers to her co-conspirator.

This article is part four of a series on legislation to create snitch houses, also known as “COP houses” across Wisconsin.

While advocating for snitch houses, senator Taylor made backroom deals with the republican establishment. She says she’s looking for community houses that provide wrap-around services, but what’s actually happening is police are taking control of resources and services, while expanding their role in society.

In early May, SB124 and AB258 were amended to remove the appropriation of grant funding, expand eligibility requirements to include smaller cities, and add a few usage specifications. Kelda Roys was the sole vote against this amendment in the senate committee, but she ultimately ended up voting in favor of the bill. During the May 18 assembly committee hearing, Mark Spreitzer asked the senators, “why [they] took the money out of the bill […] is it going to be a two year thing, or ongoing?

Snitch Houses Displace Residents to Benefit Landlords

Mount Pleasant cops, just out there flipping houses.

This article is part three in our series on legislation to create snitch houses, also known as “COP houses” across Wisconsin.

In the last article we showed how putting a snitch house in a targeted area reduces crime in that specific area, but increases economic and emotional strain for targeted residents. People experiencing stress are more likely to resort to crime, they just go somewhere further from police presence to do it.

At the May 18 hearing, committee member Sue S Conley, a democrat whose district borders zigzag tightly around Janesville, making the neighboring districts more solidly republican, recognized this dynamic. “You come into a neighborhood,” she said, “you establish the house […] did the problem just shift to another neighborhood?” Van Wanggaard’s response was a gleeful “sometimes,” but Taylor cut him off with a more diplomatic response that acknowledged the real problem. She went onto a tangent about drug dealers operating out of their cars rather than drug houses to be more mobile. Her statement reinforced, rather than allaying, Conley’s concern. Then Wanggaard burst back in with a great real-life example.

Take Action Against Snitch Houses!

[UPDATE: the snitch house bill went to vote Wednesday June 15. Some representatives, esp Baldeh, Brostoff, and Bowen made strong arguments against snitch houses on the floor, but the bill passed by voice vote, so we cannot tell who all voted which way on it. The republicans were capable of passing the bill even if we had turned every democrat against it. Governor Evers has stated that he will sign the snitch house bill, as well as a few other bills that had bipartisan support.

There was a lot of bad legislation rammed through on Wednesday, some of it met strong opposition from democrats. For the most part, republicans did not respond verbally, they just moved to vote and passed the bills as quickly as they could. Evers will veto bills that didn’t gain support from democrats in the legislature, which is why it matters when democrats like senator Lena Taylor and representative Sheila Stubbs collaborate with clear white supremacists like Van Wanggaaard and Jim Steineke. They give legitimacy to bad legislation that would die if they hadn’t supported it.]

Snitch House Democrats

The aftermath of community defending itself against a snitch house.

There’s a bill working its way through the state legislature that will give police $600,000 to establish snitch houses in many Wisconsin cities. A snitch house, also called a COP or “community oriented policing” house, is a small police department that looks like a house and provides “wraparound services” like after-school programming to the neighboring community in exchange for improved community and police relations. By “improved relations,” they mean snitching.

Senator Lena Taylor brought the senate version of this bill to a public hearing in Milwaukee alongside some other trash. There, residents, including many of her constituents, roundly opposed it. Nevertheless, Taylor went forward, promoting it at a press conference and then seeing it pass unanimously in the senate on Tuesday, May 11.

Now the assembly version of the bill, AB258, is coming up for a hearing in Madison on Tuesday May 18 alongside the assembly version of SB119, the notorious “fund the police” bill. SB119 is an empty republican provocation with zero bipartisan support. Governor Evers will certainly veto it. The snitch house grant is a bigger threat because, without intervention, it will actually become law.