Falk Sees Mandate for Police Roadblocks

The race between Democrat Kathleen Falk and Republican Nancy Mistele for Dane County Executive was in many ways business as usual.

The Madison second and sixth aldermanic districts (comprising proud and traditionally progressive populations) went overwhelmingly for Falk, giving her 83 percent and 91 percent of the vote respectively.

Madison Alder District 2 - Votes for Mistele - Falk

0111 C MADISON WD 37 ----------------94-------- 492
0112 C MADISON WD 38 ---------------54--------- 454
0113 C MADISON WD 39 ---------------114 --------431
0114 C MADISON WD 40 ---------------40--------- 183


*Total Votes-------------------------- 302-------- 1,560

Madison Alder District 6 - Votes for Mistele - Falk

0107 C MADISON WD 33---------------108 --------1,084
0108 C MADISON WD 34 ---------------97 --------1,110
0109 C MADISON WD 35 ---------------42--------- 578
0110 C MADISON WD 36 ---------------27--------- 124

*Total Votes -------------------------274--------- 2,896

* Unofficial results

As Matthew DeFour notes in the State Journal, rural Dane County went for Mistele who "won in Sun Prairie, Waunakee and the vast majority of the rural towns and villages, but not by as much as she needed to keep the race close" when the Madison isthmus wards began reporting.

What is not traditional here is Falk's acclaiming a mandate from a pro-civil liberties electorate for installing police roadblocks to catch drunk drivers [see Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz (1988); Rehnquist says police roadblocks are fine; Brennan, Marshall and Stevens dissent].

Citizens calling for police roadblocks? Not the Dane County I know.

Yet Falk spent a lot of television time on election night talking about how the victory means no more "alcohol misuse" in the name of "public safety." And this means it's time to install police roadblocks, says Falk, without mentioning police roadblocks by name in her victory interviews. One has to read the fine print in her "alcohol initiative" in which she refers to "checkpoints".

Makes search and seizure seem so much more palatable, though, again, where is the outcry for eviscerating the Fourth Amendment from Madison and rural Dane County?

Does Falk really believe police roadblocks are what Madison and Dane County want?

I'm betting that Falk might actually get around to reading the late authoritarian jurist William Rehnquist's opinion on roadblocks and back off. But who knows?

Let's hope that the necessary state legislation, already floated by Gov. Jim Doyle, dies fast.