As legislative leaders secretly developed new election maps last year to strengthen their majority, Republican lawmakers were told to ignore public comments and instead focus on what was said in private strategy sessions, according to a GOP memo that became public Monday.

Other newly released documents also show almost all Republican lawmakers signed legal agreements promising not to discuss the new maps while they were being developed.

...

"Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room. Ignore the public comments," the talking points also say.

[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

We've thought all along that what Scott Walker described as a "voluntary" talk he planned to have with Milwaukee DA John Chisholm wasn't Walker's idea, but Chisholm's.  That's confirmed now.

Read more at Uppity Wisconsin

TO: Interesteds
FR: One Wisconsin Now
RE: Gov. Walker must ask for resignations of Werwie and Davis

According to none other than Gov. Scott Walker, any person he found illegally campaigning when he was Milwaukee County Executive would be asked to resign.

Yet as of today, two high-ranking members of Gov. Walker’s administration – spokesperson Cullen Werwie and state Medicaid Director Brett Davis – continue their state employment. This despite the significant evidence that they knew of, coordinated with and benefitted from the secret campaign operation allegedly run in the Milwaukee County Executive’s Office.

The long-ago resignation of constituent relations employee Darlene Wink for campaigning on county time provides no defense for Walker allowing Davis and Werwie to continue to collect state paychecks.

Surely, Gov. Walker has read himself, or at least been briefed on, the 50-plus page criminal complaint against his former Deputy Chief of Staff and campaign fundraiser Kelly Rindfleisch.

Surely he is aware of the evidence presented that Rindfleisch, Werwie as Davis’ Lieutenant Governor campaign’s manager and Davis himself as the candidate were in frequent contact with each other regarding his campaign.

In fact, the criminal complaint reveals that while Rindfleisch was employed by Milwaukee County and retained by the Davis campaign, she exchanged emails with Davis at least 300 times. In total, she sent or received nearly 1,400 e-mails related to campaign fundraising during regular business hours.

Davis and Werwie directed and supervised the activities of their contract campaign fundraiser Rindfleisch. They were fully aware of her position as an employee of Milwaukee County, and yet did nothing to discourage or stop her alleged illegal activities. Their actions, regardless of whether they are prosecuted, do not demonstrate the type of character one would want in top administration posts.

If Gov. Walker continues to fail to abide by his own policy by not asking for the immediate resignations of Davis and Werwie it, sadly, seems to confirm that he remains more concerned about getting caught illegally campaigning than getting to the bottom of serious allegations of abuse of the public trust and treasury.

Perhaps even more ominous is the appearance, if not the reality, that the continued public employment of individuals interviewed by prosecutors and alleged to be intimately involved in the criminal activities under investigation amounts to the payment of hush money.

As an elected official entrusted with the legal operation of his office and responsibility for the actions of his employees, the buck stops with Scott Walker.

To maintain any credibility in the face of this deepening scandal and mounting questions about his involvement, Gov. Walker must act consistent with his stated ethics policy.

Gov. Walker must see to it that Davis and Werwie’s state employment ends now.

From the One WI Now archives [February 2010]:

With rail on the mind as Joint Finance meets today to discuss establishing a high-speed rail line between Madison and Milwaukee, this seems to be an appropriate time to point out that Scott Walker received a $10,000 contribution from a railroad chief who happens to be a very visible advocate for using Recovery Act dollars for freight rail development to stimulate the economy.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

There's been much talk about passenger rail lately. But Bill Gardner is trying to get people to talk about freight rail, too.

The president and CEO of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad has spent the past year speaking to federal and state elected officials and community leaders about his plan to spur economic growth if federal stimulus dollars are earmarked for freight rail improvements. Gardner proposes that with $90 million, three sections of state-owned track could be repaired.

...

"We heard (President Barack) Obama was ready to do some shovel-ready projects," Gardner said. "We can have this thing up and running in less than 90 days. We're ready to go to fix a state-owned property."

And from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Walker received the maximum $10,000 contribution from five individuals, including... William E. Gardner, president and chief executive officer of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad in Milwaukee.

Walker has been back-tracking and re-tracking and back-tracking again his initial declaration that he'd refuse federal Recovery Act money. Now it appears as though Walker himself is willing to get stimulated even by those who have known all along that the Recovery Act is good for Wisconsin.

From the One Wisconsin Now archives [December 2009]:

Dear Mr. Walker,

Yes, jobs are the top concern for people all across the state of Wisconsin. But unlike you, who didn't start addressing job creation until after your announcement for Governor earlier this year, Wisconsin families have been concerned about losing their jobs in this Bush-created recession for nearly two years now.

It's great you finally joined President Obama's bandwagon in recovery dollars for its intended purpose: creating jobs and boosting local economies, like Milwaukee County's. It's also great you created a new marketing scheme within your office to "boost economic development." I am curious, however, about why you booted the Office of Community Business Development Partners out of your office in your 2006 budget, and eliminated the Department of Administrative Services Economic & Community Development division right when the economy was collapsing. I can't even believe an elected official would so completely abdicate his responsibility to help create jobs right when such efforts are needed the most.  

Here's what you said in October of 2008, during the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression:

The state and municipalities play larger roles than the county in shaping development, Walker said. They have access to more incentives that developers want and, in the case of cities, control zoning decisions. Often, firms interested in a deal mistakenly assume the county has a grab-bag of incentives, he said.

County Supervisor Toni Clark said she would oppose Walker's move, calling economic development "probably the most important division of county government."

The county needs to redouble its efforts at marketing its Park East holdings and hire more experienced development staffers, not downplay its development role, said Clark, the chairwoman of the County Board's Economic and Community Development Committee.

Walker's last two choices to lead the county economic development office, Bob Dennik and Tim Russell, came from his campaign and lacked depth in the development business, Clark said. Dennik left the post this week to become an executive with a Pewaukee construction company. Russell is now Walker's community relations director.

"Walker chooses folks who don't have (the necessary) experience," she said. (MJS, "Walker Budget Adjusts Priorities; He would lower profile of development efforts," 10/3/2008)

Your change of tune now that you're running for governor in what the county can do to spur economic development is hypocritical at best.

I'm also curious about what "Milwaukee County Works" will be marketing - your campaign for governor? It seems to me economic growth and job creation should have been an every year, year-round effort for an elected official with your responsibilities, not just in years leading up to an election. "Milwaukee County Works" sure is a great marketing ploy for campaign television ads though.

And then let's review your stance on federal recovery funds, and whether you were for or against, or was it you were against it before you were for it?

First of all, aren't federal dollars really taxpayer dollars that we sent to Uncle Sam out of our paychecks? And if Wisconsin is getting federal dollars, aren't we just getting back our own money? And if so, wouldn't we want to get back as much of our money as possible? So why would an elected leader take a stance in which he's refusing to accept our own money? Especially when he doesn't even have the authority to reject this return of our money.

Mr. Walker, your "criteria" are nonsensical and ridiculous and it's fortunate for Milwaukee County residents that the Board ignored you and did what is best for the taxpayers. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board rejected your arguments ("Just Plain Wrong," 1/8/09) in favor of the best interests of residents of Milwaukee County. So do your constituents.

Cory Liebmann from Eye on Wisconsin has some great questions for Scott Walker:

1. When Scott Walker emailed Tim Russell with the above listed message, why did he use his campaign email account?... [Read more]

2. Scott Walker's email to Russell specifically mentions "no laptops", so that shows us that he knew that his top staff were busy using such laptops on county time. How and when did he find that out?... [Read more]

3. Could someone please explain the employment dates of Kelly Rindfleisch because the timeline looks pretty damning?... [Read more]

4. What is up with Walker's top past/present campaign staffers? What? Didn't a single one of them wonder why county employees were communicating with them on a regular basis during work hours?... [Read more]

[Eye on Wisconsin]

Remember that Walker was swept into that office after Tom Ament resigned as County Executive in the wake of a massive recall signature effort.

...

In the case of Ament and supervisors who expanded fiscally ruinous pension payments, it was a matter of using a publicly-financed system to pad their retirement incomes.

With Walker, it was a matter of using the same publicly-financed system as a partisan consulting business to help candidacies and campaigns.

In both cases, public offices and resources were misused.

Walker the reformer. Hardly.

[Political Environment]

When is Scott Walker going to fire Brett Davis and Cullen Werwie from their state jobs in his administration?

Both of them were up to their eyeballs in the illegal fundraising scandal for which a former Walker staffer, Kelly Rindfleisch, was charged with four felonies on Thursday.

...

Although they have not been charged, both of them clearly conspired to break the law.

When will Walker fire them, or demand their resignations?  It's already a day too late.

[Xoff @ Uppity Wisconsin]

Turns out the worst news of Gov. Scott Walker's week wasn't that one million people signed papers to recall him from office.

It was that for the sixth straight month, the state of Wisconsin lost jobs

After all, with much of the nation gaining jobs over the last year, Wisconsin sits alone as an island of failure in a sea of recovery. The country has gained 3.2 million private sector jobs over the last 22 months, including 2 million jobs last year alone.

This continuing job loss under Gov. Walker comes after a full year in which he was given carte blanche by his fellow Republicans controlling the state legislature to pass any corporate tax break, gut any important public investment, amass as much power into the hands of the executive as the state of Wisconsin has ever seen.

And after all this: It's not working.

We've lost nearly 36,000 jobs during this six-month free fall in the wake of Gov. Walker's economic policies taking effect.

We know the state of Wisconsin was torn apart by Gov. Walker's attack on the collective bargaining rights of 175,000 workers. It was made worse by the Governor's systematic assaults on public education ($1.6 billion less available for schools including the largest per-pupil cuts in state history), health care (65,000 Wisconsinites to lose their coverage including 29,000 children) and seniors and the working poor (a $70 million tax hike through the Homestead Property Tax and Earned Income Tax Credits).

Gov. Walker's solution: More of the same failed trickle down policies.

Worse, instead of offering new and innovative job creation policies, Gov. Walker is crisscrossing the country sweeping up unprecedented and unlimited campaign cash for the nearly $5 million in television ads he's run.

One ad features a Monona Grove educator claiming the school district is not in such bad shape because of Walker's cuts.

Not so, says the district's superintendent, who told the media a different story: "The numbers in Monona Grove clearly don't work. We made significant cuts in terms of programs, laying off teachers, and we've closed a building. Next year, quite frankly, will be brutal."

Stories like this are happening all over the state and it has left the Governor will little credibility in the collapse of his central campaign promise to create 250,000 jobs.

And as long as Gov. Walker continues his policies of starving the people's needs to serve the endless greed of corporate special interests, the people of Wisconsin will endure the harm.

In fact, the only way Gov. Walker could be less credible is if he stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln like George W. Bush in front of a banner reading "It's Working, Wisconsin."

Scot Ross is the Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now, a statewide progressive advocacy organization on the web at www.OneWisconsinNow.org.

Gov. Scott Walker's failed economic policies have resulted in six straight months of job loss in Wisconsin, despite job creation happening in states across the nation.

Gov. Scott Walker has failed Wisconsin. His corporate tax breaks have failed us. His gutting of public education has failed us. His cuts to health care for 65,000 people includung 29,000 children have failed us. His turning over of state government to his corporate donors has failed us. His raising taxes by $70 million on seniors and the working poor have failed us. His tearing of Wisconsin apart to take away the rights of 175,000 has utterly failed us. Trickle down economics has never worked for the middle class and the poor and Gov. Walker's trickle down on steroids is a continuing and complete failure.