Gov. Walker to Double Down With Attacks on Working People in Las Vegas Speech

MADISON, Wis. — Sinking in the national polls, the bumbling campaign of onetime frontrunner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, is preparing to double down with renewed attacks on working people. Career politician Walker’s desperate bid to remain competitive on the backs of the middle class and working people will be unveiled in a Monday speech in Las Vegas Nevada, hometown of anti-union, Walker mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

“Scott Walker has always been willing to do or say anything to try to win an election,” commented One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross. “It’s no surprise he’s now trying to boost his sagging poll numbers by promoting the same kinds of attacks on working people that vaulted him to national prominence while conveniently ignoring how his policies left Wisconsin in shambles.”

Annette Magnus, Executive Director of Nevada’s Battle Born Progress, noted Las Vegas is home to the notoriously anti-union Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. The casino magnate reportedly poured in excess of $92 million into supporting GOP presidential candidates in 2012 and has been quoted saying that as long as the ultra-wealthy could buy elections, he would do it.

“We know one of Sheldon Adelson’s top priorities is lower wages for workers and fewer rights in the workplace. On this front Scott Walker is Adelson’s dream candidate having eviscerated the pay and rights of workers in Wisconsin,” said Magnus. “Now it looks like he’s doubling down on those attacks in the hopes of hitting a big payday in Las Vegas.”

Walker and Adelson are no strangers according to Wisconsin campaign finance records. In 2012, exploiting a campaign finance loophole, Adelson wrote Walker a $250,000 check for his recall election while family members donated another $30,000. In his 2014 election, Walker was limited to a $10,000 maximum donation from individuals to his campaign. So Adelson wrote a $650,000 check to the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW), and, on the same day it was received, the RPW made a $450,000 contribution to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign. More recently Walker travelled to Israel at Adelson’s behest and on his dime with the Republican Jewish Coalition along with Walker’s “Our American Revival” political group paying as yet undisclosed sums for the junket.

According to Ross, Walker’s signature attack on worker rights known as Act 10 significantly reduced the take home pay of public employees like teachers, nurses, prison guards and other state and local government workers. Other measures he has signed into law as governor are also leaving Wisconsin families with less income like his repeal of an equal pay law and a wrong for Wisconsin right to work law that will cut union and non-union families annual incomes by up to $5,000. Walker most recently gutted a state prevailing wage law that helps protect jobs by ensuring infrastructure projects go to local firms that hire local workers, rather than firms that bring in lower wage workers from other states.

Ross commented, “Scott Walker crapped out in Wisconsin where 60 percent of state voters disapprove of the job he’s done, leaving us divided as never before, short on jobs and dealing with record cuts to public education.”

Magnus concluded, “The record shows, this guy is a bad bet for working people.”