One Wisconsin Now Files Open Records Request for Walker Administration-Koch Lobbyist Communications
Koch's Americans for Prosperity Running Ads Supporting Walker Scheme
MADISON, Wis. — One Wisconsin Now filed an open records request today for all written communications and records of scheduled meetings between Koch Industries’ top in-state lobbyist and the office of Gov. Scott Walker, his former transition office and the Wisconsin Department of Administration.
Koch Industries’ billionaire owners Charles and David Koch are the driving financial force behind Americans for Prosperity, the organization which is running hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ads to support Gov. Walker’s effort to use the government to take away the right of 175,000 Wisconsin workers. Gov. Walker has also included in his scheme a plan to allow private companies, like Koch Industries, to purchase the state’s public power plants – in a possible no-bid scheme.
“Gov. Walker is using the government to take away the rights of working families and do Koch’s bidding,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “The people of Wisconsin deserve to know what the Walker administration was telling Koch’s top state lobbyist and when they were talking.”
KochPAC gave Gov. Walker’s gubernatorial campaign $43,000 and David Koch personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which spent $5 million to elect Gov. Walker. [Center on Media and Democracy, 2/18/11; Republican Governors Association Press Release]
The Koch brothers are also the driving force behind Americans for Prosperity, which spent $70 million in 2009 and 2010 to advance Koch’s anti-working family agenda. Americans for Prosperity was founded through the donations of the brothers’ Koch Foundation.
“As we learned yesterday, Gov. Walker is more than willing to pick up the phone and gossip with ‘David Koch’ about his scheme to threaten and layoff Wisconsin workers for political reasons,” said Ross. “We have a right to know what Koch Industries’ top Wisconsin general is saying to the Governor and his staff.”