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

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

Wisconsin used to have one of the nation's most efficient, honest and voter-friendly election systems in the country. No more. A draconian photo ID requirement will make it more difficult for legitimate voters to cast ballots, which ensures longer lines and confusion on election day. And now, thanks to a hasty and unnecessary gerrymander, tens of thousands of voters are listed in the wrong municipality for voting purposes.

It's a war on voting, and the voters are losing.

[Tomah Journal]

Organizers of the effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker on Tuesday filed what they said were more than a million signatures, a number that nearly matches Walker's vote total from 2010 and almost doubles the number of signatures needed to trigger another election. 

United Wisconsin, the organization formed to recall the governor, said it turned in about 1.9 million signatures to the Government Accountability Board, a tally that includes 845,000 signatures to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and more than 21,000 apiece for Republican Sens. Pam Galloway of Wausau, Van Wanggaard of Racine and Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls. Earlier in the day, the group working to recall Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, filed 20,600 signatures.

[Wisconsin State Journal]

A Janesville sign company may be regretting its decision on where to place a billboard touting the job creation efforts of Governor Scott Walker. The sign was briefly put up in front of the shuttered General Motors plant in Janesville this week, but was taken down quickly after groups started pointing out the unfortunate placement.

The GM plant closed in 2009, causing thousands of job losses in the Janesville area. The plant was shutdown well before Walker was elected governor.

The "Governor Scott Walker - Creating Jobs for Wisconsin" billboard was put up as part of a pro-Walker ad campaign being run by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

WMC is of course the most powerful pro-corporate business lobby in our state who consistently cheerleads Gov. Walker's anti-working class agenda. Fact is Walker simply isn't creating jobs for Wisconsin.

[Wisconsin Radio News]

I am not going to comment on PolitiFact's own politics (as the Wall Street Journal did), the notion of fact-checking balance that interested other commentators, or the notion that PolitiFact's time has come and gone. The fact is Republicans by supporting Ryan's voucher plan did essentially vote to end Medicare.

[Columbia Journalism Review]

h/t Uppity Wisconsin

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is struggling to defend his latest ethical scandal (he took free legal services from a law firm that would later appear before him during trial) with the help of an attorney with quite a résumé.

In addition to working on Gableman's ethics case, McLeod assisted Gableman in responding to a public records request from the Journal Sentinel and in a complaint filed by the liberal group One Wisconsin Now against Gableman with the Office of Lawyer Regulation. Gableman and Michael Best have not said whether Gableman paid for those services.

Gableman also has not said whether he is paying for the services of Dinh, his latest attorney. Dinh is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who worked as the assistant attorney general for legal policy in President George W. Bush's administration. In that post, he helped develop the USA Patriot Act and worked on the selection and confirmation of judges.

...

Dinh sits on the board of News Corp. and has been helping lead that firm's investigation of a phone-hacking scandal at its now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]