This story, amazingly enough, starts with a great lady, a solid Democrat and stalwart of the African-American community in Milwaukee, Polly Williams. Over a score of years ago, Williams crusaded for Parental School Choice, which in 1991, was a revolutionary idea in education and ushered in the age of educational vouchers.
Any parent wants what is best for their child, it is human nature. But sometimes we all pave the road to Hell with our best of intentions. This episode in Milwaukee history would have national consequences, and behind this early push were the Koch Brothers.
During the court case concerning the constitutionality of the law, which went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Polly Williams was represented Landmark Legal Foundation, but her case was argued by the Institute for Justice. This was a brand new public-interest law firm, founded by Clint Bolick and Chip Mellow.
This all came down to the school unions versus the corporate interests looking to privatize education.
Who would fund such an upstart, to break unions in Wisconsin? Let's go to the horse's mouth.
Voucher wars: waging the legal battle over school choice
By Clint Bolick, Published by the Cato Institute, 2003
Page 35
http://books.google.com/...
Finally, we received an offer of seed funding from foundations supported by libertarian businessmen Charles and David Koch. We targeted a start-up for our new Institute for Justice in early fall.
Landmark and I agreed that I would argue the Milwaukee case under Landmark's auspices even though I would join IJ before then. Thereafter, Landmark would represent Polly Williams in any subsequent litigation.
On September 3, 1991, Chip and I opened IJ with a staff of seven in subleased offices at the corner of 10th and Pennsylvania. For both of us, it was a dream come true: a chance to practice public-interest law the way we always believed it should be practiced. Chip and I are well-suited partners. We balanced each other's shortcomings and boost each other's spirit. The sum of the whole is a greater than the parts. Chip is an excellent lawyer and a good manger. We see the world in much the same way (except our baseball allegiances - I root for the Yankees while Chip is a long-suffering Red Sox fan), and we're both passionately committed to IJ's mission and clients. It worked well.
And from the very first day, we vowed to defend every school choice program until the constitutional cloud was removed. We adapted a motto from the late-night television commercial: If you have a choice program, you have a lawyer!
So with finical backing of the Koch Brothers, Institute for Justice would go on to astroturf away the "clouds" of constitutional of these programs, much to the determent to the public school system and the teachers union. More on that later, because the Koch ties to corruption and propaganda in the Wisconsin educational system is far from over.
Once the collation was in place, they would further press to expand the voucher program until they starved the public education system, hoping to cause a collapse in both the teachers union and funding, forcing a privatization of education, a win-win for the Koch Brothers and their hordes of astroturfers and front groups.
But as is the case with many of these types of organizations, the envelope of legality while sooner or later get pushed to far.
This came in 1997, in the electoral contest between Joe Wilcox and Walter Kelly for Supreme Court Justice of the State of Wisconsin. A lot of dirty pool went on during the campaign, which ended with the eight-member Elections Board voting to sue Wilcox's campaign manager, Mark Block, and the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation.
Election Board to sue Wilcox campaign
By Steve Schultze, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
March 23, 2000
http://news.google.com/...
(We are going back to the edges of archiving of the Internet here, so please excuse the formating. -PT)
The $200,000 came from a dozen school-choice supporters around the country, who were interested in the race because the court was expected to rule soon on the state's religious schools choice program for children from poor Milwaukee families, the board said in a statement.
Nine of the donations came from individuals, the statement said. The other three presumably were from corporations, although the statement doesn't spell that out. Names of the donors will be disclosed later this week, Elections Board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy said.
Wilcox won handily over Milwaukee attorney Walter Kelly, who was considered an opponent of school chic, Wilcox, a presumed choice supporter during the campaign, voted with the majority to uphold the law in 1998.
One would think that the Koch Brothers would have been all over this, but unless they are connected to the following:
http://business.highbeam.com/...
In a caption and a graphic accompanying a story on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox that ran on pages 1A and 3A in some editions Thursday, we erroneously reported where some 1997 campaign contributions went. Windway Capital Corp., owned by GOP activist Terry Kohler, contributed $30,000 to the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation. The other donors -- American Education Reform Foundation, William J. Hume Trust, Pat Rooney, Barre Seid, John Walton, PMA Foundation, Bob Thompson, Pete du Pont, William E. Lamothe Trust, John M. and Kathleen S. MacDonough and Robert Schoolfield -- also contributed money to WCVP. The State Journal regrets the error.
Amazingly, the Koch Brothers kept their paws off this fiasco, but the reason this is relevant is that Mark Block would be fined $15,000 and banned for three years from any volunteer or paid political activity.
It is also relevant because had Walt Kelley been elected, the vouchers for religious schools might have been ruled unconstitutional due had he been on the bench.
The Koch Brothers know a good soldier when they see one, and shortly after the Mark Block's ban had expired he became the state director for Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group most know by now that David Koch funds lavishly.
When not muddying the waters on global climate change for Americans for Prosperity, Mark Block would again get rather close to breaking the law when it came to any school issue.
Group's calls to West Bend are legal
Official says message about schools came close to violating law
By Don Behm, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Nov. 6, 2007
http://www.jsonline.com/...
A national group advocating lower government spending did not violate state election laws when it sponsored computer-generated telephone messages for West Bend School District residents about a proposed $119.3 million school building referendum, Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens said Monday.
The message from Americans for Prosperity did not expressly promote or oppose a particular vote on the referendum in today's special election, so the group was not required to register to campaign on the issue, Martens said.
"I believe the language in the call comes dangerously close to express advocacy," Martens said in a letter to It's Time. Martens, in the letter, urged Americans for Prosperity and its state director, Mark Block, "to scrupulously adhere to the requirements of Wisconsin elections and campaign financing law."
"The communication in question obviously opposes the referendum question," Martens said.
"Although it appears that some of the information in the call is misleading and a distortion of the true financial impact of the referendum on taxpayers, the veracity of the political speech is not the issue in determining whether Americans for Prosperity is required to register as a political committee," according to Martens' letter.
State election law requires anyone expressly promoting the passage or defeat of a referendum question to register to campaign, according to the state Elections Board.
Block has said the message was intended to educate West Bend residents.
In the West Bend referendum, Americans for Prosperity's telephone message said the building plan would cost "$574,000 for each child" added to the district since a 2001 referendum.
School Superintendent Patricia Herdrich has described the message as "inaccurate and misleading."
Mark Block work for the Koch Brothers through the Americans for Prosperity would continue until just last month, when he left the organization to become the Chief of Staff for the presidential run of Herman Cain.
Here is Mark Block's page on the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity:
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/...
Obviously Mark Block, with his history of dirty tricks and astroturfing in Wisconsin, was the moneyman in the huge push the Koch Brothers made in Wisconsin for their puppet Scott Walker. Under his leadership, the corporate interests were once again able to covertly influence public elections by infusion of large amounts of money to fund ads, misleading phone calls and ethically questionable mail-outs.
What can one say, he does good work and every campaign he was tasked with ultimately when the Koch Brothers way. It also telling that once the Koch Brothers electioneer had completed his dirty, Mark Block was replaced with Matt Seaholm, who is obviously tasked with transitioning the sale of public utilities to the Koch brothers.
For those who don't know Matt Seaholm, he is a go to guy for big oil interest, especially if that interest is interested in looting the taxpayer.
DCCC: Representative Sean Duffy dispatches chief of staff to lead oil billionaire Koch brothers' interests in Wisconsin
CONTACT: Jennifer Crider & Haley Morris (202) 485-3440
2/24/2011
http://wispolitics.com/...
After just weeks in Congress, Representative Sean Duffy (WI-07) sent his Chief of Staff Matt Seaholm to take a new post--leading the controversial oil billionaire Koch brothers' lobbying shop in Madison. Prior to serving as Representative Sean Duffy's Chief of Staff, Seaholm managed Duffy's campaign, which benefitted from more than $100,000 from the Koch brothers to help elect Representative Sean Duffy in November.
Despite ties to the controversial oil billionaires Koch brothers, Representative Sean Duffy still refuses to comment on Governor Walker's budget that has sparked historic numbers of workers to protest against it.
"While Representative Sean Duffy is protecting big oil interests in Washington, he’s sent the Koch brothers the next best thing to do their bidding in Madison—his right-hand man,” said DCCC Midwest Regional Press Secretary Haley Morris. "It's appalling that Representative Sean Duffy prefers to remain in the shadows with the oil billionaire Koch brothers than stand up for Wisconsin working families."
Unfortunately for the Koch Brothers, all their handwork in getting their puppet elected by their dirty pool electioneer to gain control of the state-owned utilities in Wisconin, a process to be overseen by their oil insider, all came crashing down when people actually read the bill in question and saw their end game.
But from 1991 until present, the Koch Brothers have been using propaganda and astroturfing to further their own interests agains the public school system and the unions that support it. From funding the Institute to Justice, to unleashing their propagandist Mark Block through the front American for Prosperity, they have been pushing this agenda virtually in the dark and without the knowledge of the Wisconsin taxpayer/voter.
Then something very unfortunate happened to the Koch Brothers, all this information, slowly but surely, started to be archived on the internet, for all to see. With just googling and indexing, the dots connect themselves and it becomes obvious that in Wisconsin alone the Koch Brothers have been subverting American democracy for over 20 years.
Now one has to wonder, what are they up to in other states? And is "What's wrong with Kansas?" actually what's wrong with our current political system, and if all roads lead to the Koch Brother's offices in Wichita.