Since last week we've seen reports that Gov. Scott Walker is planning "financial martial law" in Wisconsin. This story first surfaced on Ed Garvey's FightingBob.com site, and then in Rick Ungar's blog at Forbes.com. Yesterday Walker labeled the reports "absolutely false" during a radio interview.
But there's plenty of reason not to believe Walker. Especially if you know anything about his history as Milwaukee County Executive.
The glossy MakeItYourMilwaukee.com website set up to promote this idea doesn't name Walker. Supposedly, according to the About page, the site has been created by "a broad-based coalition of local businesses, community organizations and individuals that have joined together to advocate for real reform for Milwaukee County." But this appears to be an astroturf site, which asks people to sign a petition or share a personal story (post a complaint about Milwaukee County) in forms that also authorize the site to use the names and stories for publication on the site, in the media, and in more advocacy efforts. You wouldn't think a "broad coalition" would be begging for such signs of citizen support. But this apparently isn't a broad coalition.
The only person clearly identified as leading this effort is Wisconsin State Senator Alberta Darling, who had issued a statement on the Make It Your (MY) Milwaukee County Initiative in mid-February, when the site and its Facebook page were launched.
Sen. Darling is co-chair of the state legislature's Joint Finance Committee. Would you believe she would help launch an initiative like this -- calling for "a statewide fiscal stress test through the State Department of Revenue to help local governments maintain fiscal health" -- without the okay of Governor Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers who lead the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly?
No, you wouldn't believe that. Neither would I.
Darling is a member of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council (her co-chair on the Joint Finance Committe is Rep. Robin Vos, ALEC's Wisconsin state chair). And the goals of this Milwaukee County initiative are similar to those ALEC recommends in its State Budget Reform Toolkit, including privatization and sale of government assets such as parks. The MakeItYourMilwaukee.com site even borrows ALEC's "toolkit" terminology, calling for a statewide “Local Government Flexibility Toolkit” -- starting with that statewide fiscal stress test. The combination of those ALEC-favored goals and a fiscal stress test is very similar to Michigan's recent Emergency Financial Management (EFM) or "financial martial law" legislation -- something MakeItYourMilwaukee.com makes absolutely clear by linking to a CBS News story about financial martial law in Michigan. Apparently they thought this would be a selling point.
You can't have financial martial law in a state, of course, without the cooperation of the governor. And you're not going to have a chairwoman of that state's Joint Finance Committee proposing anything like this without his full knowledge and approval.
This isn't the first time Scott Walker has had plans to sell or privatize Milwaukee's most valuable public property.
While Milwaukee County Executive, he diverted more than $100 million from a fund intended for capital projects and improvements to his general operating budget. According to County Supervisor John Weisham in 2006, "What he wants to do is destroy the parks so much that he can justify selling off prime public land to his developer buddies." O'Donnell Park, for example.
And Walker wanted to privatize Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport. After his plans were blocked in 2008, he introduced the idea again in his "State of the County" address in January 2010.
And now Walker wants people to believe that an initiative that would create financial martial law in Milwaukee and other counties, making it very easy for him to sell those parks and privatize that airport, has nothing to do with him.