Late on Friday Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Screw You if You're Not Rich) decided to reward the brother of his campaign attorney (Steven Biscupic) with a nice judgeship.
Gov. Scott Walker has appointed a controversial former prosecutor — and brother of his campaign attorney — to the Outagamie Circuit Court.
Late Friday, Walker named former Outagamie County District Attorney Vince Biskupic to fill the vacancy left by Judge Dee R. Dyer, who retired in August.
Steven Biskupic, a former U.S. attorney, represents the governor's campaign. The Mequon-based Biskupic & Jacobs law firm has received more than $196,000 in legal fees from the Walker campaign, according to filings. The campaign paid another $378,000 between 2011 and 2013 to Michael Best & Friedrich during the time Steven Biskupic worked for that firm.
In his statement naming Vince Biskupic, Walker called him "an accomplished attorney with a broad spectrum of experience."
Doing this late on Friday, Scott Walker hopes nobody notices, but I did.
If the name "Biscupic" is ringing any bells, it's because Steven Biscupic has a checkered past. He was a George W. Bush appointed US Attorney who jumped jurisdictional lines to wrongly prosecute a state employee so the GOP could run attack ads charging "corruption" against the sitting (Democratic, of course) Governor.
He got a convenient and prompt conviction at the hands of Federal Judge Rudolph Randa. A Federalist Society ideologue in a black robe who attends Koch sponsored judicial "seminars". The smack-down he received at the hands of the Appeals Court was epic, but no amount of humiliation is ever enough for him. He went on to further infamy with a recent decision to halt the latest John Doe Probe and demand that evidence collected be destroyed. The Appeals Court is hearing that case.
Did I forget to mention that Steven Biscupics' wife is on Judge Randas' staff?
And now his brother is a Judge, thanks to his pal Scott Walker.
Mike Tate, chair of the state Democratic Party, criticized the appointment.
"The news that the brother of Steven Biskupic...is now getting a sweetheart judicial appointment is yet another example that membership in Walker's inner circle has its privileges," Tate said.
And Vincent Biscupic has a checkered past of his own:
In 2003, the state Ethics Board investigated Vince Biskupic amid allegations that he ran a cash-for-leniency program while Outagamie County district attorney. A report showed that 14 times over eight years he "negotiated precharging and plea agreements with individuals that required" them to donate money to a Crime Prevention Fund that the district attorney controlled.
(bolding is mine)
He wasn't charged ONLY because that Crime Prevention Fund didn't benefit him personally.
It's amazing that the same names keep on popping up all over the place in Walkers administrations.
Take Kelly Rindfleisch, for example. Once a Republican staffer in the Wisconsin State Legislature, she was up to her eyeballs in the Caucus Scandal of the 1990s. Staffer members routinely did fundraising and campaign work right from state offices on taxpayer time (sound familiar?). The ONLY reason she wasn't prosecuted was that she was granted immunity for her testimony in the case.
She became a top aide to then County Executive Scott Walker who was a Legislature during the Caucus Scandal so he was well aware of her history. As the first John Doe revealed, she got up to the same illegal funny business in his office. Among her various excuses, she claimed to not know that fundraising and campaigning out of an official office was illegal (yes, she DID try that).
The same names keep on circling around Walker. This time he's keeping it all in the RW family.
Biscupic will need to run for election in April, 2015, but will have incumbency on his side (a major benefit).
As promised, some good news (for us). Looks like Scott Walker is losing support in those rural areas that brought home the bacon for him in 2010 and during the 2012 recall.
Confined to a blog posting so voters reading the print edition will be clueless, the good article points to his losing ground in recent polls. No, those areas aren't all turning blue, many are just becoming less Republican in recent polls.
Walker needs those areas to combat the Democratic vote in the large population centers of Madison and Milwaukee. The Ring of Fire Counties (Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee) aren't enough on their own.
It's an interesting (and recommended) read, particularly excellent in it's analysis of how Walker "won" the 2012 recall.
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