A couple of days ago, The Guardian released the leaked The John Doe Files—1,500 documents from Wisconsin prosecutors’ investigation into campaign malfeasance and “dark money.” A lot of what is available for readers to see is the extensive network and desperate relationship between the Wisconsin Republican Party and their billionaire overlords. One of the more tangible revelations found in the leaked documents is how money buys bad policy-making decisions. An example is how Harold Simmons, a man who owned a company that produced lead that used to be in paint, made $750,000 worth of donations to Walker in 2011 and 2012 and got Republicans to protect him from lawsuits.
Simmons' donations were made before and after Republicans approved two laws helpful to the industry — one in January 2011 and the other in June 2013. The 2013 measure was inserted in a budget bill in the middle of the night despite warnings about its constitutionality.
The documents confirm earlier reports that Walker solicited millions of dollars for Wisconsin Club for Growth, a group then run by R.J. Johnson, one of his top campaign advisers. The Guardian story says Walker was warned in an email about potential "red flags" with Simmons, who died in 2013, including a magazine story that described him as "Dallas' most evil genius."
It wasn’t constitutional, but Scotty wanted that money!
Simmons already had a reputation of getting off the hook for paying damages to lead poisoning victims and had gained notoriety in Texas for dumping toxic waste. The document also revealed that Walker’s advisors cautioned him about these “red flags.” However the warnings weren’t enough to keep the lawmakers from cashing Simmons’ checks.
Harold Simmons died in 2013 at the age of 82, throwing doubt on the idea that there is a God of justice in the universe.
But in July 2014 a federal appeals court ruled that a lawsuit by one of those children could continue despite the 2013 state law. The boy who suffered lead poisoning can sue a half-dozen major manufacturers of paint used on the Milwaukee house where he lived, based on a theory approved in a controversial 2005 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled.
In an interview Wednesday, the boy's attorney, Peter Earle, said he was "trembling with rage" at the news of the contributions by the industry, saying that they were meant to block claims by "the most vulnerable among us." He said Republican leaders in Wisconsin had benefited from industry money and then acted to try to retroactively block lawsuits by children harmed by lead paint.
One of the Republicans name-checked here is Glenn Grothman. You may remember him for being on Daily Kos writer Hunter’s dumbest congressman list. You may remember him for being super anti-gay, because he wants to protect children from the evil that is homosexuality. You might remember him for being a hypocrite of epic proportions.
In December 2011 and January 2012, GOP state Sen. Glenn Grothman was drafting legislation to make immunity from liability lawsuits retroactive. The drafting file for the bill shows that Grothman, now a congressman, and his aides gave drafting attorneys an unsigned memo on the issue that appears to have been written by an outside attorney.
Grothman declined to comment. The proposal failed to pass in 2012, but Grothman was on the Joint Finance Committee when it ended up passing a similar measure in 2013.
You can find no better example of Republican philosophy in action than the state of Wisconsin.