The news out of Madison today is that Rep Mark Green, one of two Republican challengers to Gov Jim Doyle (D), was implicated in testimony yesterday in former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen's official misconduct trial.
While in the Assembly, Mark Green was Caucus Chair. The testimony says that staffers worked on campaign material for Mark Green and many others while at their taxpayer-funded jobs with the Assembly Republican Caucus. You can find the story here.
Green and his flacks make very lame and disingenuous denials that he did anything wrong. Apparently, while in the Assembly, Mr Green donned his halo every morning and went to work in a place where everyone but him knew wrongdoing was taking place.
Green's Chief of Staff, Mark Graul, is involved in the testimony and the denials. Mark Graul has already been implicated in Abramoff scandals.
The scandal is bipartisan and explained below the fold.
The caucus scandal in Wisconsin involves the use of an army of taxpayer-funded staff working for legislative bosses. Already, four legislators, including Democrats, have reached plea deals.
In short, the caucus system was taxpayer-funded political bossism.
The caucus system corrupted the democratic process by political machines under control of legislative bosses. This led to candidates being hand-picked by political chiefs, instead of being chosen by the voters in their districts. Those favored by the bosses were given support in the form of fundraising, data management, material design, and campaign staff -- all on the taxpayer dime and only if the bosses liked you.
All sorts of bad policy, backroom deals and loyal partyline voting resulted. Few candidates would run against the machine although many didn't appreciate it's power until they tried to get elected without those resources.
This is a scandal involving Republicans and sex. The caucus scandal was started when a former Assembly Republican caucus worker, a woman, was involved in an affair with Representative Scott Suder that went awry. She went to the Wisconsin State Journal with memos and evidence that prosecuters followed up on. Suder, himself, was a former legislative staffer.
We need public financing of campaigns, but funding available to all, not funding controlled by the political bosses.