Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has long been a leading light in the “Fuck Everyone But Rich People” movement, and as he seeks his third term in office, the eight years he has spent fighting on behalf of millionaires, kleptocrats, and corporations are finally catching up with him.
Now that he officially has a Democratic opponent, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, the revelations are coming fast and furious. Check out this ad, featuring Peter Bildsten, a former state executive who was appointed by Walker and clearly did not enjoy the experience of working for him:
Absolutely brutal. For more messy details, see the interview he gave to Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel:
Bildsten said in one instance he declined to set up a meeting with a payday loan lobbyist because he was busy and did not think the lightly regulated industry needed any favors. Fifteen minutes later, he got a call from Walker's office telling him to set up a meeting, he said.
“The payday loan industry has already got a lot of room to operate in the state of Wisconsin and I didn’t think it was appropriate or necessary for my agency to hear more of their requests for further relief," he said.
But Walker's office "made very clear to me you will meet with them and you will hear them out … so I did.”
No surprise there — Walker successfully pushed to make Wisconsin a killing field for the payday loan business, even as President Obama tried to reign it in on a federal level.
Meanwhile, Walker’s classic GOP mix of corruption, paranoia, and blatant disregard for good government rules has now also gotten him in hot water.
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That same Journal Sentinel story outlines that issue, too — basically, Walker’s administration allegedly told people to fax documents, avoid sending important or sensitive documents and messages by phone or email, and just generally try to not create public records. A former head of corrections for Wisconsin alleges the same thing in an explosive new book:
In his book, Wall writes that he was told to fax information to the governor’s office “to avoid creating a traceable record,” was scolded for sending emails to the governor’s office and was called to the Capitol “countless times” so information could be conveyed in person.
Wall writes that secretaries "had been instructed in some cases to slow down responses (to records requests) or not to respond to the press at all."
Wall’s book has mostly been making headlines for other issues, like Walker’s refusal to address increasingly terrible problems at a juvenile corrections facility that became a statewide scandal that has unfolded over years. Walker has never visited a single corrections facility in his eight years as governor, even as the prison population has soared in his time in office.
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Meanwhile, the progressive group One Wisconsin Now hit Walker earlier this week for his ridiculous habit of spending gobs of state money to take private flights to private campaign events around the state, ferrying around in the equivalent of a chaperoned air taxi to talk with lobbyists. It got the governor so riled up, he posted a Facebook rant about it.
Walker is clearly feeling the heat. He has a great opponent in Tony Evers, and the two are in a dead heat in the polls and Daily Kos just upgraded the race to a tossup. Evers really couldn’t be any more different than Walker; he believes in fully expanding Medicaid, funding public schools, respecting unions and worker’s rights, expanding the vote (instead of running a terrible and fraudulent Voter ID regime), and respecting a woman’s right to choose.
Right now, the GOP totally controls Wisconsin. This governor’s race, and a super-close State Senate, give Democrats a chance to almost entirely flip that. It would be incredible to see one of the great bastions of progressivism return to its people-powered roots, while slaying one of the big right-wing dragons of our time, so let’s do everything we can to make that happen!
CLICK HERE to donate to Tony Evers and Democratic candidates who can flip Wisconsin’s State Senate!
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