It is nothing less than the attempted murder of honest government, and the perpetrators of it deserve the political equivalent of the death sentence: recall. To that end, the co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), need to come clean and tell the world who authored this attack on democratic principles.
If they won’t, they need to be recalled.
THE PERPETRATORS DESERVE THE POLITICAL EQUIVALENT OF THE DEATH SENTENCE: RECALL.
The twelve Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee that voted this outrage into the state budget on the evening before a holiday weekend are refusing to identify who's behind it.
But Democrat Gordon Hintz, in the minority on the committee, had this to tweet:
The perpetrators deserve RECALL.
And the evidence pointing toward Scott Walker's involvement is deeper than just the tweet from Hintz. More after the jump...
Here's from Urban Milwaukee, under the headline & subhead Walker Vows to Change Proposal Gutting Open Records But critics see his fingerprints on controversial proposal, and governor refuses to discuss his role.
Christa Westerberg, vice president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, noted similarities between Walker’s invocation of a deliberative process exemption in recent months and the proposal in the “Motion 999” amendment to the state budget passed Thursday.
“It’s strangely coincidental that we’re seeing the deliberative process exemption in the budget within months of the Governor’s office and Department of Administration attempting a similar exemption in recent (open records) responses,” said Westerberg, a Madison attorney who also is legal counsel for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
“When the administration attempted this exemption this spring, it was really an unprecedented attempt to conceal decisionmaking documents about important issues in the budget.
“It’s fair to ask, did the governor request this language in Motion 999? And if so, why?”
The perpetrators here are caught in a terrible bind.
They're so used to being able to act with impunity, and with a compliant Wisconsin press, that they utterly failed to anticipate that the media establishment on both sides would turn against them with a mighty roar.
But if they change the proposal in any meaningful way, the jig is up! Because then they'll have to turn over the very documents that they're seeking to hide, and their involvement in the "attempted murder of honest government" will be fully revealed.
Two points to leave you with.
First: keep writing and calling! There's a full list of legislator contact information in GGB's excellent diary.
Second: I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Scott Walker LOVES recalls! The video below is from Scott Walker's 2010 campaign for governor, praising the recall effort in Milwaukee County that opened the way for his election to Milwaukee County Executive. Enthusiasm for recalls -- they're about HOPE! -- begins at about 50 seconds in:
“You know the folks that were angry about this started a recall and they were told they needed to collect 73,000 signatures in sixty days. Well, not hundreds, not thousands, but tens of thousands of ordinary people did an extraordinary thing. They stood up and took their government back. In less than thirty days they collected more than 150,000 signatures. It was at that moment I realized the real emotion on display in my county wasn’t just about anger. You see, if it had been about anger, it would have been about people checking out and moving out or giving up. But instead what happened was really amazing. You saw people standing up shoulder to shoulder, neighbor to neighbor and saying ‘we want our government back’ And in doing so the real emotion on display was about hope.” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/04/1399085/-Did-the-conservative-Lakeland-Times-just-demand-Recall-Walker
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