David Michael Miller
When I was a kid, my dad, who moved to Wisconsin from New Jersey, used to derive endless amusement from reading about what passed for political corruption in the local news. A story about former Madison Police Chief David Couper kissing his wife on board an official police boat generated headlines for days. Another local official was the subject of a major scandal when it was revealed he’d made $15 worth of personal phone calls from his office.
Bribery, corruption and intrigue involving the mob were daily fare back in my dad’s hometown. Wisconsin, with its tidy farms and super-clean Midwestern political culture, was a breath of fresh air.
Times sure have changed.
Just in the last two weeks, our state Assembly has passed bills to do away with John Doe investigations of corrupt public officials; double the amount of money donors can pour into political campaigns; water down disclosure requirements; replace the nonpartisan board that oversees elections and ethics rules with a group of partisan appointees; and eliminate the objective civil service test, so politicians can install their cronies in public jobs.
The raft of pro-corruption bills pushed by Gov. Scott Walker since he dropped out of the Republican presidential contest is so impressive, The New York Times saw fit to comment on it in an editorial headlined “The Revenge of Scott Walker.”
Walker may have made a lackluster candidate for president, but his sheer chutzpah in dismantling democratic institutions and paving the way for unfettered corruption stands out nationally.
“It is a relief that Mr. Walker won’t be able to impose his warped ideas about democratic accountability on the rest of the country,” the Times’ editors opined. “But for the Wisconsinites who are stuck with him until 2018, America’s gain is their loss.”
Goodbye, Midwestern nice. Hello, Newark.
The assault on clean government doesn’t just mean less democracy and more money buying elections (although it does mean that).
There is a direct connection between political corruption and the corruption of our environment.
Get ready for the next phase of the New Jersey-ification of our state: pollution of our air, land and water.
Opening the door to more corporate money in elections also means dirty energy firms like G-TAC and Enbridge have more flexibility to write their own rules, as The Progressive’s Rebecca Kemble has pointed out.
How did we lose so much public accountability in such a short period of time?
Part of the problem is our toxic, siloed media atmosphere, where Walker and his supporters have simply chosen to opt out of any shared sense of reality. They feel free to ignore stories they don’t like, and tar reporters and watchdogs as out to get them and therefore unreliable.
Don’t like the information reporters dig up? Don’t like ethics investigations by nonpartisan agencies? Shoot the messenger!
State Republicans argued with a straight face last week that John Doe criminal investigations of bribery, extortion and other violations of campaign laws are a threat to good government. The John Doe, led by a Republican prosecutor, which turned up evidence of campaign law violations by Walker’s closest aides and associates, and resulted in jail sentences for six of them, was a “partisan witch hunt” and grossly unfair, they said. For the protection of politicians suspected of wrongdoing in the future, such investigations will not be allowed.
Likewise, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board is a “failed experiment,” according to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester). Since it approved the so-called partisan witch hunt in the John Doe, not to mention the recall election against Walker, for the sake of accountability and transparency, this panel of retired judges must be replaced by two separate boards composed of political appointees.
“I believe strongly this will lead to significant corruption in Wisconsin,” Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) said of the break-up of the GAB.
But for the hyper-partisan Walker supporters, the facts don’t matter. They declared open season on open government the moment they took power.
Hey, it works for the Republican presidential campaigns. The candidates, unhappy with what they considered rough treatment in last week’s debate (where both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio were caught in outright lies), threatened to boycott further debates until they can seize control of the format and get rid of tough questions once and for all.
You have to wonder what it takes for the public — including voters who support Republicans and Democrats alike — to reject this kind of self-dealing.
At least in New Jersey, scandals like Bridgegate are investigated, and the public has a chance to decide whether to keep politicians like Gov. Chris Christie in office.
If Walker gets his way, corruption will go unchecked in Wisconsin, and the public won’t have a clue. Just fuhgeddaboudit.
Ruth Conniff is editor of The Progressive magazine.