Republican Shadow Governing Continues In Wisconsin
You'd think that Wisconsin legislators, having seen the consequences of Scott Walker's County Executive staff setting up a confidential, partisan shop in his offices, would have grasped the importance of conducting public business in public offices?
Nope - - not even after they'd been caught swearing their members to secrecy, in writing, over redistricting maps rolled into state law that were drafted at a law firm.
Seems two highly-paid legislative staffers are still working out of the law firm.
And began there before the November, 2010 elections, so were implementing the privatization of the legislation process even before the GOP took legal legislative control.
Like the legislators, [staffers] Foltz and Ottman signed confidentiality agreements, which became public on Thursday. The two signed the agreements in July 2010, six months before Republicans took over the Legislature.Which means, I assume, that their work has been and continues beyond the reach of the Open Records law.
This is really serious.
An investigation is absolutely merited, pronto.
Still to be named: who masterminded this attack on democracy.
7 comments:
I am numb!
I presume they are drawing new maps cuz they know their earlier work will be rejected by the courts.
All their work be it emails or whatever belongs to the taxpayers. RAID THE OFFICE NOW!
I don't think any maps are going to be redrawn.
I hope you're being sarcastic in saying that the agreements that they signed exempt their work from Open Meetings Law -- and from investigation in the event that this crossed the line to political work, while they were paid by US, the TAXPAYERS. (That point is missing from your post, noting that they are highly paid, but not by whom, by us-the-public.)
I'm beginning to not know where to go with my anger on all of this, still going on a year after I first began to face that my Wisconsin of good government was gone. My anger eased for a while, my depression lifted, but -- there remains no resort when corruption is across all three branches. No hope from the AG's office, no hope from the state high court. . .
To Anon: I said the Open Records statute. I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm not a lawyer, but if they were using the law firm's computers, I don't know if lawyer-client privilege and ownership of private property trumps the Open Records statute and access to records that are created on public equipment. It's a real problem and something to worry about.
Oops, yes, sorry; it's Open Records law, of course. My anger is muddling my typing. And now, I don't even have hope that I did not misunderstand your analysis.
This obvious flouting of the intent of the law, if not the letter, is partisan effrontery so egregious that I wonder if this even would be attempted in . . . Ilinois. That's how bad it is.
I despair for our state.
I would say "Pull-a-Walker on Michael Best. Raid the offices and worry about the law later", but that would be wrong.
OK, now I have a picture in my mind of what happened to the Stasi Headquarters in the former East Germany after citizens took matters into their own hands, but that would be wrong too.
Damn my liberal fair-play, follow-the-law mentality!
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