Thursday, September 27, 2012

Walker Was Involved In Legally-Troubled WI Redistricting Strategizing

Bad enough that court orders were repeatedly violated in a Federal court case about setting election voting districts, and that the district maps were drawn in secret, but now the Journal Sentinel is reporting that even more court-ordered documents were not disclosed during the Federal litigation and Gov. Walker's office was involved in the case:

Groups that sued the state over election maps said Thursday they had identified 15 more documents that were improperly withheld from them by lawyers for the Legislature.

The case has shown that lawyers with Michael Best & Friedrich did not turn over a raft of documents despite a string of court orders. The latest filing alleges there are even more...

The groups released some but not all of the emails they have found. One showed Gov. Scott Walker’s chief legal counsel, Brian Hagedorn, and top officials at the state Department of Justice planned to meet with Michael Best’s attorneys in August 2011 on how to respond to the lawsuit. That was the first time it was shown Walker's office had been included on litigation strategy in the case.
Heads should roll.

4 comments:

Palli said...

Are there legal steps for citizens regarding this redistricting?
How many states have a bi-partisan committee comprised of statisticians who aren't non-elected officials.

Anonymous said...

This is quite the story. Thanks for sharing and following.

Betsey said...

Equally disturbing is the unethical, possibly illegal, behavior of one of the state's leading law firms. A law firm whose lawyers KNEW that though the Walker administration had made the hiring decision, the client was really the state of Wisconsin and the people of the state, who were paying the $400,000 (and mounting) legal fees. And who acted as a partisan instrument while being paid by citizens of both parties. There is plenty of shame to go around.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

Throw the maps out and send the MBF lawyers TO JAIL for violating court orders. It's the only way the GOP will learn anything from this.

Our media has underplayed this story. Here you have a law firm, Wisconsin GOP Legislators, the Governor's office and Rep. Paul Ryan (among others) conspiring in secret to rig elections. Kinduva big deal, if you ask me