Racine Legislator Flubs Tribe's Name, Proves He's Recall-Worthy

The man is Van Wanggaard, an actual elected State Senator, who doesn't even know the name of the Native American group whose land and waters would be directly affected by the mining bill he claims is his.

And you wonder why his party looks so bad in this mining issue (video of more GOP legislators, here) - - maybe Van Wanggaard would have been better informed if the Ojibwe hadn't been shut out of the process - -  and why he deserves the recall election headed his way, according to this report:

Senator Van Wanggaard held a mini-town hall today in Racine County Wisconsin and during his question and answer session, Wanggaard began talking about the mining bill and how it would create jobs in Wisconsin.

As you will see in the video, he seems to be very proud of his bill. It is around the 4 minute mark in the video, Senator Wanggaard states that mining will be coming up very shortly.

It was then he was asked this question from a member in the audience "Did you at all work with the sovereign nations when you were writing this bill?"

Van Wanggaard replies "Sovereign, you mean the Indians?"

Questioner:"The tribes."Van Wanggaard then replies "Absolutely."

The Senator then recognizes the camera and points out the fact "And you are taping me I know."

Van Wanggaard continues "We had several of the Indian tribes, the uh bad land, let’s see is it bad water?" The audience then interjects "Bad River."

Van Wanggaard: "there you go, the Bad River tribe actually had a chat with me about it."

The audience member injects again, "Oh so they were in on the planning?" in which Van Wanggaard replied, "oh well, I don't know if they were in on the planning, I'm not on the mining commission."

Then later in the volley of questions the senator was asked if he would vote for the bill, after a moment of dodging the question, Van Wanggaard tersely replies "Am I going to vote on it? It's my bill!"

Oh - - and here's another video of a mining supporter at work in the Assembly.