Redistricting Fiasco Demands Extensive Investigation
All eyes are on the John Doe misconduct in office probe in Milwaukee
where the net is expanding over a growing number of former Scott Walker
aides and current appointees, and in which the boss himself has had to
hire two criminal lawyers to prepare for a sit-down with prosecutors.
But
I'd argue that the scandal unfolding in Madison over how election maps
for legislators were redrawn last year requires an investigation where
people are put under oath to ferret out the truth - - because what
happened suggests there was a serious effort to withhold information from
the public about how their representatives would be elected, and thus to
manipulate, in secret, how the government which the people fund would be run.
* We know that nearly every single
Republican legislator went to an attorney's office, got a look at the
proposed redistricting boundaries for his or her district only, signed a promise not to disclose what they'd seen, and voted to approve the
changes wholesale.
We know that the chief of staff to
at least one prominent legislator, Neal Kedzie, the State Senator from
Elkhon, twice continued this cover-up by telling a constituent that
Kedzie had not signed this pledge, when, in fact, the Senator had signed.
And
the only reason the existence of the secretive process was disclosed
was because federal judges forced the Republicans' lawyers - - being
paid for by taxpayers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars ,
by the way - - to turn over the records of the secret agreement after
the documents had not been routinely disclosed, per standard courtroom
procedures.
An elaborate scheme like this, set in
motion by people with significant political and legal skills and willing
to risk tampering with the foundations of an open government, indicates
planning and execution by people at a far higher pay grade than the
Fitzgerald brothers or the ham-handed State Rep. Robin Vos,
(R-Rochester), who is still fumbling the explanation for who drafted
which pieces of the plan and for what reasons.
Getting
to the bottom of this mess may not have the display-window appeal of
watching Scott Walker and his troop go down, but the stakes are at least
as high.
3 comments:
There's an associated and enabling phenomenon: the state's political press pumping up the fatuous "polarization" narrative that distributes the blame equally, and holds out "moderates" as the cure.
If deliberation and decision making has been moved off-site from the Capitol, bipartisanship is irrelevant.
Thank you for this summary analysis, James. The emerging redistricting perversion of democracy and open government is more extensive, more corrupt, and more important than I and many people had anticipated.
A thorough investigation is not just in order, it is essential if one believes in government that is of, by, and for the people.
It's hard to believe that there isn't some statute that is violated by the act of transfering $400K of public funds to a partisan law firm, for partisan purposes, under the veil of secrecy agreements. It smells very much like a criminal conspiracy.
Dane County John Doe investigation?
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