Sweetheart Job, Sweetheart Grant: A Scott Suder Story

Reform, austerity - - no more more business as usual from our new Governor-to-be, right?

But Walker's trademarks are austerity and out-of-the-box thinking....

Scott Suder, the legislative leader Gov. Walker is promoting to a big PSC job in his austere small-government administration has helped put a group that has carried water for GOP interests in line for a little-noticed half-million state budget grant.

A $500,000 sportsmen's grant slipped into the state budget earlier this summer is set to go to a group with ties to Republican insiders that has praised GOP politicians and lobbied for legislation such as lowering regulations on iron mining and development in wetlands....

The carefully crafted grant requirements were unanimously voted into the state budget in May after just seven minutes of discussion by the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, which acted on a motion drafted by outgoing Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) and Rep. Dan LeMahieu (R-Cascade).... 

The deadline for the sporting grant application was Aug. 2 — the DNR listed the new grant on one of its web pages but did not put out a news release to let the public know about it. Scott Gunderson, No. 3 official at the DNR and chairman of the committee that will review the grant, did not return phone calls seeking comment.