Beware more 11th-hour FitzWalkerVos dirty pool

Call me a realist, call me a cynic, call me a political paranoid, I don't care.

But I'm not convinced that the FitzWalkerVos 'Revenge of the little men' bill, as I've dubbed it, is the last dirty pool maneuver these elitist, special-interest bell-hopping Republicans had up their sleeves.

In the wee hours of the morning after Evers, Barnes and Kaul had tallied unbeatable victory margins, I posted a celebratory, congratulatory, almost giddy item. 

Several hours later, I began to worry that Republicans weren't going to go quietly, especially since they had planned a special session purportedly to deal with the Kimberly-Clark subsidy, so I wrote: 

We'll see if WI legislative Republicans begin passing sour-grapes measures in special session (s) to hamstring the incoming Democratic Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General's institutional authorities. 

Are Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos statesmen or spoilers? 

Will they calm the waters, or roil them?  

Well, we got our answers.

I wrote that because I was remembering how Walker "dropped the [Act 10] bomb," so likes surprises.

And before that benefited from campaign operatives and equipment inserted in his Milwaukee County Executive office suite during his run in 2010 against Tom Barrett, so likes stealth.

And how in his 2012 recall campaign he had directed a secret routing for certain large donations, so has a history of playing the ends-justify-the-means game when taking and holding an advantage.

And Urban Milwaukee's Bruce Murphy noted that The New York Times had reported, in fact, that the GOP's power grab planning had begun months earlier:

As a recent story in the New York Times reported, the planning for this sweeping 141-page legislative package began last spring — more than half a year ago. This is not an upsurge of angry revenge, but a cooly-plotted, long-term scheme to assure Republicans continue to hold power permanently in Wisconsin.

That's a helluva contingency plan, no doubt based on some very accurate polling, projections or other combination of data and veterans' hunches.

So this is my point: 

They are still in full control for the next 18 days. 

Who says they're done?

18 days is a lot of time yet for Walker to issue executive orders, or for his appointees to sign off on DNR permits, other agency rules or waivers, DOA annexations, WEDC grants, Workforce Development contracts, limited-term and full-time hires, consulting agreements, construction project change orders, and so on.

A lot of money can be made in 18 days. A lot of deals can get done and favors withdrawn from the favor bank and cashed in.

You may be planning on going on vacation next week, but the lobbyists and PAC directors and trade association officials who get paid to fulfill their clients needs in and around the State Capitol will be earning their salaries and fees up to the swearing-in. 

Remember, it's a government run with 'a chamber of commerce mentality.' And that mentality knows time is money and 18 days is plenty of time for people to make their plays. 

So later for the beach and the Magic Kingdom. Right now, it's go-time.

And it's impossible for all the departments and boards and commissions and low-profile fiefdoms and budgets and contingency funds to be monitored from the outside for last-minute activity. 

Media reporting staffs have shrunk. Some journalists' beat responsibilities have multiplied, other beats have been abandoned. Much of what state government does routinely goes on behind close doors, so advantage, Walkerite.

And whatever illusions anyone had about honor systems or traditions or fair play by decision-makers got cued off the table when the little men deployed their rule-free dirty pool.

So it would not surprise me that when the Evers, Barnes and Kaul teams show up for work on January 7th, and are officially given the keys and passwords and secret handshakes they come to discover that on Christmas Eve or New Year's Day or ten minutes before Walker's term officially expired that more public money or authority or permissions somehow found their way into the world in a way that will be difficult and costly to retrieve.

Just file this in your 'fool me once...' file.