By DON FOY | La Farge
You have to admit, Gov. Walker and Republicans in the state legislature are consistent. As Robert Kinney, a commissioner resigning from the state Ethics Commission, charges, the newly formed commission (taking the place of the scrapped award-winning Government Accountability Board) is inappropriately secretive and not enforcing ethics rules for lobbyists and public officials.
It fits right in with the Walker and legislature Republicans’ agenda. In a recent Wisconsin State Journal article, Kinney says that three of the commissioners voted to strike the words “furthering Wisconsin’s tradition of clean and open government” from their mission statement. That’s honest enough, eh? Openly refusing to commit to “clean and open government”? That’s not ambiguous.
We learn in the same article that the commission blocked Kinney from saying that commissioners couldn’t donate to partisan political campaigns. How is this not a conflict of interest? But it is consistent: It fits right in with the attempt to delete the phrase “the search for truth” from the University of Wisconsin’s mission statement; and the whacks at the open records laws (stay tuned for more whacks); and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s conveniently confused loans to companies that export jobs; and all of the midnight surprise attack legislation; and the state overrides of local municipal ordinances.
The Republicans want to build a wall, all right, and they want to build it around the very swamp Mr. T. said he’d drain. To me, this pattern of underhanded blows to the democratic process is now the hallmark of the Republican Party. Robin Hood was right. We need to send these robber barons back to the castle in their underwear. And if you think billionaire Mr. T. is Robin Hood, you need to adjust your glasses.