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When Smart People Do Stupid Things
Thursday afternoon, the Governor of Wisconsin filed paperwork to run for President of the United States. Thursday night – late Thursday night — Wisconsin’s top Republicans inserted a political mass suicide pact into the final draft of the state budget. As the Joint Finance Committee met for the last time before sending the budget to the full legislature, someone slipped a provision into the last final draft that would drastically restrict the state’s open-records law. All drafts, notes, intra-governmental communications (basically everything before the final version of a bill) could be kept confidential, and legislators would have vast privileges to refuse to make their communications public. There actually seems to be a real case for tightening the law, but this was sheer madness with a whiff of Shakespearean tragedy.
If you were trying to look as though you had something to hide, this is what you would do.
The Right and Left exploded in fury and joined in an uncomfortably weird but determined alliance. Democratic legislators denounced the open-records provision and conservative organizations cheered them on. After four years wandering in Wisconsin’s political wilderness, Democrats found themselves perched on the moral high ground and making the most of it.Republicans ran away from it as fast as they could — including some who’d voted for it in committee. Yesterday afternoon, less than 48 hours after it was first introduced, Governor Walker’s office put out a statement from the state’s top political leaders saying the provisions would be removed from the budget.
Crisis averted – or not. We don’t know how much damage is really done, and we still don’t know whodunit.
Legislative text does not drop from the sky. The finance committee co-chairs added the provision but deny authorship; they say there were “multiple requests.” Democrats, of course, are convinced that Scott Walker wrote it personally. There’s little love lost between Walker and the press, and maybe he wouldn’t mind limiting the material they can dig through. Parts of the proposal are similar to arguments his administration has made in an ongoing lawsuit. They’re trying to withhold information about an abandoned idea to change the University of Wisconsin mission statement, which is potentially embarrassing, but almost certainly nothing to sink a presidential campaign.
Indeed, what would Walker be hiding? Thanks to the John Doe, thousands of his “secret” emails as county executive were first scoured by a Democratic DA and ultimately made public. Nothing there. It’s unbelievable that after that experience — knowing his enemies — he would let anything into the record so damaging as to risk this uproar to keep it secret. One of the smartest politicians in the country, trying to present himself as the one who can beat Hillary Clinton, would try this? On the day he filed papers, no less?
But he’s yet to deny it. He said they’ll talk about it today when he meets with legislators.
If it wasn’t Walker, it probably had to be legislative leadership. It seems certain the Wisconsin Senate majority leader and house speaker at least signed off on it; either of them could have put it in themselves, or for a colleague. The “legislative privilege” portion is, obviously, designed to protect legislators. They aren’t talking.
Of course, there are plenty of possibilities between. Nobody is saying they were told Walker wanted it; some are saying they were told he wouldn’t veto. Someone on JFC could have put it in and Walker could have seen it but not been fully briefed (understandable at this unofficial stage of the process but embarrassing when he’s taking heat for spending so much time out of state). He could have wanted some deliberative process privilege, a legitimate idea that exists elsewhere, and legislators ran further. Nobody knows.
The secret may not keep. Sometime soon, someone is going to throw someone else under the bus. Today will be an interesting day in Madison.
Published in Politics
Fred, I think Walker is getting benefit of the doubt because of the John Doe. A DA with a vendetta seized mountains of data, went through it with a fine-tooth comb, released it to the press, and Walker basically came out looking pretty good for a politician. (His staff did try to make Walker look good — and even tried to make Tom Barrett look bad.) After that, it’s hard to believe he’d be less careful as governor — and planning to run for president.
I hope (and expect) you’re equally steamed about Hillary’s emails, seeing she did actually affect national security and shamelessly broke the law rather than trying to change it?
But in assuming the worst of Walker, you might be letting some other people off the hook that maybe deserve all the blame…
Whoever the Who ends up being, I’ll bet that the Why ends up being an overreaction to the John Doe cases.
Leigh, Fred Cole, & others have covered much ground over this ridiculous attempt at curtailing records. Leigh’s summary of current budget inside baseball is spot on. Focusing on the term “deliberative materials” might be of use to better understanding the “why” of this whole thing. The Milwaukee paper reports Walker “already acts as if record exemptions are law.” Be your own judge. I support much of the Walker record, but encourage honest looks into unforced jackwagonry like this.
They’re talking about that lawsuit over the Wisconsin Idea — not much else there.
Honestly, his argument there seems legitimate in principle — just not necessarily in current Wisconsin law. But if that was his purpose all he’d have to do is propose bringing Wisconsin in line with Federal FOIA, or something like that.
Meh, it makes me like Walker even more. Hardball politics are required to fight unions who will pay off prosecutors to personally attack conservatives, and it may be necessary to fight the Hillary Clinton types and an aristocratic media elite. Since we cannot have a libertarian fantasy land, I’ll take Walker any day of the week, even if this story is true and he is directly responsible.
You’re okay with slipping language into bills at the last minute, right before a holiday weekend?
You’re okay with an executive changing the law to obscure his own record?
You’re okay with a presidential aspirant changing the law to obscure his own record?
You’re okay with that?
That’s honest governance to you?
That’s consistent with limited government?
It didn’t come up in this discussion thread, and I basically agree with Leigh. It hasn’t got much coverage outside WI talk radio but in the last minute scramble to pass a state budget that was past the scheduled deadline, an internal GOP split between the bomb-throwers/ideological purists and the adults/pragmatists/those that can ‘govern’ over the state’s prevailing wage laws.
The transportation fund is structurally non-sustainable and requires continual borrowing. There’s talk among ‘the adults that can govern’ about establishing toll ways, increasing gas taxes and user fees – the bomb throwing/limited government purists wanted to eliminate those prevailing wage laws – there’s not enough votes (State Senate accuses Assembly and vice-versa about which body is to blame-Walker is AWOL on the issue). There’s a huge donor class among the road building contractors. Eliminating those laws would stretch those transportation dollars a long, long way. I think the machinations touch all of the WI GOP and no one in the GOP establishment truly objected that much when offered this ‘out’ – perhaps including Walker. Remember that its the Tea Party types and the Left (they’ll object to anything the GOP does). I’ll give the party credit though, at least we’re having that fight. Looks as though we’ll get a milk-toast reform but they are moving the ball.
This is a similar internal conflict that we see in DC now with Mitch, Boehner & Co.
Assuming Scott Walker is directly responsible, I’ll respond to these points in order:
1) Considering the media treatment of Walker in the past, yes, I am ok with this. In fact, it is something that conservative lawmakers should do more of when they face an openly hostile media. When liberals do it, you know they’re hiding something. When conservatives do it, you know nothing except that they are well aware of the fact that they have giant targets on their foreheads.
Also, dropping things last second is something that legislators have been doing forever. I expect conservatives to play the game and I’ll vote for ones who do everything they can to change it without simply pushing themselves out of existence. So yes, a bit of “the game” is necessary, and I’m much more concerned with the underlying principles of my candidates than I am with their willingness to play along with some of the procedural games that resistance to would actually disadvantage them greatly.
2) There is no evidence that this happened. However, given the flatly illegal and disgusting behavior of union goons in Wisconsin, I expect Walker to do anything necessary to protect himself. I suppose I might ask if you’re ok with armed police officers breaking into the homes of conservatives at 4am with virtually no legal justification. Are you? Walker is directly fighting against this. I’m willing to cut him some slack when he works in that sort of ridiculous muck.
3) Yes, I’m ok with a presidential aspirant. So are you. I’m not sure what you’re saying here… except that the fact that Walker is able to stand up to the democratic machine actually impresses me greatly. We need that sort of thing in a president. Listen to Richard Epstein talk about how important the executive branch has become. A Walker-type will survive. A squish who gives deference to the democrats in congress will be rolled over quicker than you can snap a finger. Yeah, I’m especially ok with this.
4) Honest governance? I’m not sure what that means. In a world of earmarks and attached-bills (sorry, I don’t know the lingo) and executive orders… There are no sincerely honest politics. That is not going to be changed by a single executive who castrates himself and allows democrats to have whatever they want. That will be changed through legislation that directly addresses the issues. I am in favor of voting for senators and congressmen who are willing to bring that sort of legislation, and I have every confidence that Walker will sign it if it ever comes before him. Hillary wouldnt.
5) Is anything in Washington consistent with limited government? No. Virtually nothing is. Would I be more than happy to vote for a president who would go into washington and give us a limited government? Of course I would. As I said, I’d vote for congressmen and senators and constitutional amendments that would bring us to the sort of limited government you and I both want. But those things are not on the table. Walker is on the table. The question is not whether every one of his actions is directly advancing the cause of limited government. The question is whether his presidency would advance the cause of limited government. I believe that it would, far more than anyone else currently acting as front-runner. That he does this sort of thing only proves to me that he understands politics and he knows he’s up against. He’s actually fighting against dirty politics, far more than anyone else currently in the running. He’s fighting the very sort of bull**** that he’ll get out of Reid and Pelosi. That he can do so deftly impresses me. Romney sure couldn’t. Bush didn’t. Give me an electable republican who is more savvy than Walker, who would better advance conservatism and limited government, and I’ll vote for him. That’s why I’m looking forward to the primaries.
Walker’s credit is good with me. Fair ball.
Libertarians should be throwing rose petals along his path.
Ryan, you have some points but I’ve got to say… successful hardball politics usually means you don’t get your entire coalition and your opponents on the same side, all mad at you. Regardless of the merits this was amazingly clumsy.
This would, by the way, have protected future Democratic governments and local governments in Madison and Milwaukee, and conservatives were not at all happy about that. Maybe that’s why someone thought they could get away with it, but if so they underestimated the Democrats’ opportunism. (They’d be quite capable of running against the law, taking power, and then somehow not having enough votes to overturn it.)
One thing I’m not at all clear on is whether this would have been retroactive or not. Makes a big difference…
@Leigh: given what I’ve been reading about that John Doe stuff, I’m having a hard time seeing why anyone would be outraged by this sort of provision. Now, it may have been better to put that prosecutor’s head on a platter… And maybe that will still happen.
But yeah, if people are flat out attacked on the basis of extremely weak evidence derived from the very sort of communication here at issue, is it any wonder people take steps to protect themselves?
So… now we know a little more. It was Robin Vos and friends. Moreover, they’re still defending the idea.
Right. If that’s all you’d tried to do, and you’d gone about it openly and made a case, you might have gotten away with it.
Alberta Darling (Senate JFC co-chair) says Walker wasn’t involved and that “some of us didn’t like it from the get-go.” She’s a close Walker ally, so take with a few grains of salt (especially since Walker’s office hasn’t denied involvement). He knew something at some point. But this came from the Assembly.
@Ryan — this wouldn’t have stopped John Chisholm. He seized computers as part of a criminal investigation, not through open records requests. Arguably, it would have made it harder for conservative media organizations to hold people like Chisholm accountable.
But as I said earlier in the thread there really does seem to be a case for changes in the law. This, though, would allegedly have been beyond anything in the nation and was very badly managed. The fact that all those people on Joint Finance voted for it with evident queasiness and then ran away from it the next day tells you all you need to know about that.
Er, actually you did say he did.
@Leigh… Yes, but consider that this is the political climate. It is a union thug state full of Chicago politics. Republicans are well justified in protecting themselves.
I will say that the idea of protecting some constituent communication strikes me as utterly legitimate. Right now, evidently, if you email your legislator, anyone can request it — including your name. That’s probably a bad thing, in that political environment.
I can also see how a complete lack of confidentiality could restrain honest discussion between lawmakers and staff in crafting ideas.
So if they wanted to bring it in line with the rest of the country (which is evidently how it was sold to JFC), I’d probably actually support that. There is an aspect to this where even the conservative media are looking at this as, well, media who want to protect their access. There is another side to the story. But they didn’t try to sell that side even to their allies, and then they overreached. So of course it went down this way.
The Democrats, of course, are being complete hypocrites on that point.
Cynicism is expressing skepticism about this sort of thing.
This is not cynicism.
You see this linguistic problem a lot on the fringes. If you believe that the IPCC exaggerates, you could reasonably be called a climate skeptic or a cynic. If you believe that it is absolutely certain that the earth will cool over the next century, or that the effects are entirely down to sunspots, your level of doubt is no greater than Gore’s.
I believe that it’s the high level of certainty claimed, together with the absence of support for the claim that reminds MustangMan of Vox, but it might be the partisan tone, or it could be the use of all caps to emphasize the “if”. Ricochet’s house style, as defined by the Code of Conduct, tells us to use bold or italics. Vox, on the other hand, is an organ more prone to excitable yelling and outrage. Or it could be the way that you piled on to the original story with extrapolations and sneers at the lack of importance of Wisconsin, both tonal similarities with Vox.
Indeed, there are so many different ways in which MustangMan could reasonably have compared the comment to those of the juicebox kids that I should probably stop speculating.
If it’s any help, I gather Vox pays pretty decently.
James, you are born-again hard.
I’m with @Ryan. The battle against the deep state will be hard and dirty. Walker is the GOP candidate who gets this in theory and practice.
That’s the most unexpected compliment I’ve had in a long time. I’m not sure I follow, but thank you.
James Of England
That’s the most unexpected compliment I’ve had in a long time. I’m not sure I follow, but thank you.
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I’m using it in a less-specific sense than what’s linked, but that’s the general direction. You’re welcome.
Maybe the plan is to get worked up about secrecy in Wisconsin. …because I, too, have been frustrated by the lack of coverage of John Doe investigations.