Ethics Complaint Against 43 Republican WI Legislators: Inappropriate Gifts from ALEC

By Ernest A. Canning in the BragBlog

The War for Wisconsin continues.

In one of the latest Battles for the Badger State, Brendan Fischer of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) filed a broad-based ethics complaint [PDF] with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (G.A.B) charging that 43 Republican state legislators are in violation of both the state's ethics and lobbying laws. The named respondents in the March 23 complaint include three Republican Senators, Scott L. Fitzgerald, Van H. Wanggard and Terry Moulton, who are now facing recall elections.

The complaint alleges that lawmakers now serving in the Wisconsin state legislature violated state ethics laws by accepting corporate lobbyist-funded "scholarships", in order "to attend meetings of the American Legislative Council (ALEC)" and that many of them failed to list receipt of monies from the ALEC scholarship fund on their 2011 Statement of Economic Interests, as required by state law. In several instances, the complaint also asserts, legislators received prohibited "gifts" from corporations and their lobbyists in violation of Wisconsin ethics and lobbying laws.

Bo Morrison Was Murdered, Empowered by NRA-Corporate-backed Front Group

Sign From the 2011 Wisconsin Protests

Adam Kind is the killer of Bo Morrision of Slinger, Wisconsin.

Kind and other killers like George Zimmerman are legally empowered by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Castle Doctrine Act model legislation that has been enacted across the nation.

In Florida, the Stand Your Ground law uses the same language as the Castle Doctrine Act, and both are pushed by ALEC, as reported in the Center for Media and Democracy.

ALEC is a front group run by several corperations, the Koch brothers and the NRA.

Sure, ALEC alum Scott Walker signed the Wisconsin ALEC Castle Doctrine bill into law, but he did so with a lot of Democratic support.

As reported by SourceWatch:

ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law. Its bills undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry, among many other issues. 

ALEC legislation is running wild in the states. Let's hope Democrats challenge this threat to democracy and life before someone else gets killed.

As Paul Krugman writes:

[L]anguage virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy. ...

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law. ...

Yet that’s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex — prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it’s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

Scott Walker's $810 million Rail Road Blunder Looks Even Worse One Year Later

This model train, featuring the slogan "Wisconsin is Open for Business,"
is running around the base of the Christmas tree
at the state Capitol in Madison. Photo by Larry Tamiso

Update: See also Absurd: Tea Party Mayor Rejects Federally Funded, Job-Creating Amtrak Line.
"In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money. The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as a way to create jobs and to spur economic development." (NYT)

Suppose that a given state is offered $810 million in funding for a labor-intensive [lots of jobs] project to improve and expand its rail road system. And the state's governor said, in effect, 'no, we don't want the $810 million, or the jobs.'

This is precisely what happened when Scott Walker made one of the most foolish decisions in the history of Wisconsin public policy in this period of sustained high unemployment.

Scott Walker, taking his cues from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Koch brothers, has dictated over a no-growth, crony capitalistic, corrupt period of Wisconsin history that will take a years-long, damage-repair effort.

For an excellent analysis of the scope and danger of what is happening to our country, especially the state of Wisconsin (ground zero in the battle to take our country back starting with the recall of Scott Walker), see:

• ALEC Exposed: Business Domination Inc. (Joel Rogers and Laura Dresser)
• ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection ( Lisa Graves)
• ALEC Exposed: Rigging Elections (John Nichols)
• Why the Koch Brothers and ALEC Don't Want You to Vote (Ari Berman)

The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) has a tremendous editorial looking back at Scott Walker's corrupt and imbecilic rejection of $810 million:

A year later, Walker rail blunder looks even worse

Last Dec. 9, exactly a year ago, federal officials redirected $810 million in transportation funding that Gov. Scott Walker had rejected to improve Wisconsin's rail system.

That rejection may go down as one of the biggest political goofs in state history.

Walker had campaigned against the proposed Madison-Milwaukee passenger train project, saying it represented "runaway government spending" and would cost state taxpayers in the long run.

"I'm going to stop that boondoggle train to Madison" became a rallying cry for Walker, whose own polling showed that dissing Madison — and the train — was a winning issue despite the wider long-term implications for the state's transportation system.

Walker played that high-stakes gamble throughout the race, saying he could persuade Congress to redirect the money to fix Wisconsin's highways or bridges.

But after the election, when it became obvious the Obama administration was going to send the rail funds to other states, Walker had to fall on his sword to save face. That prompted the Los Angeles Times to famously write "Thanks a billion, cheeseheads" after the money was sent instead to California.

Now, as other states move forward to upgrade their rail systems — the 110 mph train could be a reality by 2015 — Wisconsin is floundering. No 2,300 construction jobs, no track improvements, no plan.

In fact, the only new train running in Wisconsin is the toy train around the Christmas tree in the Capitol proclaiming the state "Open for Business."

"At least we have one train we can enjoy while other GOP governors get a real train," quips Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison.

And Wisconsin is still trying to figure out how to pay for badly needed rail improvements that would have otherwise been covered if Walker had not acted so foolishly.

This week, the Legislature's budget committee slowed planning for a permanent train maintenance facility in Milwaukee, opening the possibility the Amtrak cars will be serviced in Chicago instead. Republicans have balked at spending an estimated $53 million on the maintenance facility, saying it wasn't worth it for only two dozen permanent jobs. But not building the facility would result in the state defaulting on its contract with Spanish train company Talgo.

Sadly, the $810 million federal grant would have covered the cost of the maintenance facility, along with upgrades of tracks for the Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line.

Earlier this year, the Walker administration went back to the feds and begged for $213 million to pay for upgrades to the Hiawatha line and most of the cost of the maintenance facility. But that request was denied.

"The Walker administration made a bad choice in wasting federal resources," says Rep. Tamara Grigsby, D-Milwaukee, in a statement. "Now Wisconsin taxpayers must foot the bill."

The state has already spent about $25 million on maintenance equipment and a temporary maintenance facility in Milwaukee for the Hiawatha line. All of that would have been covered under the money Walker rejected.

A sad day indeed.