Dear Commons Community,
The New York Times editorial today comments on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and recently signed legislation that protects public officials like himself from political corruption investigations. Here is the full editorial entitled, The Revenge of Scott Walker:
“Only weeks after giving up on his lackluster presidential campaign in the face of national indifference, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is back to making mischief in his home state. Last Friday, Mr. Walker signed a bill to protect public officials like himself from an effective and well-established tool for rooting out political corruption.
The tool, known as the John Doe law, lets prosecutors conduct secret investigations into possible crimes by executing search warrants and compelling people to testify. It is essentially a grand jury proceeding, with a judge rather than jurors deciding whether there is enough evidence for an indictment.
Mr. Walker has been a target of two John Doe investigations in recent years. The first, which looked into misconduct by his aides or associates while he served as Milwaukee county executive, led to six convictions. The second involved allegations of illegally coordinated fund-raising between Mr. Walker’s campaign for governor and conservative political groups. In July, a deeply split Wisconsin Supreme Court — several of whose justices were backed by the same groups in their election campaigns — shut down the investigation, adopting an unprecedented reading of the state’s campaign-finance laws to find no problem with the activities in question. Mr. Walker was not charged in either case.
Under the new law, which passed on party-line votes in the Republican-controlled Legislature, neither of these investigations would be permitted. Bribery, official misconduct, campaign-finance violations and many other election law offenses — all are now exempt from a law that has served Wisconsin well, and without controversy, since the mid-19th century.
For years, the John Doe law has been crucial in combating political corruption in both major parties, but because Mr. Walker was a rising conservative star, there were predictable howls from right-wing forces about politically motivated fishing expeditions, search warrants executed in the middle of the night and gag orders against witnesses.
Don’t be fooled. Grand juries conduct investigations like this every day, at much greater expense and inefficiency, and rarely to any protest. (There is a reasonable case against the gag orders, but lawmakers could easily have fixed that part of the law by itself.) The real difference here is that the John Doe law was being used against powerful politicians and individuals.
The law will continue to apply in cases involving violent or drug-related crimes. Where it will not apply is corruption cases against politicians, for whom the new law carves out an unexplained and unjustified exception.
Mr. Walker and his allies are also moving to dismantle the state’s nonpartisan Government Accountability Board, which enforces election, lobbying, and ethics laws. Lawmakers are also working to codify into law the State Supreme Court ruling in July that effectively obliterated the state’s modest campaign-finance regulations and smoothed the way for powerful special interests to pour ever more money into Wisconsin politics.
It is a relief that Mr. Walker won’t be able to impose his warped ideas about democratic accountability on the rest of the country. But for the Wisconsinites who are stuck with him until 2018, America’s gain is their loss.”
It is a relief indeed that this pathetic politician will not be influencing national politics. It is sad that he has been allowed to make ruinous decisions in the great state of Wisconsin.
Tony
