There are no two ways about it: Wisconsin workers, both private and public, will emerge worse off on the other side of the current budget bill battle. But Wisconsin is going down fighting.
The question is: will Wisconsin unions be left with enough power to fight another day? Union leaders have offered to negotiate and make the financial concessions demanded by the Republican leadership. Governor Scott Walker has told them to go spit. He doesn't just want want to win this battle, he wants to win forever.
The longer Democratic legislators stay AWOL and force discussion of the bill to drag out, the better chance there is that even more information will come to light about just how much influence David and Charles Koch and their allies have on Scott Walker. If this stunning prank phone call, in which Walker speaks with a man he believes is David Koch is to be believed, it's a lot.
Each day, another revelation about the puppet governor. Now, the name that may just be the most important connection between the Koch Brothers and Scott Walker: Jeff Schoepke.
When it came out yesterday that Koch Industries had quietly opened a lobbying office, Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, just off Madison's Capitol Square, Jeffrey Schoepke was identified as the "regional manager." Jeffrey may put that on his business card, but according to the Government Accountability Board, Schoepke's profession is listed as "Lobbyists licensed in 2011-2012." Schoepke (and six others) were certified as lobbyists for Koch on January 5th, two days after Walker was sworn in. Schoepke is listed as Koch Public's main contact.
For those still unfamiliar with the Koch brothers, the New Yorker profile of the billionaire duo's spending in the war for the wealthy is a good start. They are the tea party's wallet.
More interesting than what Jeff Schoepke is doing now for Koch Industries is what he's done before.
After serving seven years under Republican Governor Tommy Thompson, Schoepke joined Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce in 2000. One Wisconsin Now's WMC Watch lists the organization as:
the central force driving the conservative, pro-corporate agenda in Wisconsin. In addition to its financial role, WMC provides junk science, legislative testimony, calls to action and member service to advance corporate interests. WMC’s talking points are used by conservative activists, organizations, elected officials and members of the media as the foundation for the conservative economic agenda in Wisconsin.
Schoepke put his nose to grindstone and soon was the director of tax and corporate policy—and the WMC's registered lobbyist.
Much has recently been made of the revelation that Koch Industries was Walker's second biggest supporter, ponying up $43,000 and giving $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association, which itself spent $65,000 on supporting Walker (and $3.4 million against his opponent). All of this was actually noted way back in September, 2010, by Scot Ross at One Wisconsin Now.
There are two more Koch-funded organizations that have not received the proper credit in Wisconsin. The left jab is Americans For Prosperity, which tenderized and prepared the ideological environment in Wisconsin where Walker could win by way of tea party astroturfing. (No surprise, the AFP paid for buses to bring Walker supporters to Saturday's counter rally and is cranking up its pro-Walker broadcast ads today.)
The right hook is the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that counts Koch Industries as a Private Enterprise Board member, and which practically hand-writes legislation for Republican legislators to submit, including Walker's. The Council even congratulated Walker for signing a tort reform bill in late January, being very careful not to put the word "our" before the word "bill." The organization has been called "Corporate America's Trojan Horse in the States."
Wonder why so many states suddenly bring similar legislation to the floor (as is happening now in Ohio, Indiana, etc.)? These guys.
But the Kochs didn't elect Walker alone. The WMC spends more money to elect pro-corporate Wisconsin candidiates than any other. Most infamously, WMC spent $4 million to elect pro-corporate Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman. The WMC knows how to partner, too. It's listed as the state partner of another huge Walker donor, The American Justice Partnership, one of those organizations named for exactly the opposite of what it actually does, like the Citizens for Prosperity, Wisconsin Family Action and Freedom First.
In October, 2010, WMC Vice President James Buchen practically bragged to the press that the lobbying group would spend $1 million to help Republicans win seats in the Legislature and had already spent $950,000 on Walker.
And the campaign money is only the beginning of WMC's influence. Since 1999, a year before Schoepke came on board, WMC has spent more than 58,000 hours and over $7.1 million lobbying state legislators, putting it at the top for lobbying spend in Wisconsin in nearly every year that Schoepke was there.
Today, WMC is hosting a "Business Day" event at the Monona Terrace, near the Capitol. Governor Walker (as well as GOP wet dream and WMC patron Rep. Paul Ryan and Fox Business' Stuart Varney) are marquee attendees at this all-corporate-access event. The event's agenda lists "Capitol Visits" from 10:30-11:45 a.m. This is unlikely to happen.
Not surprisingly, the Kochs have a ringer on WMC's board, Georgia-Pacific executive Kelly L. Wolff.
What Schoepke's move to Madison represents is the fusing of Koch's bottomless coin sack and a decade's worth of lobbying efforts and contacts and favors and money. The Kochs had the money, they just needed a bag man. Jeff Schoepke is the bag man.
The end game for the Kochs' conservative think tanks is now clear. Abandon the gummed-up politics of the national level and get it done at the state level. The goals in Wisconsin are:
• Try and bust the public unions, turning middle class workers against one another in the process; and while everyone's paying attention to that...
• push through unheard-of executive power for governor appointees (made not from within Wisconsin agencies but from D.C. think tanks like the Heritage Foundation) to make way for balancing the budget on cuts to expensive state services like Medicaid, so that tax cuts can be preserved, and...
• place state resources (and income drivers) such as the power companies up for (no-bid) sale to private industry, converting public resources into instant corporate wealth... to which the citizenry remains enslaved to pay.
Nearly every adventure movie has a stooge like Walker, a weak and dim bulb who will sacrifice everyone else to align with what he sees as the new dark power. Wisconsin should look at their new partners. One hundred and fifty-eight of those 250,000 new jobs Walker has promised by 2015 already have to make up for the 158 layoffs from the Koch Industries Green Bay Georgia-Pacific plant.
With the bill on the table and no Republicans backing down, it's not even a question any more of if they can get away with this, but just how much will they take. This bill will pass—maybe not with the union-busting condition, but it will pass.
Wisconsinites should all know the Joint Finance Committee Republicans as the dirtiest dirty dozen. These are the names that gave our state away to Jeff Schoepke and his lords.
Senator Alberta Darling
Senator Glenn Grothman
Senator Joe Leibham
Senator Sheila Harsdorf
Senator Luther Olsen
Representative Dan LeMahieu
Representative John Nygren
Representative Robin Vos
Representative Dan Meyer
Representative Pat Strachota
Senator Randy Hopper
Representative Joel Kleefisch
Top Photo: Williston, North Dakota. Farmers' union meeting with the county commissioners to protest the selling of land to corporation farms in Williams County; 1942; Library of Congress.
Koch poster photo via.
You can reach Abe Sauer at abesauer at gmail dot com.
Well done as always Abe.
As with the earlier piece about the cuts to Medicaid and BadgerCare, thank you for this coverage. I don't know that things make a whole lot more sense in this light, though. It looks so ideological and so impractical. Clearly, this didn't come out of nowhere, but where will it get the champions of the cause? To a wealthier place, to an escape pod bound for the moon colony?
Simultaneous tax cuts for the haves, service cuts for the have-nots, and power-grab from the have-somes? Color me skeptical that the big employers in Wisconsin plan to commit the incoming flow of tax breaks to employee health coverage or increasing wages, and Republicans in DC could strike down the backstop of the individual insurance mandate and leave the State health exchanges unfunded.
Seems like a recipe for making people really desperate--people who have gotten used to a lot of creature comforts. Folks get apolitical over shit like this, and then the confrontations get serious. I'm just saying I won't be surprised if the violence comes sooner than most are expecting.
I'm really busy this morning so I haven't had a chance to check the Awl thoroughly. Abe did you see this?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/02/23/did-scott-walker-reveal-his-crisis-ending-ruse-to-a-prank-caller.aspx
Yeah, I noted the call above. That Walker thinks the Dem reps would fall for that is rather dense.
Oops, never mind me, I see you linked to it above.
In fact, the more interesting segment is when he says “After this, in some of the coming days and weeks ahead... particularly in some of these swing areas, a lot of these guys are going to need... they don’t need initially ads for them, but they are going to need a message out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy, a good thing to do for the state. So to the extent that message is out over and over again is certainly a good thing.”
That is maybe a campaign finance and/or election law violation.
Scott Walker just got pranked by a fake David Koch, amazing:
http://gtcha.me/hGzGjz
Great reporting so far, Abe. So many states pulling crazy shenanigans right now (Arizona is in the process of not only picking a State Gun, but passing what has been called SB 1070 on steroids).
The part about giving away power plants on a no bid basis is incredible. Talk about corruption and cronyism! And that's actually in a bill before the Wisconsin legislature!
Kind've like Texas. And now it's powered by Mexican electricity on really cold days. Good thing Wisconsin is close to Canada.
Okay, I'll be that guy.
What's the problem here, really? I'm a private sector employer with a defined contribution "pension," who offers the same to his employees, a shitty healthcare plan we can barely afford, and, as a managing partner, an 80 hour workweek during easy times. Please explain to me how we as a society can accommodate this Wisconsin plan regarding public employee pensions and health care plans. Here in West Virginia we have a large dying population and an inability to cover Soc Sec obligations. We're fucked, basically. So I think what I'm trying to say is that maybe we should as adults stop poo-pooing this Wisconsin GOP thing and actually start talking about how were're going to honor the promises made to the Boomers without bankrupting our local and state governments.
If there's a solution I'm all for hearing it out, but as an employer, I really can't make it work for my own excellent workers.
I'm sure other people could give better and more complete responses, I just spent 10 hours at the Capitol building and I'm exhausted, but there are a few things I need to say. First, here is a link that explains that the Wisconsin state employee pension is one of the healthiest in the country--http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/wisconsin-pension-fund-among-healthiest-us_n_826709.html. So, while I can't speak to West Virginia, our pension fund is actually in good shape.
Second, what's going on in Wisconsin is not about pension contributions or benefits, it's only about union busting. Every single public employee union is willing to take benefit cuts (or at least willing to use the collective bargaining process to work out some cuts or concessions). Our problem, speaking as one public employee union member among thousands, is that Scott Walker is trying to take away our collective bargaining rights wholesale. I can't imagine any union member would say unions are perfect and there are definitely things we need to work on, but that is done through collective bargaining. If Walker takes away our right to collectively bargain, how can we work out any future issues with benefits or pension contributions? Every union is willing to negotiate (because, hey, we're all Wisconsinites and we're all taxpayers), but Scott Walker has refused to negotiate since taking office. He refused to negotiate with my union and then canceled our contract completely as of March 13. And beyond the issue of collective bargaining, Abe has done an awesome job of explaining that there are other very real and dangerous problems in the "budget repair" bill, including selling off our state assets without a bidding process, removing discrimination protection for LGBT employees, and oh yeah, gutting Badgercare and taking away health care from thousands and thousands of my fellow Wisconsinites.
Basically, I don't think the issues you're bringing up have very much to do with what's going on in Wisconsin. I mean, the budget crisis in Wisconsin is manufactured, but even with the numbers Walker claims (something like a $3.5 billion shortfall over two years), cutting our benefits will only save $330 million dollars total. You want a solution? Minnesota has a $6.7 billion shortfall, and Governor Mark Dayton raised about $3 billion dollars towards that by raising taxes slightly on the top 5% of Minnesotans. So, there you go. Done. Stop blaming public sector workers and start blaming the people that are trying to destroy the American middle class.
Well, if you're following the story, you'll see that there area couple of things at play:
1. Unions agreed to concessions (i.e., paying more to continue getting the same benefits).
2. Scott Walker wanted more from them (i.e., for them to give up the right to bargain for anything other than wages).
3. Scott Walker refuses to raise taxes (i.e., increasing "revenue" to decrease possible cuts).
4. Scott Walker has also proposed changing the budgeting process such that any tax increases must now have a 2/3 majority to pass, which (if CA is any guide) means that there will be no tax increases and permanent government failure because future legislators will only ever be able to cut taxes and you can't go lower than no taxes.
So, for all its outward appearance of a "man just trying to get a break so that he can fix a system that's broken," this is really just an idealogical game of chicken. The crisis here could be easily dealt with by:
a) allowing people to continue to have their rights to organize.
b) not forever screwing every future lawmaker into only cutting taxes.
If you believe that government has a role to play in maintaining the public sphere and that role isn't strictly to provide defense, then I'd imagine you'd be against what Governor Walker is doing.
This is not to knock your excellent writing, Mr. Sauer.
and yet Wisconsin tolerates his existence. This guy is corrupt and does not have the people of Wisconsin state in his best interests. There is a reason we have a right to bear arms.