Gov. Scott Walker's Attempt to Cover His Butt Fails When He is Outted by His Own Party

Last Thursday, just before the start of the July 4th holiday weekend, a committee of Republicans in Wisconsin's state legislature added last-minute wording to Governor Scott Walker's (R) budget proposal that would change their state's public records law.  Under the new rules, some of the records that would become off limits are documents originating from Governor Walker's office including his attempts to rewrite key sections of the Wisconsin University system's state charter.  More on that here.

By Friday, the sneaky tactic had become public knowledge, but Mr. Walker declined to discuss it.  One opponent was quoted as saying, "Somebody's being protected from something.  Of course, if this passes we're never going to know what it is."

Supporters of the clause said that restricting access to some internal deliberations was necessary in order to allow a free exchange of ideas between elected officials and their staffs.

what eye thynk:  Mr. Walker, who has said he will officially announce his candidacy for president this month would seem to be the winner if this tactic succeeded.  He and his administration would be able to use the new rules to prevent journalists or political opponents from looking more closely at his tenure in the governor's seat.

Later on Friday, after the governor continued to balk at addressing the controversy, Republican lawmakers who had not been privy to the decision to insert changes to the public records law into the budget proposal, joined in the outcry against the tactic.  Realizing he was losing the support of parts of his own party in the legislature, Mr. Walker  backpedaled; and on Saturday, he and the committee issued a joint statement saying that the language would be removed from the budget.  

Neither the governor nor his office would say publicly whether they actually had any part in getting the language added to the budget in the first place.  However, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) later admitted that Governor Walker's office did take part in discussions to make last-minute changes that were designed to limit access to public records.

Representative Dale Kooyenga (R), vice-chairman of the committee that added the change apologized for his role in the controversy.  Mr. Kooyenga said he had been told that the change would put Wisconsin's public records law in line with federal law and with laws in other states.  It was only after the language was inserted into the budget that he learned it was really much more restrictive.

One can't help but wonder why Mr. Kooyenga didn't check the "facts" presented by the governor's office before voting for the clause.   Unless, of course, he was just following orders from the state's top officer.

The controversy and Mr. Walker's attempt to shield himself from scrutiny will undoubtedly continue.  In their joint statement on Saturday, Mr. Walker, Mr. Kooyenga and the rest of the committee agreed to strip the language from the budget bill; but they also promised "to allow for further debate on this issue, outside of the budget process."

Current public awareness of this issue would seem to make "further debate" a non-starter, but that doesn't mean Governor Walker won't look for other ways to protect his image as a up and coming, tough, able to get things done, Republican leader. 

Careful and on-going surveillance would be in order here.