Father Orthoduck must admit that the current two major parties in the USA sometimes make me want to say, “a pox on both their houses.” The quote below comes from the Huffington Post, an online newspaper that is far enough to the left that they make almost everyone else look conservative:
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Democratic Party has filed an ethics complaint against Republican Gov. Scott Walker over statements he made during a recorded prank call. (Source: https://www.checkpeople.com/reverse-phone-lookup)
In their complaint filed Monday with the Government Accountability Board, the Democrats claim Walker violated campaign finance laws by apparently asking for support for politically vulnerable Wisconsin Republican lawmakers from a caller who he thought was a wealthy campaign donor.
Walker’s spokesman, Cullen Werwie, calls the allegations baseless.
The call to Walker was made by a left-leaning website. The caller claimed to be David Koch, one of two billionaire brothers who donate heavily to conservative causes.
Now, let’s be realistic here! Politicians have to raise money. And, if a major donor calls, a politician cannot exactly clock out and say that he is now on private time. When you are at work, rare is the person who receives a call from a spouse or a close friend and says that one cannot talk with them. You may cut your call very short, but you do not simply refuse your friend or your spouse. Politicians and their donors may not be friends, but they are “closely” related to one another.
Father Orthoduck thinks the Democratic Party in Wisconsin needs to lighten up on this one. First, they deliberately set the Governor up. Then, they made it seem as though an extremely important donor was calling. Given that they called the governor, and the governor did not call the supposed donor, Father Orthoduck sees no impropriety in this case. Gotcha politics is gotcha politics, regardless of which side does it.
I can certainly sympathize with your “a pox on both their houses” feeling concerning political parties, and I probably think that thought several times a day myself. But I have to point this out:
You say, “First, they deliberately set the Governor up.” Your whole final paragraph insists that “they,” the Dems, did all the “gotcha” moves you describe. This is false. The Democratic party in Wisconsin did not set up that call. Ian Murphy made the call entirely on his own. It may have played nicely into the Democrats’ hands, but they did not set it up, so I think it’s wrong to charge that the Dems initiated the “gotcha” so they could then make the ethics complaint.
Beyond that, I believe the matter is not as simple as you suggest. I think the problem is that it is illegal for an elected official to solicit donations from state grounds, in this case, the Capitol, while on the job. He can’t sit in his office and ask for money from a donor on the phone, and that’s a clearly understood and non-trivial rule. The recording shows that he did solicit funds. He didn’t just say, “gee, thanks” upon being offered money by the “donor.” As the Intl. Business Times summarizes: “Among the alleged ethics violations are improper requests for political ads, requesting a political contribution in a state-owned building, misuse of his office for primarily political motivations, using his office to obtain a private benefit for himself.” — http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/120317/20110308/wisconsin-democrats-margaret-brick-ethics-violations-scott-walker.htm#ixzz1G3gTfS00
If you’ve heard the tape, Walker went on at some length describing how certain Republicans had less than solid support in their districts and would sure appreciate some big infusions of money for campaign ads.
And soliciting donations isn’t all he did. He described tactics he planned to use to pressure the Wisconsin 14 to return, including using layoffs of state workers to turn up the heat on the senators. Abusive practice and inappropriate quid-pro-quo; possible serious violations of labor laws there. You want it to be illegal for a governor to use workers’ jobs to extort concessions from political opponents, don’t you?
Then there was the whole “that’d be outstanding!” response Walker made to “Koch’s” offer: “Once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and show you a real good time!”
And I haven’t even mentioned yet how he acknowledged that he’d “thought about” planting troublemakers in the crowds to possibly stir up violence and make the protesters look bad. The governor of a state admitting he considered stirring up trouble in a crowd of citizens? In peaceful crowds including children, elderly, and disabled people? Have you read about how disturbing this was to Madison and Dane County police chiefs?
So “craziness” isn’t a fair assessment, in my opinion. I think they have enough reason to make the complaint. Let’s wait and see how the ethics board decides to handle it.
Very interesting! Those details were not brought out in the couple of articles that Father Orthoduck read. Yes, it will be interesting to see what the ethics commission says.