John Nichols | The Nation

Wisconsin Governor Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will face off tonight in the second—and final—debate of the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election campaign.

Barrett, the labor-backed Democrat who seeks to oust Walker, wanted more debates.

Walker, the controversial governor whose draconian budget measures inspired mass protests last year, did not. In fact, in the first debate last week, Walker was barely present—declining to participate in a segment where the candidates were to ask one another questions, failing to respond to challenges from his opponent or questions from journalists on the panel.

Why is Walker so disinclined to debate? Apparently, the Republican governor, who has raised $31 million to $3.9 million for Barrett, prefers to let his attack ads do the talking.

But Walker will face one more round of questions tonight. And it will be harder to avoid them, as one of the state’s ablest broadcasters, Mike Gousha, will be asking them.

In case Gousha runs out of questions, here are a few he could toss Walker’s way:

1. In October 2010, you told the Oshkosh Northwestern’s editorial board that you would work with public-employee unions and respect the bargaining process. You said: “You still have to negotiate.” But you did not negotiate with public-employee unions. Now, you acknowledge that you and your aides began developing legislation to strip away collective-bargaining rights immediately after your election. Did you lie to the Northwestern’s editorial board?

2. In February 2011, you told the people of Wisconsin in a televised address that you were forced by a fiscal crisis to introduce a budget-repair bill that created dozens of new political positions for your cronies, proposed the sell-off of state assets and attacked the rights of public employees and teachers. Now, we learn that the drafting of elements of the legislation began months before the “crisis” developed. Did you lie to the people of Wisconsin?

3. In April 2011, you told Congress that you began developing your anti-labor legislation in response to actions by the unions. Now, you acknowledge that the legislation was being drafted before you had any interactions with the unions. Did you lie to Congress?

4. In April 2011, in the same sworn testimony to Congress, you said that you had not spoken to anyone about using anti-labor legislation to punish or undermine political foes. Now, we see a videotape showing you speaking months earlier to your largest political donor, about using a “divide and conquer” strategy to undermine your political foes and to make Wisconsin “a completely red [Republican] state.” Did you lie to the Congress about this, as well?

5. In last week’s debate, when asked about healthcare programs for low-income workers and families (such as Wisconsin’s BadgerCare) you suggested that you are expanding them and providing them with unprecedented support. Yet under your administration more than 60,000 Wisconsinites have either been stripped of coverage or denied access to coverage for which they qualify. Did you lie in response to that question in last week’s debate?

6. Throughout the current campaign, you have been asked to answer basic questions about who is funding the criminal defense fund that has been established to help you respond to the “John Doe” inquiry into illegal actions by your aides and campaign donors. You have suggested that you cannot answer these and other questions related to the probe because of constraints placed on you by prosecutors and by state law. But veteran prosecutors and the state Government Accountability Board have suggested that you have a good deal of flexibility when it comes to answering these questions. Did you lie when you said you could not answer even basic questions relating to the “John Doe” probe?

7. Throughout the current campaign, you have been harshly critical of the use of the recall process to hold you to account. Yet in 2010 your campaign produced a video in which you hailed the recall campaign that cleared the way for you to become Milwaukee county executive as a hopeful expression of direct democracy. Did you lie in that video about your attitude toward recall elections? Or are you lying now that it is you who are being held to account by the people?

TAKE ACTION: Help Tom Barrett Defeat Scott Walker

There is no longer any question that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s sworn testimony before Congress has been contradicted by videotaped evidence of the controversial governor discussing with his top campaign donor a “divide and conquer” political scheme to undermine organized labor and make Wisconsin “a completely red state.”

Now, however, there is new evidence to suggest that Walker’s testimony to Congress about when he began preparing his anti-labor legislation—which sparked mass demonstrations and a recall movement that will culminate with a June 5 vote on whether to recall the governor—was not truthful.

The growing controversy over the governor’s testimony led three veteran members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—who had previously contacted committee chairman Darrell Issa with their concerns—to write Walker directly on Friday.

The ranking Democratic member of the committee, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, has joined Connecticut Congressman Chris Murphy and Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly in asking Walker whether he would like to withdraw the testimony he gave before the committee in April 2011.

That’s an unsettling challenge for a sitting governor.

But Walker is in an unsettling circumstance.

The governor told the committee that he had not engaged in discussions about enacting anti-labor legislation in order to undermine political opponents. But there is now video evidence that he had just such a discussion with Diane Hendricks, a billionaire campaign donor who would eventually give Walker’s campaign $510,000, in January 2011.

In commentary accompanying the letter, the staff of the Oversight Committee notes: “Despite testifying under oath that he never ‘had a conversation with respect to [his] actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their donor base,’ a newly uncovered video taken three months earlier shows Walker explaining to one of his biggest financial donors that he plans to use a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy against public sector workers in order to turn Wisconsin into a ‘completely red state.’ ”

With those details in mind, Cummings, Murphy and Connolly wrote:

Dear Governor Walker:

On May 21, 2012, we wrote to Rep. Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, requesting that he send a letter asking you to explain your testimony before our Committee on April 14, 2011, particularly in light of a new videotape taken of you three months before the hearing and an article published by The Nation entitled, “Did Scott Walker Lie Under Oath to Congress?” Letter from Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings and Committee Members Gerry Connolly and Christopher Murphy to Chairman Darrell E. Issa (May 21, 2012) (online at http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...).

On May 22, you were asked about our letter by your local Fox affiliate, but rather than addressing the substance of our request, you accused us of acting politically because we did not send a letter directly to you. Walker Responds to Allegations He Lied Under Oath, Fox 6 News (May 22, 2012) (online at www.fox6now.com/2012/05/22/walker-responds-to-allegations-he-lied-under-...) (stating “I think the fact that they’ve sent it to you before I’ve even seen it suggests that it’s a political issue”).

To address your concerns, it may be helpful to explain why we wrote to Chairman Issa instead of to you. Pursuant to our Committee’s protocols, the Chairman typically writes letters on behalf of the entire Committee to seek clarification of previous testimony, to forward questions for the record from Committee Members, and for other purposes relating to witness testimony at Committee hearings. Chairman Issa has written several letters to witnesses this Congress when he believed they were not being truthful or when new information came to light suggesting that their testimony was not accurate.

Since you appear willing to entertain our inquiries directly, we ask that you submit to the Committee written answers to the following three simple questions no later than June 1, 2012:

1. Do you dispute that you met with Diane Hendricks, one of your top donors, on January 18, 2011?

2. Do you dispute that, in response to a question from Ms. Hendricks about whether Wisconsin could become “a completely red state,” you responded “Oh, yeah,” and that your “first step” as Governor would be to “deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions” in order to “divide and conquer”?

3. In light of your answers to these questions, do you now wish to withdraw your sworn testimony before the Committee in which you asserted that you never “had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their donor base”?

In the interview with your local Fox affiliate, you stated that “the facts are the facts.” We agree, and in this instance, the facts were captured on videotape.

It is critical for Congress to obtain accurate information from witnesses who testify before the Committee in order to help inform our policy decisions. Your videotaped conversation with Ms. Hendricks not only raises serious concerns about the accuracy of your testimony before the Committee, but it undermines the entire rationale put forward for your unprecedented campaign against public sector workers.

We look forward to receiving your responses to our questions.

This demand may not be the last of the Congressional concerns about whether Walker lied to the committee.

When he testified in April 2011, Walker told the committee that he launched his assault on collective-bargaining rights for public employees and teachers in response to moves by public-sector unions. The governor volunteered that “in December, after the elections but before I was sworn into office, the public sector unions and the state rushed to the lame-duck session Legislature and to the Governor and tried to pass through contracts that would have locked us into a dire financial situation.”

Around the same time, in a media interview, Walker said, “We don’t have a specific plan yet” for dealing with the unions.

Now, however, drafting documents obtained by a Madison radio station, WTDY, have revealed that Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau was asked to begin drafting Walker’s anti-labor legislation in November, weeks before the legislative session Walker described to Congress. Cathlene Hanaman, the Deputy Chief at the Legislative Reference Bureau, has confirmed that she was assigned in November to draft the legislation. In addition, while the governor claimed he was forced to act against the unions because of a budget emergency, it has now been confirmed that Department of Administration budget specialists were working on the project in December.

In other words, neither the timeline nor the circumstances that Walker described to the Congressional committee appear to have been accurate.

“There are serious questions about the governor’s testimony that need to be answered,” says Connolly, the Virginia congressman who questioned Walker when he appeared before the Oversight Committee and who now is asking the governor to explain the contradictions in his testimony.

“My issue here is that people tell the truth, especially when they’re under oath before a Congressional committee, and before anybody casts a vote in this pending recall election, they’re entitled to know if the two candidates are telling the truth. In this case, this is under oath,” says Connolly. “This isn’t a pass off statement at a press conference. This is prepared testimony and answers to questions in a Congressional hearing under oath.”

TAKE ACTION: Help Tom Barrett Defeat Scott Walker

Members of Congress who questioned Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker when he testified before a US House committee last year are asking the chairman of that committee to help them determine whether whether the controversial anti-labor governor made deceptive statements while under oath.

The ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, joined Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly and Connecticut Congressman Christopher Murphy in signing a letter to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, which asks Issa to contact Walker and seek “an explanation for why his statements captured on videotape appear to contradict his testimony before the committee.”

The Congressmen began their letter: “We are writing to request that you ask Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to clarify his testimony before our Committee hearing on April 14, 2011, in light of a new videotape taken of Governor Walker three months earlier and an article published last week by The Nation entitled “Did Scott Walker Lie Under Oath to Congress?” Did Scott Walker Lie Under Oath to Congress?’”

Here’s the May 14 article that got members of Congress asking questions anew of Governor Walker:

Did Scott Walker Lie Under Oath to Congress?

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker met with a billionaire campaign donor a month before he launched his attack on the collective-bargaining rights of public-sector workers and public-school teachers, he engaged in a detailed discussion about undermining unions as part of a broader strategy of strengthening the position of his Republican party.

After he initiated those attacks, Governor Walker testified under oath to a Congressional committee. He was asked during the April 2011 hearing to specifically address the question of whether he set out to weaken unions—which traditionally back Democrats and which are expected to play a major role in President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign—for political purposes. Walker replied: “It’s not about that for me.”

During the same hearing, Walker was asked whether he “ever had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their [union] donor base?”

Walker replied, not once but twice, that the answer was “no.”

So, did the governor of Wisconsin lie, under oath, to Congress? The videotape of Walker talking with Diane Hendricks, the Beloit, Wisconsin, billionaire who would eventually give his campaign more than $500,000, surfaced late last week. Captured in January 2011 by a documentary filmmaker who was trailing Hendricks, the conversation provides rare insight into the governor’s long-term strategy for dividing Wisconsin. And the focus of the conversation and the strategy is by all evidence a political one.

In the video, Walker is shown meeting with Hendricks before an economic development session at the headquarters of a firm Hendricks owns, ABC Supply Inc., in Beloit. After Walker kisses Henricks, she asks: “Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions?”

“Oh, yeah!” says Walker.

Henricks then asks: “And become a right-to-work [state]?”

Walker replies: “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.”

After describing the strategy, Walker tells the woman who asked him about making Wisconsin a “completely red state”: “That opens the door once we do that.”

In a transcript of raw footage from the conversation, Hendricks asks Walker if he has a role model. Walker replies that he has high regard for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who early in his term used an executive order to strip collective-bargaining rights away from public employees and who, more recently, signed right-to-work legislation. Walker described the use of the executive order to undermine union rights as a “beautiful thing” and bemoaned the fact that he would have to enact legislation to achieve the same end in Wisconsin.

Within weeks, the woman who asked Walker about his strategy to make Wisconsin “a completely red state” wrote a $10,000 check to support his campaign. (She would eventually up the donation to $510,000, making Hendricks the single largest donor in the history of Wisconsin politics.) Within a month, Walker had launched the anti-union initiative that the two had discussed as a part of that “red-state” strategy, provoking mass protests that would draw the attention of Congress.

Testifying under oath to the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Walker said in his formal statement and in response to questions from committee members that his efforts to restrict the collective-bargaining rights of unions— including moves to prevent them from collecting dues, maintaining ongoing representation of members and engaging effectively in political campaigns—had nothing to do with politics.

Walker was asked specifically about a Fox News interview with Wisconsin state Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, in which Fitzgerald said of the anti-union push: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

Congressman Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, asked Walker about Fitzgerald’s statement. “I understand you can’t speak for [Fitzgerald] but you can opine as to whether you agree with your state Senate leader when he says this is ultimately about trying to defeat President Obama in Wisconsin. Do you agree?”

“I can tell you what it is for me,” Walker answered. “It’s not about that. It’s ultimately about balancing the budget now and in the future.”

Under questioning from other members of the committee (especially Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley), however, Walker admitted that many of the moves he initiated had no real impact on the state budget.

They did have the impact of weakening unions in the workplace and in the politics of the state, however.

It was in that context that Congressman Gerry Connolly, D-Virginia, pressed Walker on the matter of political intentions.

“Have you ever had a conversation with respect to your actions in Wisconsin and using them to punish members of the opposition party and their [union] donor base?

“No,” replied Walker.

“Never had such a conversation?” Connolly pressed.

“No,” said Walker.

The videotape from several months earlier, in which Walker speaks at length with his most generous campaign donor, suggests a very different answer to the questions from Murphy and Connolly. Indeed, the videotape shows Walker having just such a conversation.

 

TAKE ACTION: Help Tom Barrett Defeat Scott Walker

Political analysts on the right and the left agree that the Wisconsin recall race between Republican Governor Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Tom Barrett is the most competitive gubernatorial race in the nation. Pundits on the left and the right agree that the Wisconsin fight—which targets a conservative governor who has brought an anti-labor, austerity agenda to an American state—is second only to the presidential race in importance.

But there is a dramatic difference in the intensity of commitment to the race by national Republicans and their conservative allies on one side and national Democrats and their allies on the other.

The Republicans aren’t holding anything back.

“We’re all in here,” says Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, a Wisconsinite whose name has turned up frequently in indictments of Walker aides targeted by a “John Doe” inquiry into felony violations of government ethics and campaign-finance laws. “We will be involved for as much as we need to be involved. We haven’t put a limit on the number.”

Priebus offers his “all in” commitment even though Walker’s campaign has a 25–1 financial advantage over Barrett. And that doesn’t even count the millions coming in from the Koch brothers and other national donors who are funding so-called “independent” expenditures on the governor’s behalf.

What is the Democratic National Committee offering in return? Not as much. While the Democratic Governors Association and some other groups with party ties have been supportive of the electoral fight in Wisconsin, the DNC has been slow on the draw. Even now, after much discussion of the DNC’s slow response, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says only that she hopes to come to Wisconsin for a fundraising event. Translation: she will make an appearance in Wisconsin where Wisconsinites will be asked to give money to the DNC.

Needless to say, that’s not even a minimally equal level of commitment to the one made by Priebus and the RNC.

In fairness, Democrats do not have to equal the Republican level of engagement. They just have to be in the game.

That’s because Walker’s spending, while meaningful, can’t undo all the damage he has done to his own reputation.

Walker burned through $21 million between November and late April, yet his approval ratings—according to what’s generally seen as the most reliable Wisconsin poll, that of Marquette University’s Law School—have actually declined slightly since the start of the year.

Despite the spending of the better part of $30 million on pro-Walker and anti-Barrett messaging, the latest polls show a race where Walker still can’t get above 50 percent approval ratings or support levels.

While the latest polls give the governor a narrow lead, they also show that there is deep concern about job losses. Indeed, according to the latest Marquette University Law School survey, that concern has risen dramatically in recent months.

Walker is clearly frightened by that reality. Burned by Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show Wisconsin has suffered the worst job losses in the nation since the governor’s austerity agenda was implemented, Walker on Wednesday pitched a “revised” set of jobs figures—based on projections from data used by no other state and no previous Wisconsin governor. Walker and his campaign are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising that pushes an agenda that, by every traditional measure, is failing. Walker and his campaign are now pouring millions of dollars into advertising that says an agenda, which by every traditional measure is failing, has, by a calculus known only to the governor, succeeded.

That’s a tough sell.

But it gets easier when Walker and his “independent” backers dominate the airwaves.

This is where the money issue becomes significant.

Joel Rogers, a sociologist and political theorist, says that we often miss the reality of how money works in politics. The point at which to look at the role of money in politics is not the final tabulation that says one candidate or party had more money than the other. The point at which to compare is at the early- and mid-stages of a campaign. Does one side have such an overwhelming advantage that it can effectively silence the other? Does one candidate have the ability to so dominate the discourse that their messages come to define the debate?

That’s what Scott Walker and his supporters have tried to do. They did not succeed in the early stages of the recall campaign, at least in part because of the high level of attention to the campaign and the intensity of the opposition to Walker mustered by energetic grassroots groups such as United Wisconsin.

Now, however, as this fast-paced campaign reaches its midpoint, Walker’s financial dominance allows him to spin political fantasies that are precisely at odds with reality—as he’s doing with the spun job-loss numbers.

This is where the frustration with national Democrats becomes a factor. While unions have been delivering resources for grassroots mobilization, there has not been an equivalent level of engagement by national Democratic Party operatives. Callers to Ed Schultz’s national radio show, a broadcast center of the discussion about the state-based struggles by unions and defenders of public services and public education, were furious with the DNC.

They aren’t just griping, however.

Brookfield, Wisconsin, activist Mary Magnuson went to MoveOn.org’s member-driven petition site—www.SignOn.org—with a note that read: “As a Wisconsin progressive working day and night for the recall of Scott Walker, I’m shocked: The Democratic National Committee still isn’t giving financial support to the recall fight in Wisconsin. After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to Scott Walker who is neck and neck in the polls, even though Tom Barrett is being outspent by Walker’s millions from out-of-state donations.”

Magnuson continued: “There is no more time for the Democratic National Committee to wait—if Walker wins, it would be a huge setback to Democrats in races across the country this year. We need the DNC’s support immediately!”

The petition language is simple, but blunt: “Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, invest now in the crucial fight to remove Scott Walker from office in Wisconsin—the people have worked hard and it’s time to help.”

By mid-day Wednesday, more than 100,000 people had signed on.

These are grassroots activists, most of them Democrats, who recognize that Magnuson is right.

If the Wisconsin recall is defeated, not because Walker or his austerity agenda was appealing but because he and the RNC and the Koch brothers were more committed, then the Democratic party will take a hard hit. Not just in Wisconsin but nationally.

It won’t just be that the Democratic National Committee will be identified as a dysfunctional political operation when compared to the Republican National Committee. A failure to leap into an essential fight about the future of working families and their unions, as well as public education and public services, will raise questions about whether DC Democrats “get” what America is debating about.

And there is a bottom line: if the DC Democrats don’t “get” it, Wisconsin will only be the first of their frustrations in 2012.

TAKE ACTION: Help Tom Barrett Defeat Scott Walker