A Breathtaking Display of Crony Politics in Wisconsin - SLATE MAGAZINE- more wonderful goodness
This the most comprehensive article.
What happened: Wisconsin state Rep. Joel Kleefisch, who is married to Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, sponsored a bill that was narrowly tailored to further the interests of a major campaign donor. The donor, Michael Eisenga, has given $3,500 to Joel Kleefisch, $7,500 to Rebecca Kleefisch, and $15,000 to Scott Walker through his company American Lending Solutions.
In turn, Eisenga was given unmitigated access to quibble over the language of a child support bill introduced by Kleefisch, which would limit the income from which child support could be drawn at $150,000 a year.* Eisenga, a multimillionaire, had recently tried and failed to get a judge to lower the amount of child support he pays to his ex-wife for their three children.
/snip/
The most remarkable thing about this whole story is the fact that all parties involved—even the attorneys!—did not stop to consider that their correspondence would be made public as soon as the bill was introduced. That either means Kleefisch was severely ignorant about Wisconsin's sunshine laws (doubtful) or he thought no one would bother looking up the records.
There is a third option, as Bice pointed out to me in an email: "In this case, the records are again very illuminating for several reasons. The work on the bill goes back at least two years, for one, and Mike Eisenga has such a direct and personal stake in the issue. It's as if Eisenga, Smiley and those in Kleefisch's office didn't expect the materials to be released—or didn't care."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/01/14/wisconsin_politics_joel_kleefisch_withdraws_child_support_bill.html?wpisrc=burger_bar
= new reply since forum marked as read
