Money, money money
Oh, goodie, just what we need 2 months ahead of the mid-term elections. Even MORE money buying elections in Wisconsin.
If you're not familiar with Federal Judge Rudolph Randa, he's a loyal Republican, Federalist Society member, regular attender of Koch Brothers sponsored events who refuses to recuse himself in cases where the possibility of public shame would convince any other judge to step back. He's also the Federal Judge who ordered the current John Doe Probe into illegal coordination between dark money groups and campaigns to be shut down and ordered all evidence destroyed (the Appeals Court stepped in promptly to prevent that). His judicial assistant is also the wife of Governor Scott Walkers (R-It's Never My Fault) lawyer, one of many working hard to shut down the secret John Doe investigation.
Well, he's struck again by ordering that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, a non-partisan group of mostly retired judges that oversees our elections, to stop enforcing the Wisconsin limits of candidates accepting money from Political Action Committees (PACs).
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa on Friday issued the ruling in a lawsuit brought by the CRG Network, a political action committee that works to elect conservative candidates. The group argued that the limits were a violation of its free speech rights. Randa, in granting a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law, said the group was likely to succeed on that claim.
In his court, any Republican claim will succeed.
Randa stopped enforcement of the law as it applies to all candidates for state office, rejecting arguments from the state Government Accountability Board, which enforces election law, that CRG Network didn't have standing to challenge it other than for candidates to the state Assembly.
But Randa went further than the lawsuit was seeking, blocking enforcement of the law that limits contributions from political party and legislative campaign committees as well.
(bolding is mine)
Of course he went further than the lawsuit asked. It's what he does.
Republicans are already delighted. After all, it takes a LOT of money to win elections even in heavily gerrymandered districts. And Republicans are planning an "extensive review" of campaign finance laws next year. Of course they are.
Naturally, the article appeared in a small-town newspaper that reprinted the Associated Press story.
The Walker-Loving Milwaukee Journal Sentinel never told the story to their readers. Instead, they did a "both sides are winners in this" news piece where the legal decision by Randa was briefly mentioned in the second paragraph from the bottom of the very lengthy article. If you didn't read all the way down, you'd never know that this was a legal decision. More precisely, it was an ideological decision made by an extremely partisan Judge placed inside a legal decision.
Crickets in the Wisconsin State Journal.
You can't blame voters if they're fed one-sided propaganda by the media. Sad, but true, most Daily Kos readers are far better informed of what's going on here than the citizens of this state.
Even MORE!
Scott Walker and his GOP band of Not So Merry Men did get a shocker to start what, I hope, is yet another bad week: news that Wisconsin has a projected deficit of $1.8 billion at a time when Scott Walker has a nice ad talking about how he "balanced the budget" and everything is just fine in Wisconsin.
Things are so bad that even Republicans in the Legislature are worried!
And then there's infighting among Scott Walkers hand picked cronies in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (which Walker appointed himself to head).
WEDC, a Walker creation, replaced the Department of Commerce with this quasi-public agency. It's been a disaster since it began with headline news of them wasting taxpayers money, losing track of loans and business grants, and a recent study that showed that 60% of the money went to Scott Walkers campaign donors (of course it did).
Bwahahahahaha!
I'm certainly hoping that the week continues to worse for Walker and his pals. The karma truck is late making its deliveries to these schmucks who have systematically destroyed the state I love.
Even MORE More:
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago is hearing arguments on Judge Randas decision to end the current John Doe Probe. This court has unsealed many documents in the investigation which revealed, among other things, that mining company Gogebic gave $700,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth (a dark money group). The company subsequently had 2 sets of mining deregulation, that they wrote themselves, rammed through the Republican dominated State Legislature and signed quickly into law. It was also revealed that Gov. Scott Walker travelled the country soliciting donations to the Wisconsin Club for Growth and that his campaign was coordinating with that dark money group.
Hopefully, the Appeals Court will enable the investigation to continue into illegal coordination between campaigns and dark money groups with their unlimited funds coming from undisclosed donors.
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