I have previously written on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walkers frequent changes of his positions on policy issues; how he has brazenly misinformed; and even lied to his Wisconsin constituents. I was still astounded by how extensive have been these character manifestations throughout his political career, as I recently dug much deeper into my research. Beginning with this blog, I will present this examination of Walker on a topic-themed basis.
1.) Collective Bargaining and Right-to-Work
Days after being inaugurated as governor of Wisconsin on January 1, 2011, Scott Walker traveled to Beloit, Wisconsin to meet with Diane Hendricks, the billionaire who would become his most generous campaign donor. Hendricks asked him: "Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state, and work on those unions, and become a right-to-work [state]?" Walker didn't hesitate: "Yes...we're going to start in a couple of 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...." (See John Nichols's article in the August 17/24, 2015 The Nation magazine.)
Shortly before the 2012 recall election, the video of the meeting became public. Knowing he was in trouble, Walker explained that he wasn't talking about divide-and-conquer; he was explaining to a billionaire donor how to reduce the influence of "a handful of special interests." Walker said of the anti-labor legislation: "It's not going to get to my desk. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure it isn't there."
One week before the 2010 election for governor, Walker told the Oshkosh Northwestern editorial board that he would negotiate with the public sector unions. Within weeks, Walker introduced the anti-union Act 10. In February 2011, Walker said: "I campaigned on [Act 10] throughout the campaign." Even Walker supporters can't come up with a single instance in the campaign that Walker said anything about addressing collective bargaining rights.
In October 2014, Scott Walker told the New York Times that: "We're not going to do anything with right-to-work." When asked during the 2014 campaign for governor, Walker said he had ":no interest" in enacting right-to-work. When Walker signed the right-to-work bill after being successfully re-elected, he put the onus on state legislators for sending him the bill.
2.) Abortion
During the 2014 election campaign, the Walker camp ran a 30-second ad in which Walker said he supported legislation that would "leave the final decision [on abortion] to a woman and her doctor." He declined to say if he believed that abortions should be prohibited after twenty weeks, even though he had previously filed legislation to do just that. Earlier this year, Governor Walker signed legislation to ban abortions after twenty weeks, with no exception for rape or incest.
In an interview with conservative talk show host Dana Loesch on May 22, 2015, Walker described a mandatory ultrasound as "lovely" and "a cool thing." MSNBC's Steve Benen said that Walker had put himself between the patient and her doctor. Walker knows or should know that a mandatory ultrasound is designed to make a pregnant woman think twice about having an abortion. Also, why should a small government advocate, as Scott Walker describes himself, want to insert the government into what should be a medical decision made between a patient and her doctor.
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Governor Scott Walker is an extremist anti-choice proponent, who opposes exceptions to abortion for rape, incest, or even to save the life of a pregnant woman. When asked in the first presidential debate among GOP candidates what he would propose if the life of the expectant mother was in acute danger, he offered the lame answer that there were other provisions to do that but he gave no specifics.
3.) Immigration
In 2013, Governor Walker told the Wausau Daily Herald editorial board that he supported a pathway to citizenship for undocumented aliens, and he added that the debate should focus on improving legal immigration, not on building security. Walker has since strenuously argued that he didn't say that to the board. This is not a case of "he said, she said," it is a case of "they said, he said," as none of the board members has supported Walker's denial of what was said.
Governor Walker was interviewed by Glenn Beck on April 20, 2015, in which Walker said that immigration policy should be based "first and foremost" on protecting American workers and their wages.
Frank Luntz, the GOP point person on focus groups, assembled one for the first GOP presidential debate. I was impressed that when a member said that Walker's position on immigration had evolved to his satisfaction, another member immediately jumped in and said that his new position had come in March of this year. Whatever position Walker had as of March, it has been superseded already, as after Donald Trump announced his new position on undocumented aliens, Walker endorsed Trump's position on building a wall and on the Fourteen Amendment's provision basing citizenship on birth on U.S. soil. Rewriting the Fourteenth Amendment would be a herculean challenge and would throw into doubt those whose citizenship is based on birthplace.
Donald Trump has proposed building a wall both above and below ground. I recently read an article that described how Mexican drug cartels build tunnels. They have built them as far as seventy feet down. Trying to stop tunneling with an underground barrier would massively increase the cost of building a wall.
4.) Restrictions on Voting
When asked in his 2014 election debate with his Democratic opponent, Governor Walker was asked about estimates that the photo ID law that he championed could disenfranchise as many as 300,000 otherwise qualified Wisconsin voters. Walker revealed his sense of values when he answered that he didn't want his vote to be cancelled by a fraudulently-cast ballot. Walker didn't even try to make the case that voter impersonation was rampant in Wisconsin. Various studies have shown that voter impersonation is extremely rare in the United States.
The voter ID law is not the only way that Governor Walker has tried to limit voting by those unlikely to vote for him: he has been able to limit early voting days and even change election dates.
5.) The Reagan Library Visit
The fact that Scott Walker will lie, even about what are fairly insignificant matters, is illustrated by how he described his visit to the Ronald Reagan Library. He said how honored he was by Nancy Reagan making him the first person to ever handle the Bible Reagan used in his first inaugural. The archivist for the library said there was nothing unique about that, because many visitors had been allowed to touch the Bible. The archivist also disputed Walker's claim that Nancy Reagan arranged the press conference in which Walker displayed the Bible, as he said that it was Walker who was insistent on having a press conference.
I will continue with this dissection of Scott Walker's character and performance in subsequent blogs.
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