6.) Ethanol
During his unsuccessful run for governor of Wisconsin in 2006, Scott Walker took out radio ads stating he was against ethanol mandates. He said he would consider incentives -- while not identifying any -- but he didn't want a government mandate. At the time there was a bill pending in the Wisconsin legislature, which provided for a ten percent ethanol fuel mix.
Upon becoming a candidate for president of the United States and campaigning in Iowa, Walker changed his tune and came out in favor of ethanol mandates. He tried to dull the sharpness of his position reversal by saying he would like to phase them out; however, he gave no timeline for the phase-out.
7.) Climate Change/Environmental Protection
One of the more questionable appointments Governor Walker has made in his tenure in office was that of naming Mike Huebsch to the state Public Service Committee. Huebsch said the explosion of one volcano would offset the emissions of every automobile in the country. Scientific consensus is that human activity generates about 35 gigatons of greenhouse gases per year, while all the world's volcanoes spew out about 0.13 to 0.44 gigatons per year --human activity may be 80 to 270 times greater than that of volcanoes.
Huebsch also questioned the continuation of the renewable portfolio standard of ten percent for renewable energy. A number of states have more ambitious goals for renewable energy.
Governor Walker signed the Americans for Prosperity "No Climate Tax" pledge and joined the lawsuit on the Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Walker also wrote a letter to President Obama -- dated May 21, 2015 -- warning that unless changes were made, Wisconsin would not comply with the EPA's Clean Power Plan. At Florida Governor Rick Scott's Economic Growth Summit on June 2, 2015, Walker proposed reforming the EPA by removing many of its powers and placing them in the hands of the states. Fifty states with fifty sets of regulations would make it very difficult for companies to do business. Environmentalists have accused the Walker administration of prohibiting the state's Board of Commissioners of Public Lands from doing any work on climate change.
On the more nitty-gritty level of budgetary expenditures, Walker has proposed cutting $8.1 million from a leading energy research center in the state. He also has proposed a $4 million cut from municipal recycling programs, which actually is an improvement from his first budget, which didn't have any funding for such programs. In 2011, he proposed a bill to restrict where wind turbines could be built. In a rare action, the GOP-dominated state legislature killed this attempt at micro-managing.
A major public issue in Wisconsin during Walker's tenure has been the proposal by Gogebic Taconite LLC to build a large open-pit iron ore mine. In 2012, the company gave $700,000 to the pro-Walker Wisconsin Club for Growth. Governor Walker pushed through a bill relaxing environmental mining standards, paving the way for the project if it passed a review by federal regulators. It was all for naught, as the company abandoned the project, citing onerous federal regulations.
Kerry Schumann of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters has passed judgment on Scott Walker by saying that he "has gone after every piece of environmental protection."
8.) Common Core
In a very recent interview at an Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition event, Governor Walker said he "effectively repealed" the Common Core standard in Wisconsin. He said: "I oppose it." "I like high standards. I think high standards are a good thing." Common Core is a set of standards for English and mathematics unveiled in 2010, that came out of discussions between private nonprofit groups and state education departments.
In June 2010, Wisconsin adopted the Common Core State Standards for mathematics and English Language Arts and also adopted Standards of Literacy in All Subjects standards. The new standardized state test -- named the "Badger Exam" -- was legislatively aligned with Common Core. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Website states that Common Core is part of the "framework" for the state's assessment of students. The state's independently-elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Evers, is a strong proponent of Common Core. All but one school district in Wisconsin is reported to use Common Core standards. It is clear, therefore, that Common Core is deeply embedded in the Wisconsin public school system.
PoliticalFactWisconsin says that Governor Walker issued an announcement on July 17, 2014, which read: "Today, I call on the members of the state Legislature (sic) to pass a bill in early January [2015] to repeal Common Core and replace it with standards set by people in Wisconsin." Looking back to Walker's first budget as governor, the DPI was instructed to come up with a new standard test for school children which would have to "measure mastery" of the Common Core standards. In January 2012, the state Read to Lead Task Force, chaired by Governor Scott Walker, recommended that the state's early learning standards be aligned with Common Core. Thus, until at least January 2012, Governor Walker's actions were to align the state's school policy with Common Core.
When Governor Scott Walker said in his January 2025 State of the State Address that he wanted legislation that said no school district be required to use Common Core, he added: "Going forward, I want to eliminate any requirement to use Common Core," meaning that he was not proposing elimination at that time. The strongly anti-Common Core organization, Truth in American Education, accused Walker of advocating opt-out, not repeal.
Critics have pointed out that both Walker and the GOP-controlled state legislature seem to be mesmerized by Tony Evers. They could strip him of his power to set broad .public school policy but might be afraid of strong public reaction. Walker has tried to trim some of his powers but has lost that effort.
9.) Gun Control
On April 10, 2015, while speaking at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting, Governor Walker said he has "an A+ rating from the NRA as governor and had an A rating as a state legislator." The A rating as a legislator is surprising, because the NRA regularly opposes any attempt, no matter how minor, to regulate the purchase and possession of firearms. In 1994, Scott Walker successfully pushed through two measures: a,) a bill prohibiting any person who commits the equivalent of a felony from possessing a firearm; and b.) prohibiting anyone who was involuntarily committed as a minor from possessing a firearm. Walker briefly sponsored a bill in 1995 making it illegal for any federally licensed gun dealer in the state to sell a weapon that wasn't secured with a trigger lock and also made it illegal to buy one. Even that brief sponsorship should have drawn the NRA's ire.
Governor Walker's A+ rating is probably based on the fact that Wisconsin now has a concealed carry law.
10.) The Patriot Act
On Fox and Friends (June 3, 2015), Walker said he didn't support any of the GOP-sponsored amendments to the Patriot Act. The entire GOP Wisconsin delegation voted for the Sensenbrenner bill. Therefore, if Scott Walker is elected as president, we may see the return of bulk collection of records by the government, ironically done by a small-government proponent.
ADDENDUMS
*In an appearance on Radio Iowa on April 25, 2015, Walker came out in favor of a national right-to-work law. This should not be confused with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
*Besides what Governor Walker told the Wausau Daily Herald editorial board about seeing a pathway to citizenship by illegal aliens, Walker told a private dinner crowd at the Golden Door Restaurant in Bedford, New Hampshire that he supported the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. and eventually get citizenship.
*Regarding President Obama's executive order blocking a large number of immigrant families from deportation, in a July 19 conversation with a family in Plainfield, Iowa, Walker said of the executive order: "I'm not blocking it. I'm governor. I don't have anything to do with the federal government." A day earlier, at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, he touted his support for the lawsuit, joined by twenty-four other states, to block Obama's order.
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