Posted on 10/27/2015 5:32:27 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Part 273 of 271 in the series Wisconsin's Secret War
By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Watchdog
MADISON, Wis. – While Senate Republican leadership attempts to woo a few members cool to a key provision in a Government Accountability Board overhaul bill, a vocal target of the GAB’s secret probe is using his constitutional rights to target lawmakers holding up reform.
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, tells Wisconsin Watchdog that the bill will be taken up, although likely not until next week. The proposal, which passed last week in the Assembly along party lines, could be revised to meet the needs of the members with cold feet.
The Wisconsin Club for Growth on Tuesday rolled out robocalls in the districts of the four Senate Republicans who reportedly don’t like what they see as the bill’s elimination of “nonpartisan” judges on a proposed ethics commission. The proposal decentralizes the GAB, creating separate ethics and election commission. Members would be evenly nominated by both parties and the governor, with approval by the Senate.
Wispolitics.com first reported on the Wisconsin Club for Growth’s robocall campaign.
Long-time conservative activist Eric O’Keefe, a director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, is featured in the recorded messages.
It is interesting that O’Keefe, so long targeted in the unconstitutional John Doe, is now freely exercising his constitutional rights as a citizen to engage in political speech.
In the recorded message, he notes the GAB operated a “secret, unconstitutional investigation of conservative organizations that spoke out during the Act 10 debates” involving Gov. Scott Walker’s reforms to public employee collective bargaining.
“GAB investigators planned armed raids on people’s homes. In one case, a 16-year-old boy who was home alone was told that he could not even call his parents,” O’Keefe says in the message.
He asks constituents in the districts of state Sens. Robert Cowles, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen and Jerry Petrowski to call their lawmakers and tell them to vote for the bill – a bill that will “replace this corrupt, secret agency with a transparent, bipartisan commission.”
The offices of Cowles and Olsen did not return Wisconsin Watchdog’s calls seeking comment.
O’Keefe’s campaign comes as the Wall Street Journal revealed the GAB and John Doe prosecutors in the Democrat-led Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office took their political investigation national. The Journal editorial reported that the Doe team created a searchable spreadsheet that included the names and personal email addresses of former Florida governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan; Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, also of Wisconsin; Fox News host Sean Hannity; and even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“The government snoops created ideological search concepts like ‘big union bosses’ and ‘big government,’ as if such phrases suggest some law-breaking intent,” the Journal wrote. “Recall that when the IRS targeted conservative groups for special vetting, it created a ‘Be On the Lookout’ list of key words such as ‘patriot’ and ‘tea party.’”
The sealed court documents don’t say why the national figures were targeted, but the John Doe probe and its widely discredited theory of illegal coordination between Walker’s campaign and 29 conservative groups has always been about getting a governor who has been the bane of the left.
Walker hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing, and neither have the targeted conservative groups and their scores of members.
Myranda Tanck, communications director for Fitzgerald, said the Wall Street Journal piece has raised more questions about the “nonpartisan” GAB and its involvement in the probe.
“I think, speaking for our office, the facts that we have found that not only the Wisconsin media have been targeted but people in the national media have been targeted points to a new level of partisanship and a lack of ethics in an agency charged with (overseeing) the ethics of candidates in Wisconsin,” Tanck said.
TARGET TARGETS: Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, long targeted in an unconstitutional John Doe probe, used their constitutionally protected rights Tuesday to launch automated messages urging voters to tell their senators to vote for a GAB overhaul bill.
Eric O’ Keefe fights back. Sponsors robocalls to the districts of 4 Senate Republicans who are reluctant to pass the GAB reform bill.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
273 articles on the rotten John Doe investigation. Can you belive that one story could launch so many articles? Thank God for Matt Kittle, or we would know nothing about this partisan outrage.
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