Sunday, April 25, 2010

What? Walker's A Hypocrite? Imagine My Shock!

As noted by Jay "folkbum" Bullock the other day, Scott Walker opened his mouth and readjusted his foot with yet another grand showing of hypocrisy.

As Jay notes:
A hundred years ago--heck, even fifteen years ago--would have been a great time to pass a law prohibiting legislators from having the kind of middle-of-the-night votes that, if not actually reflect such malice, at least arouse the suspicion thereof. Scott Walker, who of course was a legislator fifteen years ago and participated in his share of end-of-session late-night legislative bacchanalia, never proposed such a restriction when he had the chance or, to my knowledge, voiced his concern over the practice.

But Scott Walker apparently finds it convenient to complain today, as he's in the middle of a campaign and needs something more than just lunch bags to talk about for a while. And "OMG! They're passing bills in the dead of night!" can be made to sound quite frightening and earn Walker some free media for the day. (None of the media that I saw or heard asked Walker why he didn't push to stop late-night legislating when he was a state rep. Disappointing!)
I didn't have a chance to post on it then, as that I was a wee bit busy with a thing called life, but also because I didn't think we had heard the end of this story yet. Sure enough, I was right. Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press picked up the story and ran with it:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker voted to allow late-night lawmaking when he was a member of the Assembly even though he rails against the practice now.

Walker joined with the Republican majority in January 1997 to eliminate a rule that required lawmakers to finish their floor sessions at 8 p.m., voting records show. Republican lawmakers had voted to put the rule in place after taking control of the chamber in 1995.

The change allowed the all-night legislative sessions that had long been the Assembly's way of doing business to resume. The sessions are often denounced by lawmakers themselves and government watchdogs for allowing lawmakers to take major action in the middle of the night when few are paying attention — except lobbyists.
To commemorate this event, which I believe just may be Walker's one millionth act of hypocrisy, I have joined Jay and Ordinary Jill in helping Walker out with new slogans for his brown bag:




2 comments:

  1. Outstanding!

    Love the brown bag gimmick. Somehow I have a feeling Walker is going to regret using it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a feeling I will be having fun with this for a long, long time.

    ReplyDelete