Tuesday, April 5, 2011

If You're Shocked By The Deschane Affair, You Shouldn't Be

Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered a story of one of Scott Walker's most glaring abuses of his newly-grabbed power.  This latest saga is about the appointment of Brian Deschane, a twenty-something college dropout who is the proud possessor of an arrest record of not just one, but two, drunk driving arrests. Walker appointed Deschane to the position of turning a blind eye to environmental and regulatory violations and making sure dozens of state employees do the same.  For this, Deschane is receiving $81,500 per year, which is 26% higher than he was making when he started as a state employee two months ago.

What made Deschane qualified for this if he was a dropout and had very little real world experience? His daddy is a very rich lobbyist that dropped quite a bundle into Walker's campaign fund.

Many people, including my own uber-conservative father, were outraged and shocked by this revelation.  Outraged I can understand and agree with full-heartedly.  But when my father told me that this is the first time he's actually seen it in print, my jaw hit the floor.

It makes me wonder where he and everyone else has been for the last decade.

Just two weeks ago, Bice had reported about how Senator Randy Randy "Bed" Hopper's girlfriend, Valerie Cass, had gotten a nice $20.35 per hour job from the Walker administration.

And before Cass, there were the appointments of Cindy Archer, Walker's former head of the Milwaukee County Department of Administration; Jeff Judas Plale, former state representative who sold his vote for a job; Steve Fitzgerald, father of the Twins of Tantrums; and Tom "Executhug" Nardelli, Walker's former chief of staff.

And the above noted examples are just from the last three months, since Walker became governor.

As Milwaukee County Executive, Walker amassed a lengthy list of crony appointees, as Cory Liebmann has already listed.

Two of those on Cory's list also show that Walker didn't have a high regard for being qualified as he was handing out these appointments.  Walker had appointed Bob Dennik to the economic development office where they proved themselves to be utter flops (emphasis mine from then):
Walker’s last two choices to lead the county economic development office, Bob Dennik and Tim Russell, came from his campaign and lacked depth in the development business, Clark said. Dennik left the post this week to become an executive with a Pewaukee construction company. Russell is now Walker’s community relations director.
Walker chooses folks who don’t have (the necessary) experience,” she said. Dennik came under repeated fire from the board the last two years over disappointing land sales results that put the county budget in a jam. He didn’t return several phone calls seeking comment. 
Only about $226,000 of the $7.2 million in budgeted land sales revenue for this year has materialized, contributing to a projected multimillion-dollar, year-end deficit. The land-sales budgets have been off $1 million or more in four of the last seven years, county figures show.
Obviously, Walker's abuse of office by appointing unqualified cronies or family and/or friends of donors is nothing new at all, but rather is an ongoing thing.

For anyone shocked by the latest rendition of Walker's long standing behavioral pattern should save some of their outrage for themselves for not paying attention all this time.

3 comments:

  1. You just HAVE to read this this opinion piece by the senior Deschane from a couple months back regarding the tough staffing choices the governor must deal with. Oh the irony, it burns!

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/116433744.html?commentSubmitted=y&refresh=49960#comments

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  2. Thanks Capper.

    IMHO, the timing of Brian's "promotion," may be relevant.

    After Walker's conversation with a guy he thought was David Koch, his approval numbers started trending south. A lot of the more qualified candidates, who actually have job skills and experience, probably fear their resume being tainted with a Walker appointment.

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  3. jim, great catch, I had missed that.

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