Monday, October 6, 2014

Van Hollen Reminds Us To Vote For Susan Happ

Wisconsin State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has a long history of going out of his way in order not to do his job.  Most notably, he has repeatedly refused to get involved in the ongoing John Doe investigations commonly known as Walkergate.

But now, Van Hollen is actually aiding and abetting the bad guys by refusing to do his job as they continue to try to obstruct justice:
State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen declined Friday to defend Wisconsin elections officials against a new lawsuit connected to a stalled probe of Gov. Scott Walker and his conservative allies, asserting the officials are misreading a law at the heart of the investigation.

On Thursday, a conservative Milwaukee County group sued prosecutors and elections officials involved in the secret John Doe probe, arguing it has a constitutional right to collaborate with candidates. That question is crucial to the investigation, since prosecutors are separately investigating whether Walker and the Wisconsin Club for Growth and other conservative organizations illegally coordinated with one another.

In a letter Friday to the head of the Government Accountability Board, a top aide to Van Hollen, a Republican, wrote that the Wisconsin elections agency is advancing "tenuous legal positions."

Dan Lennington, the state's assistant deputy attorney general, wrote to Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy that state law doesn't prohibit coordination between a candidate and a group running so-called political "issue ads" that stop short of explicitly calling for that candidate's election or his opponent's defeat.
This is more than a little similar to a statement made by Brad Schimel, who is running as the Teapublican candidate to replace Van Hollen:
Is collaboration between a donor and a politician evidence of pay-to-play legislation, or is it politics as usual?

Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel declined a request earlier this year from the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now to investigate state Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, and his bill to cap the amount of child support that can be imposed on the wealthy.

"If the political contributions are all reported pursuant to law, what law do you believe has been violated? Why can't a legislator press for legislation that benefits a person who has contributed to their campaign? Isn't that the essence of representative government?" Schimel, the sole Republican candidate for attorney general, wrote in an email to One Wisconsin Now.
The only way we are going to break the stranglehold that these corrupt politicians have on our state is to stop electing them.

And in the race for attorney general, not electing a corrupt politician is not enough. As the two citations above show, we need someone who is not only not corrupt, but willing to pursue the corruption and prosecute it to the full letter of the law.

Schimel is not that person.

But Susan Happ is.

Please help support and - most importantly - vote for Susan Happ on November 4th.

5 comments:

  1. What does Schimel think about NOT having to reveal donors and have no contribution limits? Because that's what O'Keefe and the oligarchs he fronts for want out of John Doe.

    It's not illegal to coordinate. It's illegal to give unlimited $$$ to a candidate and not reveal who you and your money-launderers are.

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  2. Asking Susan Happ to prosecute corruption is like asking a cement wall to get out of the way. Remember that this is the same Susan Happ that refused to sign a recall petition against Scott Fitzgerald, refused to prosecute Gary Ellerman for lying about his party affiliation, and has publicly stated that she'd be willing to work with corrupt Republicans.

    While Happ is great on many issues, such as reproductive rights, marriage equality, and cracking down on for-profit colleges, she's absolutely terrible when it comes to corruption. Of course, Brad Schimel is even worse than Happ when it comes to corruption (he's the one who helped Scott Jensen get away with flagrant corruption, took campaign cash from "Wild" Bill Kramer, and publicly called corruption "the essence of democracy"), he thinks that the Wisconsin AG's office should nullify federal laws, and he's a hothead who ran away from a media interview with the FOX affiliate in Milwaukee.

    Susan Happ isn't a corruption fighter, but she's certainly the lesser of two evils compared to the odious Brad Schimel.

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    Replies
    1. You really don't know what you're talking about here in regards to Happ

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    2. Of course I know what I'm talking about. I looked on the Verify the Recall website, and I searched Susan Happ's name on the Fitzgerald recall database, and no results came up for her name. More importantly, she's never once said that she'd crack down on corruption to my knowledge, and Gary Ellerman isn't in prison.

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    3. pretty weak tea, double A

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