New report: Walker administration coordinated anti-union Act 10 with lobbyists

Wisconsin…..where lobbyists are in charge of setting policy.

Personal email records received by 27 News from the office of Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) show a high level of coordination between senior members of the administration and a number of Republican lobbying groups during the battle over collective bargaining rights for state workers in 2011.

One such email suggests a lobbyist may have had the original idea for separating collective bargaining restrictions out of the 2011 budget repair bill and into a separate piece of legislation.

On February 22, 2011, GOP lobbyist Bill McCoshen sent an email to someone identified only as “Jimmy”, which lays out a plan for how the Walker administration and legislators can deal with the problems caused by the of 14 Democratic senators who had left the state just days earlier.

In that that email, McCoshen includes a memo that lays out “the plan.” Part of that plan includes a bullet point that reads: “Move collective bargaining into a separate special session bill.”

The State Senate ultimately did exactly that on March 9, 2011.

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3 thoughts on “New report: Walker administration coordinated anti-union Act 10 with lobbyists

  1. If I remember correctly, County Executive Scott Walker’s office staff was taking email direction from his campaign staff on how to handle that little matter of a child killed at a parking garage.
    Coordination all over the place, going back in time.
    What prompted this station to look into this, make the open records request etc. and then take the time to review and analyze? Good for them, but I’m wondering what brought this on? It seems kind of out of character for a Wisconsin news organization.

  2. Remember, the beauty of Act 10 was that it largely ended forced coordination with government unions. There is nothing wrong, necessarily, with voluntary coordination.

    1. Irish coffee today or home grown? “Forced coordination,” by whom, with government unions? The government is unionized? New one to me.

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