Last week it was announced former “Democratic” State Senator Jeff Plale had been hired as an administrator within the state’s Department of Administration (with a hefty pay increase, no less), and at the time of the announcement Plale responded to accusations his appointment was payback for his surprising (at least to some) vote against 17 state employee labor contracts – a vote that helped kill those contracts – by saying, “People are adding two and two and coming up with seven. It isn’t true.”
However, in his efforts to make it clear that his cushy new state job has absolutely NOTHING to do with his vote to kill the state employee union contracts, Plale has gotten caught in a bit of a fib. Shortly after his vote to kill the state employee contracts, Plale was asked if he was interested in a job with the Walker administration, and Plale said he had “no prospects right now.” While Plale said he had “no prospects” as far as employment within the Walker administration, it’s now known that at the time of that statement Plale had already submitted his resume and interviewed for a job.
“I turned in my resume to the transition team shortly after the election, had an interview a couple weeks later and was hired this Wednesday,” he said in an e-mail.
Yes, just to be clear, that means Plale was actively seeking employment from Walker when he voted against the union contracts – something Walker wanted him to do – in last month’s lame-duck session. He did not disclose this at the time.
As if Plale’s admission that he hadn’t been honest about his efforts to land a job in the Walker administration weren’t enough, Plale went on to tell Dan Bice that one of the reasons he decided to take a job in Walker’s administration is because the job will fatten his state pension:
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about my pension,” Plale said last week, “but it wasn’t a deciding factor in taking the job.”
While Jeff Plale hasn’t been very honest about much since his vote in December against the state employee union contracts, at least he’s honest about his one of his motivating factors for taking a high paying job in Scott Walker’s administration.
xoff over at Uppity Wisconsin his own spin on this.
I guess I lost the bet that he’d be employed by ATT. Oh, well, there’s always Phil Montgomery!
You and me both!
We can always speculate about where Russ Decker will end up…
Leaping from one government job to the next…it’s what a lot of career politicians do. Lord knows Doyle rewarded many in the same fashion. What would poor Jeff do without a taxpayer funded teat at which to suckle?