According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, it appears 98 state legislators – 60 Republicans, 37 Democrats and 1 independent – will be attending Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s “brat summit” tomorrow. According to Gov. Walker, he really REALLY wants to be all bipartisan and stuff, despite the fact that he’s never demonstrated once since his inauguration as governor that he has any willingness to work with Democrats on anything.
However, despite Gov. Walker’s best efforts to paint his desire to bring lawmakers together over brats and beers as a truly sincere effort, at least two Democratic lawmakers – Kelda Roys and Mark Pocan – aren’t buying. Neither Roys nor Pocan – who happen to be running against each other for the seat in the second Congressional district- will be in attendance at Gov. Walker’s media stunt, with Pocan citing the fact that Gov. Walker in the past had talked about bipartisanship publicly, only to ignore Democrats and refused to meet with them.
“I refuse to be involved in what appears to be a media stunt – true bipartisanship will only occur through concrete action made by Gov. Walker,” his statement said. “Those actions take real conversation in the state Capitol where we have been rebuffed over and over again.”
In her statement regarding Gov. Walker’s bipartisan farce, Rep. Roys said, “I’m not going because I think that there’s no trust right now,” adding, “There’s no sincerity in his approach…You know, let’s actually do something bipartisan first, then once we actually have a little sense that this is sincere…then let’s go to the mansion and celebrate that.”
Also refusing to attend is Republican State Rep. Steve Nass, who apparently won’t be attending because his feelings were hurt by comments made over the weekend by Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Mike Tate, who said of Gov. Walker at the DPW”s 2012 convention, “Scott Walker will see the inside of a jail cell before he sees the inside of another term.” Many would argue Tate’s statement was factual in nature, but apparently Rep. Nass is sensitive when it comes to people saying bad things about Gov. Walker.
As to Gov. Walker’s sudden desire to be all bipartisan, I’ll believe his rhetoric when I see it matched by his actions, because I don’t believe a word that comes out of Walker’s mouth.
I concur. Wonder where he got the idea for such an event?
Bipartisan brats and beer? Wonder how that works when unity is not your specialty. Might need some help putting it together, I suppose. Need a little help from your friends, Mr. Walker? Ah, yes, no doubt sponsored by Johnsonville and Miller/Coors. And you Democratic friends, you scrub down the grill when it’s all done, will ya? I’m sure Mr. Walker can come up with some tools to efficiently get that job done. “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”
Media stunt. Nothing more.
A real bipartisan gesture would be inviting John Lehman, which of course, he has not done.
Let’s see if Van Wangaard shows up! They seem to still be in denial that they actually lost a race last Tuesday.
So the rapist says to the victim, let’s get together again.
Chris Larson posted on Facebook that he was skipping it too, partly because he’d rather spend time with his new baby but also because he’d rather see real work on bridging divides and not just photo ops. Apparently Walker used to do this all the time as county exec — do awful stuff (that the board would fix or override) than make a big show in the media of inviting everyone for a social event, but nothing ever came of it in any tangible way except that the media lapped it up.