Was Prosecutor’s union-operative wife behind “John Doe” investigation of Scott Walker?
Blockbuster revelation by someone who worked in the prosecutor’s office.
We have covered the onslaught unleashed by Democratic District Attorney John Chisholm on Governor Scott Walker and conservatives in Wisconsin many, many times.
We note the obsessive nature of the investigation, and how it seemed that Chisholm found the man — Scott Walker — and was searching for the crime.
In a blockbuster revelation, Stuart Taylor at Legal Newsline reports that Chisholm’s wife, who is a union operative, may be the motivating force, District attorney’s wife drove case against Wis. Gov. Walker, insider says:
…. Walker became a national figure in 2011, when his “Budget Repair” bill cut state spending and sharply curbed public employee unions — perhaps the biggest reversal of public union power in U.S. history. Conservatives were delighted and liberals alarmed.
Now a longtime Chisholm subordinate reveals for the first time in this article that the district attorney may have had personal motivations for his investigation. Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at St. Francis high school, a public school near Milwaukee, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Walker’s anti-union policies in 2011, according to the former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office. Chisholm said in the presence of the former prosecutor that his wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved … She took it personally.”
Citing fear of retaliation, the former prosecutor declined to be identified and has not previously talked to reporters.
Chisholm added, according to that prosecutor, that “he felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this.”
Chisholm was referring to Gov. Walker’s proposal – passed by the legislature in March 2011 – to require public employee unions to contribute to their retirement and health-care plans for the first time and to limit unions’ ability to bargain for non-wage benefits.
Chisholm said his wife had joined teachers union demonstrations against Walker, said the former prosecutor. The 2011 political storm over public unions was unlike any previously seen in Wisconsin. Protestors crowded the State Capitol grounds and roared in the Rotunda. Picketers appeared outside of Walker’s private home. There were threats of boycotts and even death to Walker’s supporters. Two members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court almost came to blows. Political ad spending set new records. Wisconsin was bitterly divided.
Still, Chisholm’s private displays of partisan animus stunned the former prosecutor. “I admired him [Chisholm] greatly up until this whole thing started,” the former prosecutor said. “But once this whole matter came up, it was surprising how almost hyper-partisan he became … It was amazing … to see this complete change.”
The culture in the Milwaukee district attorney’s office was stoutly Democratic, the former prosecutor said, and become more so during Gov. Walker’s battle with the unions. Chisholm “had almost like an anti-Walker cabal of people in his office who were just fanatical about union activities and unionizing. And a lot of them went up and protested. They hung those blue fists on their office walls [to show solidarity with union protestors] … At the same time, if you had some opposing viewpoints that you wished to express, it was absolutely not allowed.”
This revelation comes the very day there is an appeal being argued in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in a lawsuit brought by two of the targets of the investigation.
A federal court District Judge enjoined the John Doe proceeding and allowed the lawsuit to continue against the prosecutors in their individual capacities (since technically, they were acting as investigators not prosecutors and therefore cannot claim immunity).
At a minimum, there needs to be a criminal investigation of how the John Doe assault on Walker and conservatives was launched and whether politics was the motivation.
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Comments
This was a disgraceful breach of public trust. Chrisholm should have recused himself of involvement in the matter because of his clear conflict of interest. What he did was nothing short of criminal.
Good luck trying to prove the breach but I agree completely. The subordinate won’t go on record and it’ll be hard to find two witnesses who will and who will be compelling enough to bring about a criminal review.
Maybe they’ll find some emails ? 🙁
Some guys just can’t stand up to a woman’s tears, I guess.
No matter how histrionic they are.
“That beast is hurting my monopoly. Waaaahahaha.”
From the final sentence of this post: “… whether politics was the motivation.”
That’s a joke, right?
“They seized documents from people’s offices and homes.
Armed officers raided the homes of Walker’s supporters across the state, using bright floodlights to illuminate the targets’ homes. Deputies executed the search warrants, seizing business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices, while their targets were restrained under police supervision and were denied the ability to contact their lawyers.”
From The Dairy State to The Scary State.
plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose … cherchez la femme
Strange how these people feel so far above the rest of us.
From my experience, it seems to be a defense mechanism. They know they’ve gotten a sweetheart deal, but after years of defending it as merited for their “sacrifice of civil service”, they just can’t accept challenge to their insular and protected profession.
One conversation I recall, the teacher assured me she would have made so much more in another field, but had chosen to serve the public.
She MIGHT have made more, at longer hours, less job security, and much later retirement. But she wouldn’t get it by crying to politicians about how important she is, or get automatic raises for worthless continuing ed.
A private career path confronts many changes and challenges, and the arc isn’t always upward. Perhaps Chisolm’s wife will experience those risks now, through damage to her husband’s career path, after she leveraged his position for her own gain.
Or maybe he just calls in some political favors, and nobody hears about it except a few blog readers. heh
Hi Midwest,
I completely agree with your first statement.
“Strange how these people feel so far above the rest of us.”
I have for decades said that the dims have developed into a Monarchist party. Kings and queens claimed they had been selected by God to guard over and rule the peasants and serfs.
The eggheads of the modern dimocrat party behave as if they have been anointed by a higher power (they claim not to believe in) to rule us simpletons by virtue of their IQ’s.
God Help Us.
Yup. They claim to be liberals. They claim that we are the right wingers, yet they are for tyrannical gov’t and support monarchists.
You’re barking up the wrong tree at teachers. Not all of us are pro-union. In addition, babysitting brats (even 18+ ones at the collegiate level) and appeasing their defensive, biased parents is a lot tougher ground to negotiate than you can imagine.
You also work longer hours than just at the school. My wife and I both teach at different levels, and it’s something you can’t appreciate in terms of commitment unless you’ve done it yourself.
Oh, and lastly, don’t make me laugh with job security.
You have no idea what it’s like when budget cuts come every year and many of those responsible for deciding where those cuts are taken are administrators who make less administrative cuts to “protect their own”.
1. Welcome to the real world where people get fired.
2. You don’t sound like a person I’d want as a teacher.
Anybody who’s ever worked for state or local government is vulnerable to budget cuts and lay-offs. After working 17 years for Wake County (NC), the NC Mental Health Reform Bill not only killed my position, but my agency, my department, and the entire division. 300 employees out of work, all done.
You seem to see yourself and other teachers as some sort of special angels we mortals fail to appreciate. Get over yourself – you ain’t that special.
I’m mostly barking at public school unionized teachers, especially those like this woman that used her husband to assure benefits. Many are very willing to strike, and see nothing wrong with paying a powerful union to control a politician. The quid pro quo between the Democrat politician and their unionized teachers seems evident. That seems to be the only reason public workers get to retire at 55 with fat pensions and benefits, while us private sector schmucks work till 65.
Good teachers in smaller towns are worth the money, and good teachers in inner cities have a very hard job. But there are many entrenched that can’t be fired when they should be, making the job for the rest more difficult.
Private schools and home school groups are in a different realm. And many complain about the money that goes to administration more than teachers.
At least that’s how I see it, and is why I bark. 🙂
Re administration: Just try to find out how many people draw paychecks from the school budget. Have fun.
What kind of person gets so invested in the collective that they break down crying at the idea someone is trying to take power away from it and give it back to the individuals of which they are one?
The same kind of person who marries a slug that thinks govt offices exist for the benefit of the occupant.
Peas in a pod, and it’s a rotten pod. No wonder attorneys are held in such high regard.
Milton Friedman said something to the effect that sincerity is the most over-rated of human attributes.
You can get very, very vested in very, very bad things. And Collectivists delude nobody BEFORE they delude themselves. 1984 is their manual.
Maybe it’s the kind of people who have a sneaking sense they’re not really worth what they’re getting paid, and they’re only getting it by applying the pressure of numbers and periodically threatening to quit en masse.
(The) wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved”
Let me see if I have this straight…
The union(s) in-question have done such a miserable job of providing a value to members, that unless the union(s) can force people to fund their activities by payroll deduction, while under threat of not getting and/or keeping their job, that not enough people will voluntarily pay enough union dues to keep the unions from folding?
…and the failure of said union(s) – year, after year, after year, for decades – before Walker became Governor, is solely Walker’s fault, according to the moistened bint that is coincidentally both a union harpy and a key investigating DA’s spousal unit?
IS that about it?
It is obvious that Democratic District Attorney John Chisholm is not going to be in the running for the Ray Rice award for handling marital relationships anytime soon.
Apparently a threshold of base sentimentality was crossed when 96 tear drops came gushing out of Colleen as she reflected on her precious memory collection – the union comrades no longer sitting on her shelf in ceramic poses. And, of course, these days, public displays/records of emotion are de rigueur, trumping reality, law and necessity (vis-à-vis Ferguson).
Are people so utterly dependent on unions that they cannot think for themselves? Or, do they not want to think for themselves and believe that unions are like big government agencies which must be altruistic because they exist?
Liberty is a self-improvement DIY project. If you hand it over to a union or government then forget you born in the U.S.of A.