Scott Walker's Latest "Not My Fault": The Emails

The New Smartest Guys 
in the Room?

Lest anyone think that tonight's actions by the Senate happened in a vacuum, a close reading of the emails between the Governor's staff and the Senate Democrats shows how calculated this move has been.

By releasing these emails, the governor can point to all of the effort he and his staff went to to compromise with the rogue Democrats.

However (you knew there had to be a however), the emails show little or no effort to actually change anything. From March 3 to March 8, the actual terms that the Governor's office is willing to compromise on don't actually change much.

March 3:

• Remove CPI clause
• Length of collective bargaining agreemnts
• Time frame for initial ceritification of collective bargaining agreements
• A change in the definition of 'workplace safety'
• Guidlines for changes to the Medical Assistance program

March 8:

• Remove CPI clause
• Allow some economic issues to be negotiated, none of them responsive to the Democrats emails and requests
• A change in the definition of 'workplace safety'
• Time frame for initial ceritification of collecitve bargaining agreemnts
• Length of collective bargaining agreements
• Guidelines for changes to the Medical Assistance program
• Allow collective bargaining for UW Hospital Clinics Authority (this was an item recommended by the Joint Fiscal Committee before the email exchange)

Another item worth noting is that it seems that the emails from the Governor's office are in response to a complete different conversation. The Democrats write that they would like "X" and the governor responds with "blue."

There must be missing emails. There appears to be a great deal of missing conversation here. In the five days covered by these emails, there seem to be gaps in the progression of the conversation. In particular, there is a great deal of activity on the 3rd, one from the 6th and then the 8th. It seems odd that there are no emails in between. In fact, the first email from the Democrats to the Governor's office was written on February 28th with no recorded response until the 3rd of March. With something this controversial and important, one would expect a quicker response.

The most important thing to note about the emails and their very well-timed release is that Governor Walker can now say, "Well, I tried. Look at these emails... I really tried." 

This action and the related actions in the Assembly will be the focus of the recall votes and future elections.