Out of the Jowls of Jauch

State Senator Bob Jauch is none to happy with the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Association (WMC). The state’s largest business association has placed bright pink billboards in Jauch’s district that read: “Sen. Bob Jauch - Higher Taxes! Fewer Jobs!”

"It's typical, arrogant behavior by a group that acts like spoiled children when they have too much money," Jauch said.

Gee, Senator, that’s exactly how taxpayers feel about their elected officials.

Party on, Peg!

This week's political tin ear award goes to Attorney General Peg Laugtenschlager for kicking off her re-election campaign at the Avenue Bar in Madison. From there the AG traveled to Wausau for a wine and cheese reception.

The folks at WisPolitics saw the irony and reported:

AG Peg Lautenschlager, who was convicted of drunk driving in 2004, is officially kicking off her re-election bid tonight with a fundraising reception at The Avenue Bar in Madison. Tomorrow she will travel to Wausau for a wine and cheese reception at Café Le Grand.

Perhaps this is Laughtenschlager's way of showing that she's not worried about how voters will respond to her drunken driving conviction.

So what's next, a Keg with Peg at on the UW- LaCrosse campus?

Party on, Peg!

Independent Review Fails to Uncover Flawed Bid for $55 Million Contract

Oops. Looks like former Administration Secretary, turned Independent Procurement Expert, Mark Bugher missed another stinker in his thorough review of DOA procurement practices earlier this year.

According to current DOA Secretary Steve Bablitch, Bugher’s independent review found the state's contracting process "fundamentally sound.” Both Governor Doyle and Bablitch claim that the Adelman Travel contract fiasco that resulted in the conviction of a state official was simply an isolated incident.

But Bablitch’s Executive Assistant Sean Dilweg disagrees. Dilweg acknowledged that another contract process led Doyle contributors to threaten suit after one of its competitors won a contract with the state.

"If we would have moved forward with Prism, we would have had a mess on our hand," Dilweg said, calling it a flawed bidding process. "Our only option was to rebid it to have a clean slate."

The flawed process to which Dilweg refers took place at the end of 2003 and the decision to redo the bidding process was made in early 2004, months before Adelman Travel first appeared - or not - on the radar screen of DOA management.

The bid for the Kenilworth project is the second in a series of isolated incidents that include curiously timed contributions to Governor Doyle’s campaign as well as a meeting featuring DOA Secretary Marc Marotta who never ever inserted himself into the procurement process.

So much for independent reviews.

More Questions for Marotta & DOA

The Associated Press did a pretty thorough job covering yesterday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting featuring the current and former DOA Secretaries, but the hearing itself left me with more questions than it answered.

Following are excerpts from the AP story and a few follow up questions reporters might want to ask when they have a chance.

"We want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again," current Administration Secretary Steve Bablitch told lawmakers, describing the case as an isolated incident.

Exactly what did happen and shouldn’t we make sure it didn’t happen in other procurements under this Administration? If this was an isolated incident, then the system is working and what we really need is more transparency from DOA.

Marotta acknowledged he met with Adelman officials who were pushing a consolidation of the state's travel business in 2004. He said administration officials often meet with companies pitching ideas, but "as soon as that process begins to determine who is being selected, we stay out of that."

"We turn it over to people who are procurement experts," he said.

At what point does Marotta consider the process underway and who are the “procurement experts?”

Why did DOA hire Academic Travel Consultants (ATC) out of California to advise them on the state travel consolidation contract - and then proceed to completely ignore their advice and micro-manage the project inside DOA? Why did the taxpayers spend $175,000 for ATC to give advice that DOA clearly ignored?

He (Marotta) said when he received inquiries from companies during a contract competition; he would always refer the calls to purchasing experts. He said he followed that rule "without exception" during his tenure.

How common was it for the DOA Secretary to receive calls from companies who were in the process of bidding on a state contract? Section 1.7 of an RFP specifically states: “Any contact with State employees concerning this RFP is prohibited, except as authorized by the RFP manager during the period from the state of release of the RFP until the notice of intent to contract is released.”

If Adelman attempted to contact a state employee other than the manager, they violated the RFP, and Marotta --- - or whoever used his direct line ---arguably violated it by returning the call and talking for seven minutes.

If Marotta knew he wasn’t suppose to talk to Adelman Travel, why didn’t he direct the procurement manager to follow up on the phone calls?

Why did it take seven minutes to tell Adelman that he could not discuss the RFP with them? Finally, why is there no record of any of the calls in the Adelman file as required by the purchasing manual?

And just out of curiosity, have any of the three Secretaries who appeared before JFC on Wednesday ever actually read the state procurement manual or the corresponding state statutes and codes?

U.S. Senate Recruitment --- A Series of Unfortunate Events

Today the Republican Party of Wisconsin suffered the fourth blow in nearly as many days with the announcement that Tim Michels will not challenge Herb Kohl for U.S. Senate this fall. Just yesterday shock waves moved through the state when WisPolitics issued an alert that Former Governor Tommy Thompson was taking his name off the list of possible candidates.

These latest events follow the death of GOP U.S. Senate hopeful Marcus Gumz and Dave Redick's recent conversion to Libertarianism, clearing the GOP primary field for Robert Gerald Lorge (a.k.a. the good Lorge).

Rocked by death, desertion and disinterest, Wisconsin Republican had little to celebrate today.

Collateral Damage

I really hope Jim Doyle sticks to his guns and never returns the money he got from Adelman Travel executives. Not because it’ll make any difference politically.

Doyle should keep the money out of respect for Georgia Thompson, the woman he’s never met, but whose life was wrecked for a lousy $20,000 in contributions to his campaign.

The law tells us that Thompson had a duty to resist pressure from her superiors and allow the state travel contract to be awarded to the legitimate winner. But let’s face it, given the atmosphere at Doyle’s Department of Administration, Thompson knew resisting might mean being shuffled off to another position and eventually terminated.

We heard the testimony of Mike Soehner from the Department of Employee Relations that Thompson had all the protection the civil service affords. What we didn’t hear is the names of all those civil servants Team Doyle has buried in the bowels of the bureaucracy or out-sourced as “consultants” to other agencies. Nor did we hear why Thompson’s immediate supervisor was moved out of her position shortly before the travel contract was awarded. Finally, there was no mention of the states’ plan to lay off 47 procurement officers later this year. Perhaps Georgia Thompson, who was hired less than five years ago, had little reason to feel secure.

Regardless of why she neglected her duty, Thompson has been nothing more than a pawn in Jim Doyle and Marc Marotta’s political game. If there was any doubt about that, it evaporated this week in the wake of Thompson’s conviction.

Jim Doyle and DOA Secretary Steve Bablitch took to the main stage declaring the Administration’s complete vindication from any wrongdoing in the Adelman Travel case. They said Georgia Thompson acted alone and must be fired immediately.

The real drama took place backstage at DOA, where the Doyle/Marotta henchmen who led Georgia Thompson into the deep dark forest, did everything in their power to appease her angry co-workers. Ironically Thompson’s co-workers were most upset with DOA management for putting her in front of the WKOW camera last year and then convincing her she would beat the wrap, no sweat.

Crisis counselors were called in to meet with employees in the purchasing section where Georgia Thompson worked. Meanwhile Division Administrator Pat Farley and his Deputy made the rounds to inform DOA employees of all the good deeds they were doing to support Georgia Thompson in her time of need.

Thompson’s immediate supervisors are collecting names of people to write letters asking Judge Randa for leniency at sentencing and coordinating her legal defense fund. A box is also available at DOA for employees to get letters and cards to Thompson.

I am the last person to take issue with people who want to support Georgia Thompson any way they possibly can. But I do take issue with the fact that these efforts are being spear-headed by the very people who helped ruin her life, and in the Administration that does not tolerate ethical lapses.

The real question is this: Is DOA management trying to buy someone’s silence and are they using state time and resources to do it?

If I were Georgia Thompson, I’d hire a different Attorney and find some new friends, because as far as Team Doyle is concerned, she’s just collateral damage.

Foley Ties to Oracle

Brian Fraley may be on to something. He predicts that the state's $29 million dollar no bid contract with Oracle will be the next big money deal to go under the microscope.

According to DOA Executive Assistant, Sean Dilweg, the Oracle contract was part of an effort to find efficiencies by consolidating state contracts. The administration negotiated a revised six-year maintenance contract that rolled all those contracts into one.

Fraley discusses the conspicuous timing of contributions from Oracle Executives to Jim Doyle's campaign immediately after the contract was singed on May 25, 2004. Oracle was recently awarded another state contract worth $10 million.

But I think there may be another wrinkle here.

For months, I've been hearing that Marc Marotta's law firm, Foley & Lardner, represented Oracle in contract negotiations with the state. The story is that Oracle dumped the firm it had previously employed for Governmental Affairs and hired Foley instead.

Because the Wisconsin Ethics Board does not require lobbyists to register when they are lobbying for state contracts, I have been unable to verify this information. I did however find a notice on Foley & Lardner's website advertising a legal seminar hosted by Foley and featuring a keynote address by Sanjay Prasad, Chief Patent Counsel of Oracle.

The seminar also included the Chief Counsel of Hewlett Packard's patent division. Remember when Marotta and his lackeys starred in Hewlett Packard's catalog?

Foley & Lardner members had contributed $166,540 to Jim Doyle's re-election as of the January 2006 report. I should hope they got more for their money than that puny $50,000 no bid contract with the Department of Commerce in November 2004. Afterall, Adelman Travel got a contract worth $750,000 in exchange for $20,000 in contributions.

Doyle Denies What Laughtenschlager Concedes

Compare the statements of Governor Jim Doyle and Attorney General Peg Laughtenschlager regarding the guilty verdicts in the Georgia Thompson trial.

Doyle reminds us of his intolerance of ethical lapses and says, "I have been carefully briefed of the testimony at the trial, and from the evidence presented by both the prosecution and the defense, it is clear that Georgia Thompson acted on her own and that no other state employee was involved."

Laughtenschlager says it's time for the legislature to do it's job and "enact laws that will remove the influence of money on politics and decision-making at all levels of government."

It seems the Attorney General is conceding that money influenced the decision to award the state travel contract to Adelman.

But if Doyle is right and Georgia Thompson acted alone, how could money have possibly been a factor in the case of Adelman Travel?

The fat lady ain't done yet folks!

I Guess the Needle Lady Couldn't Make It

Dennis York offers an insightful piece about Governor Doyle’s despicable politicization of stem cell research.

Meanwhile Doyle’s campaign announced that he will be introduced at the Democratic Convention by Jodi Montgomery, a mother whose daughter has Type 1 Diabetes. This isn’t the first time Doyle has used the mother of a diabetic child to make a political point.

Last year Doyle's office delivered a bag containing 1400 used diabetic needles to the office of Speaker John Gard. The bag which had to be removed by a Hazardous Materials team was given to Doyle's staff by Liz Kastner. Doyle’s office said Kastner was the distraught mother of a diabetic who wanted to send Gard a message after the Assembly's passed a ban on human cloning.

Turns out Kastner, (AKA the needle lady) was not only a concerned mother, but also a long time Democratic activist. I wonder why she won't be introducing Doyle this weekend.

Expect the drumbeat on stem cell research to continue when Doyle's campaign begins airing television ads featuring children with diabetes and promoting his support for stem cell research.

Dane County Sued for Exploiting Latino Workers

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk is proud of her county’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning the legal status of immigrants. At a rally on the steps of the state Capitol, Falk bragged about the Dane County ordinance that prohibits workers from asking about the legal status of people receiving county services. Falk also said “as an employer, Dane County actively recruits and hires Latinos in all positions…”

Kathleen Falk talks a good game about doing right by the Latino community, but under Falk’s supervision, Dane county was sued twice for back wages owed to Latino workers who were hired by a county demolition contractor and paid sub-standard wages.

In 2002, Dane County hired Champion Environmental Services to complete demolition of the Hamilton Place building in downtown Madison. Champion’s bid for the project was almost $100,000 less than the county had budgeted for the work. A third party complaint to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) revealed that Champion had several Latino workers who collected cash payments of only $10 per hour when the prevailing wage for such work is over $25 per hour.

The complaint also indicated that workers were putting in 10 hour days without overtime compensation.DWD was not successful collecting the back wages from Champion. The company even attempted to falsify payroll records for the Latino workers. The matter was referred to the Department of Justice and Dane County was ordered to issue two checks for back wages.

Because 90% of the Hamilton Place material was to be reused or recycled, the laborers manually removed material floor by floor. Kathleen Falk’s failure to question Champion Environmental Services low ball bid resulted in the exploitation of Latino workers used to perform physically demanding and potentially dangerous labor.

The following links contain complaints, judgements, redacted payroll records and other supporting documents.

http://wisopinion.com/blogs/abovethebelt/FALK_1.pdf

http://wisopinion.com/blogs/abovethebelt/FALK_2.pdf

Pension is Property of the Employee

The latest outrage of the reform-minded in Madison is that recently convicted state lawmakers are eligible to receive their pensions. A flurry of newspaper editorials and statements from government watchdogs has spurred legislative proposals to deny pensions to convicted lawmakers in Wisconsin.

Bill Wineke’s column about such proposals is right on the money.

A pension is not a gift from employer to employee; it is part of an employee's overall compensation package, and when employment terminates, the pension belongs to the employee. Any attempt by the legislature to seize that property is not likely hold up in court, especially if it’s done retroactively.

Moreover, it’s not the role of the state legislature to exact punishment after the fact. It is the role of the court to determine the appropriate punishment and restitution in each case. Convicted lawmakers have been sentenced, and will likely be ordered to pay substantial restitution as a condition of their probation. That may require cashing out their pension funds and disposing of other personal assets. It’s not fair for self-righteous legislators to pass a special law to rescind compensation their former colleagues have already earned with the courts forcing them to pay restitution on top of that.

I have a better idea. Let’s seize the pensions of those hypocrites in the state legislature who committed crimes for which they were never charged --- either because they didn’t do it "as much as the other guys" -- or because they belonged to the right party at the right time.

What’d you say we start with Mike Ellis and Spencer Black?

My bosses want Adelman

U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic introduced explosive evidence and testimony in the first day of the Georgia Thompson trial.

In his opening remarks, Biskupic told jurors how Thompson reacted to the news that other members of the RFP panel favored Omega Travel over Adelman.

"The evidence you'll hear is she said, 'My bosses want Adelman. They don't want to hear it was anyone but Adelman winning the contract,' Biskupic said, adding Thompson failed her duty as a civil servant to keep politics out of state procurement.

State travel consultant Ian Thomas testified that Georgia Thompson tried to get members of the panel to change their scores.

"My recollection is that Georgia then said (something) to the effect of, 'You can't do that,' or 'we can't do that' or 'that can't be done,' " Thomas said, referring to giving the contract to Omega, adding "she referenced in some way her superiors and political issues."

"We went around the room," but none of the six would reconsider the scores, Thomas said.

Despite repeated denials by Governor Doyle and Thompson's superiors at DOA, Biskupic presented evidence that Adelman Travel officials met with Governor Jim Doyle and DOA Secretary Marc Marrotta to discuss the travel contract months before the contract was bid.

U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic said in his opening statement that Adelman officials began their push to win the contract by meeting with Doyle in April 2004. Doyle's official schedule shows that the meeting was about the travel contract, Biskupic said, and notes from the meeting say that Adelman officials pushed for a master contract to be "enforced from the top."

Adelman officials then wrote to Marotta, who ran the agency for which Thompson worked, and even suggested a "request for proposals" that could be used to solicit bids for the contract, Biskupic added. Marotta met with Adelman officials on June 18 - six months before the request for proposals was issued.

But here's what Marrotta said earlier this year.

[Patrick] Farley reports to the secretary, who is considered the right hand of the governor. At the time, that was Marotta, who left last fall to head Doyle's re-election campaign. But Marotta said the [Adelman] contract was "very, very small" and never registered on the radar of anyone in upper management.

"Nobody at that level would have ever thought about it," Marotta said.

Wisconsin State Journal, January 25, 2006

Marotta insisted critics are way off, saying the contract - potentially worth $750,000 - was "very, very small" and never registered on the radar of anyone in upper management.

Wisconsin State Journal, June 4, 2006

Can you say, liar, liar pants on fire?

Evidence in Adelman Travel Case May Implicate Doyle & Marotta

Motions filed by Georgia Thompson’s defense reveal evidence of "phone calls placed by and between principals of Adelman Travel Group, Governor Doyle’s office and Wisconsin Department of Administration (“DOA”), including DOA Secretary Marc Marotta."

Thompson's attorney Stephen Hurley is asking the Judge to suppress this evidence along with testimony from members of the RFP selection panel who say Thompson appeared to be reacting to outside pressure when she encouraged members of the panel to change their scores in favor of Adelman Travel.

The motion sites the following quotes as examples:

"The perception among the committee members was so strong Thompson was being directed by outside forces to push for Adelman, they told her she didn’t have to do this if she was having a struggle.”

“There was something even more unusual going on than just Thompson’s unhappiness with the selection. It was the consensus of the other committee members there was some outside pressure driving Thompson.”

“Nettesheim believed that there were political reasons behind Thompson’s statement.”

If the defense’s motion fails, Thompson’s attorney may argue that she broke the law at the request of others and she was unaware that her actions were illegal.

I don’t know anyone who believes that Georgia Thompson went out on a limb for Adelman Travel on her own. The question is whether we’ll know who asked her to climb out there by the end of the trial.

In the meantime Governor Doyle should answer the following questions:

• Has the Governor hired an attorney to defend him in the on-going corruption investigation of his administration? Has Governor Doyle or his attorney spoken to state or federal authorities investigating corruption in his investigation?
  

• According to a defense motion, there is evidence of phone conversations between Governor Doyle and Adelman Travel officials. Did Governor Doyle ever discuss the travel contract with Adelman officials?
  

• According to a defense motion, there is evidence of phone conversations between Governor Doyle’s former DOA Secretary and current campaign chairman and Adelman Travel officials. Did Marc Marotta ever discuss the travel contract with Adelman officials? Marotta has said in the press that the travel contract “never registered on the radar of anyone in upper management.” Marotta said this despite the fact that a meeting took place in his office on October 18, 2004 to discuss the contract. Was Adelman Travel discussed during this meeting?

• DPW Chair Joe Wineke and defense attorney Lester Pines claim the investigation and Thompson's indictment are poltically motivated. Does Governor Doyle agree?

The Incidental Prosecutor

Attorney General Peg Laughtenschlager doesn't have time to worry about the escalation of violent crime in Milwaukee, and she’s put off when others suggest she should.

Immediately following the Memorial Day weekend that left four people dead and several more wounded, Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher proposed a number of measures including funding overtime hours for Milwaukee Police and Sheriffs during the summer months.

Standing in the Bay Side neighborhood where several of the deadly shootings occurred, Bucher said, “What we need is an aggressive hard-line approach against the criminal element, bringing all our resources to bear, including the largely untapped power of the state Department of Justice, which has been focused on the wrong things, namely the social agenda of the current Attorney General.”

Laughtenschlager didn’t go to Milwaukee this week. Instead she released a statement absolving her from responsibility for reducing violent crime in Milwaukee.

"It is utterly irresponsible for anyone holding public office or seeking public office to suggest that we can reduce violent crime in the city of Milwaukee unless we make a commitment to enhance law enforcement resources [and] enable responsible authorities to effectively track those who systematically purchase handguns that find their way to violent offenders.”

Apparently efforts to reduce violent crime require time and financial resources that Laughtenschlager is unwilling to commit. She prefers to spend her time suing businesses and other government entities, or standing on the Capitol steps welcoming illegal immigrants, like the man who shot five people last weekend before fleeing to Mexico.

Clearly Laughtenschlager’s priorities are wrong, but I find the lack of concern she demonstrated for Milwaukee this week most troubling when compared to the way she jumped all over the prosecution of Chai Vang in 2004.

No disrespect to the families of the hunters Chai Vang murdered, but Vang’s crimes were isolated and not complicated to prosecute. Murders and other violent crimes are epidemic in Milwaukee. Addressing these problems should be the top priority of our state’s top cop.

Laughtenschlager dropped everything and went up north to prosecute one Hmong hunter for killing six white hunters. This week she couldn’t be bothered to meet with local law enforcement officials in Milwaukee following the shootings of five minorities ---including one teenager--- that took place in a crowded public park.