For the last two years, a pall has been cast over Wisconsin with the so-called caucus scandals. Quite frankly, as a New Jersian, I found the Wisconsin standard of corruption to be pretty weak. I practically thought having state employees doing campaign work was mandated under the law.
Nevertheless, a lot of people got hot and bothered about it. Former Dane County Sheriff Rick Raemisch was almost elected district attorney, charging that incumbent Brian Blanchard's failure to secure indictments meant he needed to be replaced. When multi-count indictments came out against legislative leaders like then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala and then-Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen about two weeks before the election, that sort of put a hole in his strategy. It's good to see now that two curses upon the Legislature are about to cleared out, though: former state Sen. Brian Burke and current state Sen. Gary George, D-Milwaukee.
Brian Burke had looked like a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general when he abruptly dropped out in May of last year, right before a 20-count indictment came down. After being exposed for all manner of alleged corruption, he couldn't continue campaigning to be the state's top cop. In fact, he couldn't even run for re-election. Just this week, his motions to stall or throw out the trial were shot down by a judge, and he will be standing trial.
George is a different story. First elected to the Senate in 1980, he has spent the last 23 years wheeling and dealing until he had no friends left in the Legislature. After his archenemy, Chvala, booted him from the Joint Finance committee, George threatened to become a Republican and change control of the chamber. As it happened, the Republicans wouldn't even take him.
Those with political sources know of the many sexual harassment allegations against him, and about his old racket of living off his campaign expense account, which used to be called bribery. Last year he was kicked off the ballot for the Democratic primary for governor after he failed to meet the minimum threshold of 2,000 petition signatures statewide, which is in fact a very easy threshold to meet. While most campaigns had over 20,000 signatures gathered without much effort, the state elections board found that many of the signatures on George's petitions were forged.
George always had the same reaction to all the critics. He is an African-American, thus his opponents are all racists. He was aided in this by the Milwaukee Courier, a small newspaper run by his former friend, businessman Jerrel Jones. After some key votes that interfered with Jones' ability to make money off his casino interests, suddenly the Courier went from a pro-George paper to leading the effort to recall him. George's scoundrel friends became his scoundrel enemies, and it's hard to feel sorry for him.
George had the same reaction that former California Gov. Gray Davis, had to his own recall. He went to court suddenly alleging that all the voting equipment that he'd never objected to before was unconstitutional. The reason for challenging his recall in court should be obvious: he knows he can't win, that he's run out of tricks. George hasn't helped things either by voting for voting against a bill to crack down on prison rape and voting for the Republican property tax freeze, which would devastate local governments and Milwaukee's inner city. Even if he didn't have the local media out to get him, his own voting record would do the job just fine.
Wisconsin should not become like Illinois or New Jersey. Its politics should stay clean, and people like Burke, Chvala, George and Jensen should get what they have coming to them before their sort of behavior becomes accepted.
Now that the courts have cleared the way for George's recall to go forward next week, the people of Milwaukee should perform a great act of charity to the state. By charity I don't mean what Mark Prior did when he gave away the 8th inning of Tuesday's game against the Marlins. The people of the 6th Senate district should clear out one of the great crooks of state government and fire Gary George.
