David Michael Miller
Most Wisconsinites welcomed their governor back home from his failed presidential bid with the hope that the man would take some much-needed time off and just leave us alone for a while.
It’s not going to happen. No sooner had Scott Walker’s plane touched down in the Badger State than he got right back to work being “big and bold” about screwing things up here.
Now he’s discovered that the civil service system is a big problem. I am just guessing here, but I don’t think that people still struggling with unemployment or underemployment in Walker’s underperforming state economy blame the civil service system for their troubles. I don’t think that those of us concerned with Wisconsin’s crumbling transportation infrastructure on his watch think the root of the problem is civil service tests. And I’m pretty sure that Milwaukee residents grappling with that city’s spate of murders don’t believe that the answer lies in doing away with seniority bumping rights.
This is yet another problem manufactured by Walker to distract us from his disastrous leadership on topics that actually affect our lives.
Look, it’s not as if the time-honored system to keep political cronyism at bay couldn’t use an update now and then. As a matter of fact, I’ve given this very issue some extensive thought. I even taught a course at the La Follette School of Public Affairs on how we might create a stronger sense of entrepreneurism and innovation within a civil service environment.
But if Walker were serious about real and useful changes, he would use another Wisconsin institution, the Legislative Council study committee, to identify the issues, research best practices, hear from all sides, garner expert opinion and then put forward thoughtful and ideally bipartisan reforms.
That won’t happen. Instead, Walker and the Republican majorities will do what they have done on virtually every other issue. They will decide on a course of action behind closed doors and than shove it through the process with limited public input and without time for careful consideration.
And, of course, this follows what has become a clear pattern of, to put it politely, disenguousness on the part of the governor. He campaigned for office in 2010 without ever once mentioning that he planned to virtually wipe out public employee unions. During that fight he promised that he would not go after private-sector unions. Then he signed right-to-work legislation into law. He also said during the Act 10 fight that the real worker protections were in the civil service system, which he said would remain intact. Now he supports weakening, if not dismantling, it.
It doesn’t take a close reading of any tea leaves to detect a pattern here. Nothing Scott Walker says can be trusted. For a guy who wears his religion on his sleeve, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo about telling untruths.
The initiative in this case comes from the Legislature itself, but with Walker quickly getting behind it, it will naturally become another of his signature issues.
So, to some extent, this will be a test of what Walker has left after he diminished his standing with an embarrassing presidential campaign. Will Republican legislators, weary of paying the price for Walker’s Washington ambitions, tired of being thrown under the bus by him and facing an election in a year, want to march down this controversial path?
My guess is, unfortunately, they will, but we’ll see. And if they don’t, it could signal the beginning of the end for this governor.
