Friday, June 17, 2011

Did the Kochs influence WI court decision?

You bet your sweet ass they did.

The Citizens United decision gave the green light for people like the Kochs to give unlimited amounts of money secretly to political campaigns. But we can track some of the ways the Kochtopus reached its tentacles into Wisconsin's court system. The result, of course, is the questionable state Supreme Court decision allowing the bill to destroy government unions to become law.

  • Citizens for a Strong America spent over a million dollars on ads trashing Justice David Prosser's opponent, Joanne Kloppenberg. Sourcewatch reported CSA doesn’t have any employees or offices, but was registered to the same street address and building in Milwaukee as the controversial David Koch-led group "Americans for Prosperity."
  • Justice Gableman took $6,8859.52 from KochPAC in March 2008, and Annette Ziegler took $8,625 in March 2007.
  • Prosser's former chief of staff, Brian Schimming, used to be a registered lobbyist for Georgia Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. And a former administrative aid of Prosser's, Ray Carey, is currently a lobbyist for Koch Companies Public Sector LLC. Here are the lobbying registrations:
  • Koch Companies Public Sector LLC essentially just hired the lobbyists who had been working for Georgia-Pacific: Prosser's former colleagues in the Wisconsin Assembly, Bob Welch and Steve Foti.  
Nice, hunh?