The Capital Times, Dec. 20
Attorney General Brad Schimel should resign
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has ceased to serve as a law enforcement officer. He now acts as a partisan political operative, and his partisanship has so overwhelmed his judgment that his pronouncements can no longer be treated seriously by Wisconsinites who respect the rule of law.
As such, Schimel should resign his position and let a competent lawyer take charge.
Schimel’s high-profile clash with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers illustrated the crisis. In November, Schimel’s department notified the state Supreme Court that it would replace the Department of Public Instruction’s attorney in a case brought against Evers by a right-wing group that seeks to undermine the authority of the superintendent.
The lawsuit, which is similar to a case that the Supreme Court decided last year in favor of Evers, asks the high court to declare that Evers and department officials must seek the governor’s permission to craft administrative rules.
This new suit claims that a recently enacted law requires Evers to now do what the high court determined last year that he did not have to do. But the new law affronts the Wisconsin Constitution, which creates unique statewide elected positions to be administered by those who the voters choose.
Schimel should allow Evers and the DPI to defend their position and the basic premises of the Constitution. Instead, he is trying to thwart that defense by denying Evers adequate and sympathetic counsel.
The attorney general’s attempt to facilitate the governor’s power grab is a shocking example of the extent to which partisanship has clouded Schimel’s judgment.
But it is not the most shocking example.
In early December, the attorney general released a report on his investigation into the leak of documents collected during a John Doe probe into political wrongdoing by Gov. Scott Walker and his associates. The report was such a mess that, within days, Schimel was forced to begin correcting its inaccurate claims and accusations. Yet, for the most part, Schimel has continued to defend the report - claiming that complaints about the report are “not serious criticisms.”
Schimel is wrong. The complaints are serious. They reveal the extent to which his extreme partisanship has caused him to abandon basic legal standards.
The worst abuse that has so far been discovered in Schimel’s report involves wholly false speculation that a newspaper reporter’s wife might have provided information to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The reporter, Daniel Bice, is one of Wisconsin’s most well-regarded journalists. So it was startling that a footnote in Schimel’s initial report read: “Although DOJ did not announce its visit to the Supreme Court, and was otherwise inconspicuous, the visit was reported by the Journal Sentinel reporter Daniel Bice, whose wife works in the same office space. DOJ has undertaken no action to determine why a member of the court staff would have reported this visit.”
As the Journal Sentinel noted, “Sonya Bice had not worked for the Supreme Court for more than a year by the time of the visit from investigators. She never worked in the office space at 110 E. Main St. In addition, while Sonya Bice worked as a lawyer in the state Capitol for Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks, from 2008 until his death in 2015, she did not handle any matters related to the John Doe investigation. Similarly, Daniel Bice did not report on any matters before the Supreme Court during the years his wife worked for Crooks.”
Schimel got it wrong - so wrong that he eventually agreed to delete the smear. Even then, however, he got caught in a lie. The attorney general claimed: “Due to revelations from the Journal Sentinel about its sources, and their identity, which contradict DOJ’s other evidence that formed the basis of the footnote, DOJ has decided to remove the footnote and will notify the John Doe judge of the clarification.”
As the Journal Sentinel noted, “the reasons Schimel gave for deleting the inaccurate information were as false as the footnote itself.” Journal Sentinel editor George Stanley wrote: “The Journal Sentinel did not identify sources, nor did the Justice Department ever have any ’other evidence’ to support its false footnote.”
Inaccuracies in Schimel’s report also drew specific criticism from Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson and from the overseers of the state Ethics Commission.
A seven-page letter from David Halbrooks, the Democrat who chairs the Ethics Commission, and Katie McCallum, the Republican who serves as the vice chair, explained: “The report contains omissions and inaccuracies regarding the involvement in the investigation by Ethics Commission staff.” Halbrooks and McCallum thoughtfully and respectfully detailed a number of significant concerns regarding those omissions and inaccuracies.
Rather than addressing concerns about mischaracterizations of the commission’s cooperation with the DOJ, its respect for security and custody of records protocols and a host of other issues, Schimel replied with a dismissive announcement: “The Wisconsin Department of Justice stands by the attorney general’s report.”
It is shocking that Schimel is standing by a report that has drawn so much legitimate criticism. It is even more shocking that Schimel has attacked critics of his shoddy work, rather than engage with them in order to address obvious problems contained in a report that is so flawed that it should be withdrawn.
Unfortunately, even if Schimel were to withdraw the report, he could not restore confidence in his ability to provide sound legal counsel for the state. The attorney general has repeatedly chosen partisanship over principle. He has made wild and unsubstantiated charges. He has created false impressions and refused to correct them.
Brad Schimel should no longer be allowed to occupy a position of public trust.
For the good of Wisconsin, out of respect for the constitution, and in order to restore the rule of law, Schimel should resign. If he refuses to do so, legislators have a duty to consider steps that might be taken to sanction him, and voters must prepare to remove Schimel in 2018.
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The Journal Times of Racine, Dec. 21
Let the CDC’s scientists be scientists
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known commonly as the CDC, is America’s leading public health institution. It focuses national attention on developing and applying disease control and prevention, specifically on infectious disease, food-borne pathogens, environmental health, occupational health and injury prevention; it also researches and provides information on non-infectious diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
It employs scientists, in other words, bright people trained to study health issues using the scientific method. It investigates phenomena, collects data and uses evidence and science to report on matters affecting the American public.
We were disturbed in recent days to find out that the CDC is encouraging - if not indirectly instructing - its scientists to let politics into their scientific studies.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported that officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been barred from using seven words or phrases in agency budget documents: “science-based,” ’’fetus,” ’’transgender” and “vulnerable,” ’’entitlement,” ’’diversity” and “evidence-based.”
“The assertion that HHS has ’banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process,” a federal Department of Health and Human Services spokesman, Matt Lloyd, told The New York Times, which also reported on the story, in an email. (The CDC is a part of the HHS; its secretary is a member of the presidential Cabinet). “HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions.”
So where was this list of banned words coming from, if not from President Donald Trump’s administration?
The Post article said that CDC policy analysts were told of the forbidden words and phrases at a Dec. 14 meeting with senior officials who oversee the agency’s budget.
The New York Times confirmed some details of the report with several officials, although a few suggested that the proposal was not so much a ban on words but recommendations to avoid some language to ease the path toward budget approval by Republicans.
A former federal official, who asked not to be named, called the move unprecedented.
“It’s absurd and Orwellian, it’s stupid and Orwellian, but they are not saying to not use the words in reports or articles or scientific publications or anything else the CDC does,” the former official said. “They’re saying not to use it in your request for money because it will hurt you. It’s not about censoring what CDC can say to the American public. It’s about a budget strategy to get funded.”
A former CDC official, who asked not to be identified, said that some staff members were upset because the purported ban suggested that their work was being politicized. Others told the Times that some effort to tone down language might make sense when appealing for funding from Republican conservatives in Congress.
Whether you are conservative, liberal or anyplace else on the political spectrum, evidence is evidence. We might disagree on how to go about fighting a disease, but if the CDC were to report that a disease has infected 3 percent of the U.S. population, that’s a fact, not an opinion.
Scientists aren’t afraid of words or phrases. They investigate and go where the data and evidence take them. We should all want them to continue to do that without their bosses either censoring them or encouraging self-censorship. No government official should be discouraging scientists from investigating topics that might be politically charged. Science is neither Democrat nor Republican.
Let the CDC’s scientists be scientists.
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Beloit Daily News, Dec. 18
Could Ryan leave? Don’t be surprised
Around these parts, one of the biggest questions for 2018 may be this one: Will Paul Ryan call it quits in Congress?
Published reports late last week suggested the Janesville congressman - one of America’s most powerful politicians, as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives - has told intimates he may retire after accomplishing some legislative goals next year. Ryan pushed back, but that’s not surprising. A lame duck speaker is a weak speaker, a condition Ryan would want to avoid.
So don’t expect Ryan - who represented the Beloit area until a redistricting flimflam switched the city into the 2nd Congressional - to make any big announcement soon, even if he does intend to leave Congress. Still, don’t be too surprised if the story is true.
That’s because Paul Ryan always has been a bit of a different breed among politicians.
When he first arrived for a Beloit Daily News interview nearly two decades ago, as a first-time congressional candidate, Ryan already was unusual. First, he didn’t sound like a rookie. This guy knew his stuff in an extremely detailed way. Second, he was refreshingly straightforward and goal-driven, in a way that seemed more earnest than partisan. Third, in a deep discussion he was a man who could see all sides, with a mind agile enough to listen and give consideration for the thoughts of others.
Well, Washington has a way of changing people. Ryan has adjusted to the hardcore partisan standards of the day, and can play that game as well as anybody. He’s not nearly as open as he once was, showing a penchant for doing policy behind closed doors and keeping members from his own party - let alone the opposition - in the dark until just before it’s time to count votes.
And yet one can still see the earnest, goal-oriented kid from Rock County underneath the Washington trappings. Ryan didn’t want the speaker’s job, but took it in order to get something done and try to quell rebellion within his party. He could have run for president - in fact, we’d say odds are strong he could have won the Republican nomination - but showed no interest in 2016. As the most powerful Republican in Congress he could command the news cycle at will. Yet Ryan is not an attention-seeker; he’s a do-er.
He may stay or he may go. Hard to predict. But here’s what we know in Rock County: Ryan takes his family obligations seriously and is especially torn as his children age. He didn’t move his family to Washington; he commutes. That’s tough enough any other year, but as the kids get older and an empty nest comes closer, it gets harder. Ryan doesn’t strike us as the kind of guy who wants to look back and realize he missed it all, just to cling to some office like so many politicians do into their 70s, 80s and beyond.
It’s that kind of genuineness that always made Paul Ryan a rising star in any setting. There is a certain ordinariness about this extraordinary man. He relates. He remembers where he came from. He seems less wrapped up in the “Grand Cult of Me” than others in his chosen profession.
That’s not to say we think Ryan is always right or we’ve never taken issue with one of his stands.
It is to say we think Paul Ryan is a good person, and heaven knows that’s what America desperately needs in public office.
So, if Ryan stays, good for him. And good for America.
And if Ryan goes, good for him. And good for America, demonstrating that walking away from power when one feels they’ve done what they set out to do is still possible - and honorable.
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