MADISON – Having rammed through Scott Walker’s extreme power grab to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights and make Wisconsin more like low-wage, low-benefit Mississippi, Wisconsin’s Republican establishment is headed to Haley Barbour’s D.C. lobbying firm Wednesday to bag lobbyist cash.
Barbour is renowned for his ability to raise huge sums of corporate cash, including 7-digit checks from the likes of Koch Industries and Fox News parent company Newscorp. These huge corporate special interests are the same ones to which Scott Walker and the Republicans have catered shamelessly, offering no-bid contracts to their political benefactors like the Koch brothers and tax breaks to the wealthy.
The Republican mission to answer to their fat cat masters will include Scott Fitzgerald, who has run the Wisconsin Senate like a Banana Republic in trying to shut down dissent to the most divisive piece of legislation in Wisconsin history – legislation that 74% of Wisconsinites opposed.
“When it comes to the Republicans in Wisconsin like Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald, we know they heed their master’s voice,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Tuesday. “Millions of Wisconsinites are fearful for their communities, their jobs and their standards of living following Walker’s divisive power grab, and with their trip to “Big Daddy” Barbour’s lobbying lair, it looks like Wisconsin Republicans are going to cash in on Wisconsin’s misery.”
