Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
It is rare for a former cabinet official to be critical of his/her former boss, but it is totally unprecedented in Wisconsin’s history for four recent Walker cabinet members to speak out so strongly against their former boss. The secretaries Peter Bildsten, Paul Jadin and Ed Wall formerly of the Departments of Financial Institutions, Commerce and Corrections respectively wrote and signed the letter below. It takes a lot of courage and integrity at this very partisan moment in history to speak out for future of Wisconsin and put truth above party politics. See their letter below.
A fourth former cabinet member, transportation secretary Mark Gottlieb, is also speaking out on how our highway system is in trouble. Gottlieb says that Governor Walker is not telling the truth about road projects. He goes on to say that Walker is “Fear-mongering” when he says that Tony Evers would raise the gas tax by a dollar a gallon. Gottlieb states that a dollar a gallon gas tax hike is “totally ridiculous.”
Finally, he says “We’re not going to have enough revenue to meet our needs. Congestion and delay are going to increase. That is fact. If that’s your position, accept the consequences of that.” This is all coming from the man who had to try to manage the Walker transportation department for six years under Walker’s policies and direction. Mark Gottlieb is being totally honest with the public and is putting the future health of Wisconsin and its roads above party politics.
The following is an Open Letter to Wisconsin Residents from three of Governor’s Walkers former cabinet secretaries Peter Bildsten, Paul Jadin and Ed Wall.
At some time in the past eight years, each of us was asked by Scott Walker to serve as a cabinet secretary in his administration. Individually, we arrived at our constitutional duties with an intense desire to serve the people of Wisconsin and a fervent belief that Scott Walker had that same desire.
We further believed that Gov. Walker’s agenda was one we were willing to embrace and to help implement. We were proud to lead the way on some of his bold initiatives in our state agencies. That pride evaporated at various times for each of us as we found ourselves disagreeing with both policies and practices within the Walker administration that lacked integrity. It became clear that his focus was not on meeting his obligations to the public but on advancing his own political career at a tremendous cost to taxpayers and families.
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As we come to a critical election, we find it imperative that we share with Wisconsin voters why we will not be voting for Gov. Walker. It starts with transportation, education and safety issues and extends to pervasive questionable practices within his administration.
There can no longer be any dispute over the fact that Wisconsin’s infrastructure is deteriorating, and that we have gone from bragging about our roads and leading the way in innovation to being endangered and embarrassed by them. A highway system that is safe, efficient and in good repair is critically important to industry, agriculture and tourism. Despite his earlier pledge that “Investing in Infrastructure” would be a theme for his administration, the governor’s record on transportation has been marked by an unwillingness to deal responsibly with the issue.
His decision to ignore the unanimous recommendations of his own bipartisan Commission on Transportation Finance has resulted in increased debt, delayed and canceled projects and deteriorating highway conditions. In fact, data provided by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation shows that inflation-adjusted spending on highway construction is currently the lowest it has been in 20 years. A constant theme during Gov. Walker’s tenure has been to put off difficult decisions, drive our state further into debt and kick the can down the road for future generations to tackle at higher costs with opportunities lost. He lacks the basic understanding that investing in our state’s infrastructure spurs economic growth.
Meanwhile, our education systems are still reeling from the historic cuts we’ve experienced since 2011. Gov. Walker’s first budget cut funding for public schools by $1.2 billion—including $800 million from K-12 schools, and, just two years later, he went on to enact the biggest cuts to education in Wisconsin state history. Two years after that, the governor cut our University of Wisconsin System by $250 million while attempting to abolish the Wisconsin Idea. The magnitude of these cuts has compromised the quality of higher education in our state and greatly diminished the mission of the UW System to serve the people of Wisconsin. Gov. Walker fundamentally doesn’t understand that the quality of education in our state has a direct impact on economic growth.
Next year, Wisconsin will invest less in public school districts than it did in 2011, which is one of the reasons that, between 2010 and spring 2017, more than 72% of Wisconsin school districts went to referendum—some of them doing so multiple times. More than one million Wisconsinites have been forced to raise their own property taxes to support their local schools. Economic and workforce development are driven by our schools and, once again, we see what was once our biggest boast becoming one of our biggest laments.
All of us have witnessed how job preservation and the siren call of higher office have influenced the governor’s approach to conducting business in Madison. During the recall in 2012, he stopped attending cabinet meetings and delegated state business to his chief of staff and Department of Administration secretary. When he decided to run for president in 2015, he subordinated Wisconsin interests to those in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his policy/budget proposals started to clash with members of his own party who still would have to stand for election in Wisconsin.
The team he assembled closest to him had strict orders with respect to the way we, as former colleagues, did business. Those practices bore no resemblance to sound management or transparency. In fact, while those with the greatest access to the governor were making important decisions and steering others who do likewise, posterity would have no record of their existence. The governor and his team do not like to leave a paper trail or state record of their actions relating to the conduct of state business; they simply did everything in their power to avoid transparency in his decision-making process so they could not be held to account.
Internally, Gov. Walker has consistently eschewed sound management practices in favor of schemes or coverup and has routinely put his own future ahead of the state. The result is micromanagement, manipulation and mischief. We have all been witness to more than our share of this. It’s time to build a more open and transparent government to ensure the integrity of our public agencies and institutions.
We have served our state and local governments in many capacities over our careers and have voted for and supported Republicans. Therefore, we come to this next statement only after a great deal of reflection and discernment. On Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, please vote with us for Tony Evers.
Peter Bildsten, Secretary, Department of Financial Institutions (2011-2015)
Paul Jadin, Secretary, Department of Commerce (2011-2012)
Ed Wall, Secretary, Department of Corrections, 2012-2016
