Walker keeps whining, but he broughtElections Board problems on himself

Stop me if you've heard this before. No, don't stop me. I think I need to say it again. One of my teacher friends likes to say that "repetition is the mother of learning."

Scott Walker and his loyalists should stop whining about the $5,000 fine levied against him by the State Elections Board for failing to have a disclaimer saying that his campaign paid for 40,000 telephone calls to voters, urging support for his county budget.

There wasn't any partisan conspiracy going on. Walker was his own worst enemy. By playing fast and loose with he facts, and disrespecting the board, he brought the tough penalty on himself.

Walker defenders say the board made an example of him, that it hasn't imposed that kind of penalty -- or any penalty at all -- in most cases where the legal violation was failing to put a disclaimer on something.

If Walker had acted the way most candidates do when a complaint is filed with the board, he probably would have gotten a slap on the wrist, too.

Instead, he falsely claimed the issue had already been resolved by the County Election Commission. The board, predictability, found out that wasn't true.

He claimed the disclaimer was left off by the vendor, accidentally, and that the problem was corrected when his campaign learned about it. But his campaign offered no evidence to back up the claim that it asked for a disclaimer, and the vendors didn't back that up either.

When a complaint was filed, Walker asked for two extensions on his reply and then still missed the deadline and filed incomplete responses.

Finally, Walker dissed the board by not coming to the meeting himself and sending someone -- John Hiller, his treasurer -- who had nothing to do with placing the calls and couldn't really offer any useful information.

The one mitigating factor in Walker's behalf, for which I will give him credit, is that his campaign notified the Elections Board itself after the violation occurred. But that was simply a letter covering Walker's rear end, and offered no specifics about how the violation happened, when and how it was fixed, and how many calls went out without the disclaimer.

Hiller was the guy who got one of the calls, realized it should have a disclaimer, and called Jim Villas, then a Walker campaign consultant, now his chief of staff. That was Hiller's only role, so he wasn't a very helpful witness at the hearing.

The vendor who made the calls offered no explanation except that it made calls for two days, the first day without a disclaimer and the second with one on the message.

George Dunst, the Elections Board attorney, investigated the case and wrote a memo to the board before the meeting, basically saying in lawyerese that Walker's response did not ring true. I wrote a post about in before the meeting, saying that Dunst clearly didn't believe Walker.

It still might have gone OK for Walker if he -- or someone responsible for the violation -- had showed up, taken responsibility, explained how it happened, and promised to take steps to make sure there was no repeat. Instead, Walker ducked it and sent Hiller, whose lack of information simply irritated board members.

The law says any communication paid for by a campaign committee must clearly disclose who paid for it. The penalty is up to $500 for each occurrence. In Walker's case, no one knows how many calls went out in violation of the law. A $5,000 fine gives him the benefit of the doubt.

The vote to impose the fine was 5-3, and Walker -- along with sycophants like Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Jessica McBride -- have screamed that this is partisan politics at work.

It is true that four members of the board appointed by Democrats voted for the fine. Two Republicans and a Libertarian-named member voted no. And John Gard's representative stayed away.

The fifth "Jim Doyle hack"

The fifth "yes" vote -- the deciding vote that prevented a 4-4 tie -- came from the non-partisan member appointed by Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

I had to look him up to find out his name is David Anstaett. If he is a Democrat, there is no evidence that I can find. He is a lawyer at Heller Ehrman in Madison, and has a litigation practice. Before joining the firm in 2004, Anstaett was a fellow at the German Justice Department and Parliament, focusing on European Union law and German election law. He also served as a judicial clerk for Federal District Judge Barbara Crabb in 2001-2003.

His law firm bio says that "prior to his legal career, Mr. Anstaett worked as a lobbyist for a public interest organization in Washington, D.C., focusing on campaign finance reform legislation." (Turns out it was the non-partisan League of Women Voters.)

He has, it is true, written two articles for Ed Garvey's "Fighting Bob" website -- both about campaign finance reform and the McCain-Feingold bill. (By the time Sykes gets through with his Six Degrees of Separation Campaign (like he did on Cindy Sheehan), Anstaett will probably have Communist connections. Being appointed by Shirley Abrahamson might be enough.

Using the usual data bases, I have found no evidence he has ever made a contribution to a Wisconsin or federal candidate in either party.

This is one of the people Scott Walker calls "Jim Doyle's hacks on this Elections Board."

If Walker thinks the Chief Justice appointed a "Doyle hack" to the board, he should tell her so and ask her to appoint someone else.

Otherwise, he and his chorus of admirers should take up a collection, shut up, and pay the fine. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if this story continued to have legs, and Walker certainly is helping that along with his "Boo-hoo, poor me" complaints.

Free piece of advice to the Walker crowd: Next time, take responsibility and tell the truth. Things usually go a lot better when you do.