When it comes to employment policies,Suder brings experience to the table

So there will be an audit of University of Wisconsin employment practices, done at the request of the UW president by the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau. Well and good.

"I want the people of Wisconsin to have every confidence that their public university system respects and properly invests in the employees who serve UW students, campuses and communities," President Kevin Reilly said. "A review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau would reassure the public and strengthen actions that the Board of Regents, the chancellors, and I will take following our own thorough look at employment policies and practices."

He acted after a pack of howling Republican legislators, getting a whiff of some political raw meat, pressed the UW to disclose how many felons it has on its payroll. That came after revelations that at least three convicted felons still are being paid by UW.

Republican legislators haven't had so much fun beating up the university since the 60s and 70s, when they were all wrought up about anti-war, anti-American students and faculty members exercising free speech and academic freedom. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to stamp out either one.

The UW has had a streak of bad performances recently when it comes to PR, and has mishandled enough things to put itself in a bad light with the public, without any help from the GOP.

But when Republicans go after UW, it's not because of its billing as the top party school in the country. It's because it's full of liberal pointy-headed liberal professors, as George Wallace used to say.

One interesting note was that State Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) was leading the pack of rabid Repubs howling for felons to be outed and, presumably, dismissed.

Suder's repeated calls for investigations of UW employment practices reminded some Capitol watchers that he's certainly someone who knows firsthand about unsavory employment practices.

Suder, a longtime Capitol legislative aide, was elected to the Assembly in November 1998. But he didn't take office until January. Two months without a paycheck. What to do?

Enter Speaker Scott Jensen (R-Still Not Convicted), whose office found Suder a cushy spot on the legislative payroll, "working" for two legislators who didn't even know Suder was on their payroll.

Suder couldn't remember exactly what he did, either, when asked by the Wisconsin State Journal.

The newspaper reported:

According to documents from the chief clerk's office, Suder received $4,609.16 in November and December 1998 from the offices of former lawmakers Robert Zukowski and Clifford Otte, even though he didn't work for either one that year.

When asked about the work he did in late 1998, Suder said he couldn't remember anything specific.

"I did mostly grunt work, special projects that related to the Legislature," Suder said. "I can't give you a particular project. There were a lot of things we did."

Asked what he meant by "grunt work," Suder said he couldn't think of anything specific.

Suder also initially said he couldn't recall where he'd worked at the Capitol, but later in the interview he said he worked at his home and at Jensen's office. However, Suder said he couldn't remember how much time he spent in either place.

"At various times I worked in the speaker's office, at various times at home, which I'm allowed to do," Suder said. "I can't tell you what I did on a daily basis."

With that background, it's a little harder to take Suder seriously when he says things like: "The UW's employment and dismissal policies need serious reform and their most recent actions are forcing the Legislature to intervene."

Who better to intervene? Maybe Jensen could help write personnel handbook.

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On another note, it was ironic for Suder, who has sought to cut university funding, to criticize UW Pres Reilly when he said it would be costly, labor-intensive and time-consuming for UW to run a check on all employees to see if they had any felony records. It would be cost-prohibitive, Reilly said, prompting howls from Suder and the wolf pack.

Kevin at Lakeshore Laments blog first ridiculed Reilly and UW Regent President David Walsh, suggesting that the UW could just use the state court data base, called CCAP, to run a check. But someone must have told him that university professors are a little more mobile and haven't spent their entire lives in Wisconsin, so he rewrote the item to suggest that maybe all 50 states have similar systems. Right. Maybe Kevin could just get a list of UW workers and put their names in himself, or get a few other Republican bloggers to help.

CORRECTION: Sometimes when I read more than one right-wing blog at the same sitting it addles my poor little liberal brain. Kevin did not rewrite his post. It was Dad29, expanding on Kevin's piece, who took it farther and made it sound as though the CCAP data base was the answer. I lament that mistake.