Green's current chief of staff alsohad a role in Assembly caucus scandal

We may have done an injustice to Rep. Mark Green's staff by lavishing so much attention on Mark Graul, Green's former chief of staff and current campaign manager of his race for governor. We've neglected his current chief of staff, Chris Tuttle. But no longer.

Graul, you may recall, is the one who showed up in a series of e-mails from Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm about who would get free tickets to the Abramoff skybox. Over a period of weeks, Graul told a series of different stories about whether he had accepted any freebies and whether he had violated any ethics rules.

Graul's name first surfaced in October, but he bobbed and weaved until the story finally made the Journal Sentinel on Jan. 29, almost four months later.

When Green was asked about the activities of his chief of staff/campaign manager, he said he didn't know about them and hadn't even asked Graul. Green didn't want to know the truth.

More recently, Green was asked what he knew about the rampant, illegal campaign work being done by the Assembly Republican caucus while Green was caucus chair from 1995-98. He claims he knew nothing about any political work being done on state time, was never the beneficiary of any, had never "directed" anyone to do campaign work, and was certain his staff hadn't done any such thing.

Scott Jensen and David Prosser say everyone was doing it, but Green insists he was the only one who didn't know what was going on -- even though he held a top leadership position.

This is particularly relevant because Ray Carey, who was Assembly Republican caucus director from 1994 to 1999, said under oath that the primary duties of his government job were campaign-related. David Prosser said that as speaker in 1995 and 1996, campaigning ran rampant among Capitol staffers. Again, Green was caucus chair from 1995-1998, which overlaps the time Carey and Prosser are talking about.

Here are some of the things that were going on at the time:

Under Caucus Majority Chair Green ‘staff is required to volunteer for campaign work’ and leadership ‘should specifically instruct their staff’ to campaign. “Kratochwill said Ray Carey has confirmed to him that Carey provided to Foti, Jensen, and a third legislator a memo dated February 17, 1997, ‘Review of ’96 Campaign,’ that includes the following references: ‘Recommendation: Leadership should make it clear that staff is required to volunteer for campaign work, and that they should specifically instruct their staff to do so.’” [Source: Criminal Complaint, State of Wisconsin vs. Scott R. Jensen, Steven M. Foti, Sherry L. Schultz and Bonnie M. Ladwig, page 26, Link.]

Under Caucus Majority Chair Green, staff campaign work (SWARM) was created to ensure ‘staffer in the Capitol offices’ signed up ‘to do campaign work.’ “Kratochwill and Jensen discussed how to get Capitol legislative staffers out working on campaigns through SWARM (Staff Working For Assembly Republicans), which began in 1996. Jensen told Kratochwill that they needed ‘SWARM people,’ meaning staffers in the Capitol offices of Representatives, to sign up to do campaign work.” [Source: Criminal Complaint, State of Wisconsin vs. Scott R. Jensen, Steven M. Foti, Sherry L. Schultz and Bonnie M. Ladwig, page 28, Link.]

The Journal Sentinel reported this on its Capitol blog this week, but edited it from the story that appeared in print:

State campaign records list Mark Graul as the campaign treasurer in 1998 for the Teddy Roosevelt Fund, an independent group that sent mailers supporting Republicans and opposing Democrats. Graul, who is now running Green’s gubernatorial campaign, was a legislative aide to Green at the time.

Graul said he did not do any of the work for the Teddy Roosevelt Fund on state time, noting he took leaves of absence to do campaign work, such as when he ran Green’s first congressional campaign in 1998.

Graul said he had little involvement with the Teddy Roosevelt Fund, a claim backed up by Todd Rongstad. Rongstad, who worked for the Assembly Republican Caucus at the time and readily admits to campaigning on state time, said he formed the independent group to better compete with Democrats, but that all the work was done off of state time.

Rongstad said he originally planned to serve as the group’s treasurer, but then-Assembly Assistant Majority Leader Bonnie Ladwig (R-Racine) told him she did not want him listed as an officer with the group since he worked for the caucus.

Rongstad then sought out Christopher Tuttle, another Green aide, to be listed as treasurer. Graul later replaced Tuttle.

And Green knew nothing about his two staffers' involvement in an independent political group, aiding the GOP, at the same time he was on the ballot?

So, about Chris Tuttle:

He was media director of the Assembly GOP caucus from January 1995 to January 1997, during which time Green was caucus chair. Tuttle served under Director Ray Carey. Insiders claim that during that time, he essentially ran Rick Skindrud's Assembly re-election campaign on state time. He spent most of 1997 in Minnesota, but in early 1998, he returned to Wisconsin and was hired back by Ray Carey to be Assembly GOP caucus deputy director. In 1999, he was hired by Congressman-elect Mark Green, and moved to DC as press secretary. When Graul left to run the gov's race, Tuttle replaced him as chief of staff.

So, no mattter how much he pleads ignorance, Mark Green is running for governor with a campaign manager and a chief of staff who both have ties to the caucus scandal, as well as the Graul-Abramoff link.

Doesn't that make it just a little dicey for Republicans to be raising hell about what Jim Doyle's campaign manager may have done at a time when he wasn't even working for Doyle?

Mark Green's credibility as an outsider goes down a notch every time he plays dumb on these ethical questions.

There will be a lot more of those questions asked in the months ahead. Someone should advise him to start telling it straight, but something tells me that won't be Mark Graul's advice to his candidate.