The Walker File.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Editor's Note - Editorial

When an appeals court in Madison, Wisconsin, released thousands of pages of secret e-mails by Scott Walker's "inner circle," The Progressive immediately posted the documents online and began sifting through them to see what we would find.

We found a lot of stories, both large and small. (See Matthew Rothschild's article on page 29.)

Governor Walker, widely viewed as a Republican Presidential prospect for 2016, has been having some trouble answering questions about his involvement in illegal campaign work over a secret network in his office when he was Milwaukee County executive. That illegal work has resulted so far in the conviction of six of his closest aides and associates for fifteen felonies and two misdemeanors. While the governor himself was not charged in the first investigation (which the big document release came from), there is a second investigation that may yet pose bigger problems for him.

Just the fact that Walker participated in conversations dealing with campaign and public work on a secret e-mail network is, on its face, of dubious legality.

But most of all, what the e-mails show is Walker's total contempt for public service and for the constituents he was elected to serve.

Back when Walker first rammed through Act 10, the law that ended most collective bargaining rights for most public employees in Wisconsin, it was clear that he does not hold teachers or other public employees in high regard. Nor does he care much for funding for public services. He has made historic cuts to Wisconsin's once-great public school system and has slashed state aid to local governments.

But the secret e-mails from what one staffer called Walker's "inner circle" show how Walker hijacked county government and put political hacks in charge of critical services.

These same Walker loyalists mocked the constituents who depended on them.

Here is a joke Kelly Rindfleisch, Walker's...