More on Plale’s New Position

The Journal Sentinel has more details on Jeff Plale’s new position in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, including quotes from Plale himself, here.

From the story:

Plale told No Quarter that Walker’s team did not come to him offering a post in state government.

“I turned in my resume to the transition team shortly after the election, had an interview a couple weeks later and was hired this Wednesday,” he said in an e-mail.

Yes, just to be clear, that means Plale was actively seeking employment from Walker when he voted against the union contracts – something Walker wanted him to do – in last month’s lame-duck session. He did not disclose this at the time.

While I’ve stood up for Jeff on his hiring, the fact that he was under consideration for a job with the new regime during the time he was voting on issues impacting his potential new boss should have been disclosed. He was wrong not to do so.

That said, I still think I would have voted the same way on the union contracts issue.

For starters, I don’t believe any substantive legislation should be passed during lame duck sessions like this, especially this lame duck session, after which voters had spoken so strongly against the party in power.

And there’s the whole spring-Jeff-Wood-from-jail-so-he-can-cast-the-deciding-vote-in-the-Assembly thing. That was just wrong, an example of politics at its worst.

Let me be clear: I supported the new contracts. They seemed more than fair, and overdue.

But I am also not one to believe that the ends always justify the means. While the end result here — new union contracts for state workers — would have been positive, the means to get there were nothing short of disgraceful. In other words, I couldn’t have held my nose long enough to cast a “yes” vote.