Glenn Grothman Advises Senate to "Ignore" Democracy Watchdogs

WI Senator Glenn Grothman. Source.

Glenn Grothman, enemy of democracy. During the mining debate on the the Senate floor on Feb. 27, 2013, Senator Grothman (R, West Bend) spoke out in response to data revealing the depths of connections of the mining legislation to dirty money and special interests. The data in question was in part collected by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which, he said "is a pretty shady organization" and advises his colleagues to "ignore anything this organization says,"  dismissing those who testified against the bill as "goofy protesters."


Now, to anyone who knows anything about the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, this is hard to believe.  But listen for yourself:

 
What IS the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, really? A well-established nonpartisan organization comprised of well-respected professionals and led by Mike McCabe. Their mission: 

"The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is a nonprofit, nonpartisan political watchdog group dedicated to clean government. We advocate for a real democracy that allows the common good to prevail over narrow interests by reinforcing and protecting the values of honesty, fairness, transparency, accountability, citizen participation, competition, and respect for constitutional rights and the rule of law."

That doesn't sound shady to me.  At all.

The work of people like Mike McCabe and others at Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is the only thing holding Wisconsin back right now from the brink of pure, unbridled partisan exploitation.  By publicly disparaging the character of this group and its findings, Grothman panders to the corporate interests who wrote the mining legislation and proves (as if we had any doubt) that the interests of the people are of no interest to him.

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is a nonpartisan oasis in a desert of partisan drought.  It's precisely the kind of group that reflects the spirit of independent thinking, progressive values, and shared desire for open and transparent government that used to mark Wisconsin as unique among the 50 states.  We need to foster and support groups like this and encourage more citizen watchdogging of our elected officials. We need to applaud groups like this for doing the people's work when those we elect (and pay!) to do that work refuse to do it faithfully.

In short, this is exactly NOT the kind of organization any self-respecting politician should be publicly badmouthing. Although it's no surprise coming from Kwanzaa-bashing, famously racist and misogynist Grothman, who is happy to dismiss anyone who disagrees with him, and dismissed the hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, students, laborers, police officers, fire fighters, retirees, and countless other citizens speaking up against the unconscionable 2011 powergrab as "a bunch of slobs."  

Why does Glenn Grothman advise his colleagues to ignore transparency? Why does Glenn Grothman argue that we should avoid democracy?  

He owes all of us an apology, but especially he owes the good people at Wisconsin Democracy Campaign an apology for publicly disparaging their work.

It's the absolute least he can do.

A more decent man would resign, in the scope of such a long history of offenses to the people he allegedly serves.  But we all know Glenn Grothman is not a more decent man.


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Note:  this post has been updated to correct the date.  The footage is from 2/27/13, not 3/27/13.