Opinion
Jensen trial hurts Wisconsin GOP
Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.
Also by Ryan Masse:
- Count down to Keith Olbermann's irrelevant exit (November 12, 2008)
- Health plan losing steam (October 29, 2008)
- ACORN unintentionally fraudulent (October 16, 2008)
- Biden versus Palin: debate to watch (October 2, 2008)
- Anti-Palin talk emboldens GOP (September 18, 2008)
Sharing tools:
E-mail this article:
Say this about State Rep. Scott Jensen: The man doesn't go down without a fight. Charged four years ago with several felonies stemming from allegations of using his state office for campaign purposes, Mr. Jensen is finally at the end of the line — and he's taking everyone down with him. Not only did Jensen dig his own grave by going to trial during the past two weeks, but he reserved a spot for a whole slew of his colleagues, including — in a most ironic twist — members of the party he's fought so hard for throughout his career.
It's not exactly how I envisioned the final chapter of this story, known as the Great Wisconsin Caucus Scandal, would go down. To be sure, what began as shocking revelations back in 2002 of an intricate operation of state workers doing campaign work on the taxpayers' dime was never intended to have a happy ending, but it wasn't supposed to include this much collateral damage. As the final act in the Caucus Scandal, the Jensen trial has morphed into a veritable Hamlet: Everybody's dead. Or at least a lot of reputations are.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Mr. Jensen has always seemed determined to have the last say in this story, the man who would save the day where his legislative co-stars couldn't. He would prove that he and his Capitol cohorts hadn't done anything wrong, that the line between lawmaking and campaigning was never crossed back in those heady caucus days and that prosecutors were overzealous in creating scandal where none existed. You have to admit, it makes for a pretty intriguing plot.
So intriguing, in fact, that Mr. Jensen decided to fight the charges against him before a jury — a strategy that runs counter to that of the other legislators implicated in the scandal, who all accepted pre-trial plea bargains. The deals have been highly lenient. For former state Sen. Brian Burke, for instance, it was so sweet that he won't even have to spend any time in jail, instead just serving, in essence, house arrest.
But Mr. Jensen couldn't accept such a thing. He's going to be the hero, remember. And so the last pages of the Great Wisconsin Caucus Scandal began last week with his trial, where the prosecution trotted out witness after witness detailing how Mr. Jensen allegedly used his office and the Assembly Republican Caucus as de facto campaign headquarters. They would create campaign literature, accept campaign donations from lobbyists and communicate with campaign field operatives — all the while taking elaborate steps to ensure they would not be caught. One former staffer estimated she spent 80 percent of her time on the clock working on campaign issues in the months leading up to the 2000 election.
Going to trial was a decided gamble on the part of Mr. Jensen. If he was acquitted, he would be able to retain his Assembly seat for as long as he desired. After all, a criminal conviction is probably the only way a Republican could not get reelected in Waukesha — there's about as much chance of a Democrat being elected from the county as there is of the University of Wisconsin Humanities Department renaming their building "Ronald Reagan Hall."
Then, he would wait until U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner retires (contrary to popular belief, it will happen someday), and all of a sudden Mr. Jensen would be a Congressman.
Or so the logic went. Too bad the prosecution had all that evidence against him. To be fair, the jury has not handed down a verdict in the trial yet, although such an action could occur as soon as today. But I'm not seeing visions of "not guilty" in my head.
And down with him may go the Republican Party of Wisconsin's fortunes in the upcoming election this November. By going to trial, the public was bombarded by tales of the intricate manipulations the Assembly Republican Caucus executed to cheat the states' taxpayers. There weren't just a few bad apples in the Capitol. There was an entire caucus of rottenness. To wit, the various people the prosecution awarded immunity in exchange for their testimony reads like a who's-who of Republican Capitol staffers.
Of course, the Democratic Party's hands are far from clean, either. As Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard learned in his investigation, the Democratic Caucus was a corrupt campaign machine as well, participating in the same techniques as the GOP's caucus. And in non-caucus scandal news, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle is still very much enveloped by accusations of pay-to-play dealings in his office.
But thanks to Mr. Jensen, the Democrats' indiscretions don't seem nearly as visible right now. Telling is that the Democratic Party's beleaguered counterpart of Mr. Jensen — former Sen. Chuck Chvala, a man who faced worse charges — quietly accepted a nine-month jail sentence to avoid trial in December. I won't suggest he made that decision out of a desire to protect his party, but Mr. Chvala did have that effect by accepting the plea bargain.
The state GOP, meanwhile, will bear the brunt of Mr. Jensen's antics. He has every right to contest the criminal charges he is facing, but by rejecting any plea bargain, one would assume that he believed he had a good chance of winning himself an acquittal in court. Yet the defense's main argument this week seemed to be merely that Mr. Jensen was a hands-off office manager who did not track his staffers' day-to-day operations. So, just as former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling somehow didn't know the company they ran was hiding millions of dollars in debt from its shareholders, Mr. Jensen didn't know the "Vote for Jensen" pamphlets his staff designed were not for use in the next day's committee hearing.
If you believe that, I've got a swelling groundwater aquifer to sell you in Waukesha County.
Ultimately, fitting justice was served here. Scott Jensen circumvented state law in his one-track goal of increasing the Republican majority in the Legislature. Now, in his pathetic attempt to prove his innocence, the party will pay for affording him such a powerful position.
But if you're a Republican in the state, it's a pretty lousy conclusion to the Great Wisconsin Caucus Scandal.
Then again, the removal of a man like Mr. Jensen from the party's ranks must be viewed as a small victory — both for the GOP and the state government as a whole. After four years, the state should be happy to secure any one of those it can get.
Ryan Masse (rmasse@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in political science and economics.
6 Comments | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Herald Blogs
The Beat Goes On
Muckrakers
President’s Visit Marked a Speech to One of the Last Groups Not Critical of Him
Extra Points
Top Classified Ads (view all)
HOUSES FOR Fall 2010. All houses are on W Dayton or N Bassett. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 bedrooms. All have parking. madisoncampusrentals.com
Is it just me or is every single republican party falling apart? Just down south former IL govenor Jim Ryan is on his way to jail for all of his corruption in office, while two GOP candidates (Topinka and Oberweis) are involved in a national sized war of attack ads. Not to mention Jack Abramoff getting ready to name names. Now if only the Dems weren't so woefully inapt this country might have a chance of surviving again.
Well, there is a deep-seeded reason as to why the GOP can't shake their "culture of corruption" tagline.
By surviving do you mean to say that 14 quarters of sustained economic growth of 2-5% is failing. I would hate to see this country through your eyes if economic growth while fighting a global war against IslamoFascism is falling apart.
How is it that Jesse Jackson can run a non-profit for 40 years and become a millionaire, despite no other means of income? Power corrupts, not money, not lobbyists, not liberalism, not conservatism. What we need are people who don't want the power to run for office. People who can take or leave the BS the media focuses on. Not Lawyers, as they end up behaving like union reps who expect to earn 3-4 times what the guy they rep for makes on the factory floor. Then they push and push to keep their cushy do nothing but talk alot gigs. The Republican party is not falling apart as the next elections will demonstrate, despite a tireless onslaught from the Main Stream media.
To the first poster:
The former IL governor who got into all the trouble was GEORGE Ryan. JIM Ryan ran for governor in 2002 but lost.
As a College Republican on campus, I can't help but think that you are doing the same thing as you accuse Jensen of. Thanks for giving the liberals on campus more one-sided amo to fling at us.
Jensen is a man of honor, who fell into a bad situation that he tried to correct without a political fall-out.
Not every politician is a power-hungry theif. In fact very few of them are. But the media (and the Badger Herald) can't get enough of this because it has the ability to enrage people who don't know all the facts. So good job.
And by the way it's still Representative Jensen to you.
Republicans? Democrats? The lesser of two evils is still EVIL! This is all a no-win situation on a planet of death!