Walker Vies For "Worst Governor" Crown

(Note -- The above cartoon is by Alex Thomas at Captain HARE BORNE and the Space Squadron.)

For quite a while now there have been three candidates with a substantial lead in the race for "Worst Governor In America" -- Rick Perry of Texas, Jan Brewer of Arizona, and Rick Scott of Florida. This mythical award is determined by the candidate's incompetence, stupidity, and unwillingness (or inability) to care about what's good for their state and its citizens -- and no one can claim that those three aren't imminently qualified for the award.

But there is now a dark-horse candidate who seems to be trying to give Perry, Brewer, and Scott a run for the title -- Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Walker (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Enterprises) has since becoming governor, passed a law restricting the bargaining rights of state employees while proposing tax cuts for corporations, and passed a Voter ID law to curtail the "rampant" voter fraud in the state (documented at a whopping 0.0002%). He has been such a bad governor that a recall effort is underway to kick him out of office.

But Walker knew he was going to have to do more to compete with Perry, Brewer, and Scott  -- because their incompetence, stupidity, and uncaring attitudes are legendary. And his latest effort just might make him a contender. Since both his own mean-spirited actions and the illegal Wall Street actions have caused many protests and demonstrations in the state, Walker says too much state and local money is being spent to control these demonstrations (even though they have been peaceful).

Walker has come up with the idiotic idea of making demonstrators pay for the police sent to harass them (after all, pepper spray is not cheap). Walker's new policy is to charge anyone who applies for a permit to protest outside government buildings. The new fee is to pay for "clean-up costs and the presence of police officers". Regardless of what he says, this new policy is simply designed to try and eliminate many demonstrations (since most of them are by people who have been financially hurt by the "trickle-down" policies of state and national governments, and who are having enough trouble just scraping by in this recession).

Marquette University professor of law Edward Fallone said of the policy, "You can't really put a price tag on the First Amendment." Fallone is absolutely right, and his statement goes to the crux of the matter. ALL American citizens are constitutionally guaranteed the right to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of their grievances -- not just the people who can afford to pay for those rights. Walker's policy would deny many people their constitutional rights much in the same way that voting rights were abridged in the past by an onerous poll tax.

Walker's new policy is clearly unconstitutional. But then Republicans on the far-right have never been concerned much about the Constitution. They like to talk about it a lot, but only want to enforce a few provisions that benefit them. Hopefully the ACLU will step up and take Walker to court over this new abomination, because if Walker is allowed to restrict constitutional rights in Wisconsin you can be sure other Republican governors will soon follow his lead.

With this new policy, Scott Walker has definitely catapaulted himself into contention for consideration as the "Worst Governor in America" -- and considering his competition, that's quite an achievement.