Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) is continuing a line of attack against state Senate Democrats, who have fled the state in order to block budget quorum on his anti-public employee union proposals, that he used at a press conference Monday: That state Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D) must be taking orders via phone from union leaders. But as Walker makes clear, he doesn’t have actual evidence of this.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, Walker made the latest remarks Monday evening in an interview with state conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes. “I don’t have this on firsthand knowledge,” said Walker. “My guess is he got a phone call from one of the union bosses in D.C. who said, ‘You cannot go back there and let them have a vote.'”
As TPM previously pointed out, this is an odd attack in that the public does have firsthand knowledge of a phone call that Walker had: His phone call two weeks ago with blogger Ian Murphy, who was posing as Republican financier David Koch. During that call, Walker discussed his ideas for tricking the Democrats into coming back by pretending to negotiate, his ambition to to bust the public employee unions in the mold of President Reagan firing the air traffic controllers, and that he had considered (but ruled out) planting troublemakers in the crowds of protesters.
