The campaign of Democratic candidate for governor Mary Burke has cut ties to a consultant who lifted several sections of her jobs plan from similar plans he wrote for other Democratic candidates. Credit: Mike De Sisti

For the second time in four days, Democrat Mary Burke's campaign has been hit by charges that it lifted passages from other sources and used them in its campaign literature.

The new batch of disputed material was turned up by Republican Gov. Scott Walker's campaign and made available to No Quarter. The website BuzzFeed also reported the same material.

The material includes two Burke plans — one on rural communities and the other veterans issues — that include passages from several websites as well as Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's "Plan to Create Wisconsin Jobs," which he used during his 2010 campaign for governor.

There are seven instances of disputed material. Most of the material is less than a paragraph long, and in some cases, fragments of sentences. In four cases, the Burke documents cited the other online material but did not place the borrowed passages in quotes.

All in all, the seven passages are not as substantial or egregious as the unattributed use of language by Burke's jobs plan. But a top Walker aide was still ready to pounce.

"Mary Burke's plagiarism is clearly not an isolated incident as she claimed last week but a disturbing pattern of intellectual dishonesty," said Walker spokesman Tom Evenson.

Reached Sunday at a Racine campaign event, Burke said she had not seen the sections of her reports being called into question by her opponent.

But she did note that Eric Schnurer — the consultant who has taken the hit for the purloined passages in her jobs plan — also worked on her 25-page rural plan, "Invest in Our Rural Communities." Her campaign cut ties with Schnurer late last week.

"I don't think it should be any surprise that we are drawing on best practices and ideas that have worked elsewhere," Burke said. "But in no circumstances should there be the same wording around those."

Her campaign spokesman, Joe Zepecki, rejected the Republican criticism after reviewing the disputed material.

"These baseless allegations reek of desperation," he said by email. "Given more bad jobs numbers... that were released last week, it's no surprise they're desperate; what's surprising is how transparent they're being about it."

On Thursday, the website BuzzFeed reported that Burke's jobs plan included nearly verbatim passages from plans put forward by Delaware Gov. Jack Markell in 2008, Ward Cammack of Tennessee in 2009 and John Gregg of Indiana in 2012.

Over the weekend, BuzzFeed added a few more examples to its earlier story.

Burke officials did not dispute the facts but said Schnurer, founder and president of the consulting firm Public Works, had copied material from earlier reports he helped write for other candidates. His name does not appear on the jobs report.

There are also no payments to Schnurer or his firm. Zepecki said he was a subcontractor, working for the campaign's media firm, GMMB.

In the examples dug up by Walker's campaign staff, Burke has this to say in her rural community report: "While manufacturing employment in general has been declining for years, the production of wind equipment is one of the few potentially large sources of new manufacturing jobs."

A 2003 report by the Council of State Governments made a similar statement: "At a time when U.S. manufacturing employment is generally on the decline, the production of wind equipment is one of the few potentially large sources of new manufacturing jobs on the horizon."

Burke's veterans plan, "Investing for Jobs and Opportunity: A Plan for Wisconsin's Veterans," has this to say about litigation: "This places additional burdens on those who were injured and in some cases plaintiffs could die before their cases make it through the lengthened court process."

A 2013 column by Darrin Witucki in the Dunn County News carries some of the same language: "The opposition argued that the bill would impose additional burdens on those that were injured — and in some cases plaintiffs could die before their cases made it through the lengthened court process."

In four instances, Burke's plans cited sources in footnotes but didn't use quotes when copying passages from other places.

For example, in her rural plan, Burke wrote, "And although only one-third of motor vehicle accidents occur in rural areas, two-thirds of automobile fatalities occur on rural roads."

The website for the National Rural Health Association has a nearly verbatim sentence: "Although only one-third of all motor vehicle accidents occur in rural areas, two-thirds of the deaths attributed to these accidents occur on rural roads."

Joe Fadness, executive director of the state Republican Party, suggested these lines and sentences are part of a pattern.

"Has Mary Burke given us any of her original thoughts?" Fadness said. "It's time for her to stop pointing fingers and finally take responsibility for her actions."

But Zepecki, the Burke aide, suggested the charges by Walker's campaign were without merit.

Because of unflattering news on job creation and the state budget, Zepecki said, the first-term Republican governor and his staff "have decided it's time to officially embark upon the 'silly season' portion of the campaign."

As if that didn't begin long ago.

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.