Fourth former Scott Walker administration official blasts the governor ahead of election

Molly Beck , Patrick Marley | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - A fourth former official in Gov. Scott Walker's administration has publicly denounced the governor as he seeks a third term — this time, leaving his six-figure job to do so.

Paul Jadin, the first CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., resigned from his $208,000 position as president of the Madison Region Economic Partnership just before he and two other former Walker officials released a letter to the Wisconsin State Journal blasting the governor.

Another Walker official has also spoken out against Walker, though he hasn't said whether he would vote for Walker's opponent, Democrat Tony Evers, in the Nov. 6 election.

"It's hard to think of another instance like this where even one or two cabinet secretaries would come and speak out against a sitting governor. To have four is unprecedented," said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mark Bugher, who served as GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson's secretary of administration and revenue, said he couldn't recall similar situations where a group of former secretaries publicly criticized the governor who appointed them.

"When you accept a political appointment, generally you have the same political ideology as the person who appointed you," he said. "You don't sign a loyalty pledge, but there usually is a certain feeling of family when you do that. So it is unusual."

"Things have certainly changed a lot since I was in state government," he said. "I think Tommy had extraordinary loyalty in his cabinet."

But Brandon Scholz, former executive director of the Republican Party, said to consider the sources.

"I don’t recall four secretaries … but you’d have to look at their past performance and how it qualifies them to make the statements that they are making," Scholz said. "It’s political retribution, and I think people look at it and say OK you’ve got an ax to grind in your own mind but you really look cheap. They’re going to wear that cheap suit for the rest of their lives."

In the letter signed by Jadin, former Department of Corrections Secretary Ed Wall and former Department of Financial Institutions Secretary Peter Bildsten, the former Walker officials urge voters to support Evers for governor because Walker's administration "lacked integrity."

"We were proud to lead the way on some of his bold initiatives in our state agencies," the three wrote of working with Walker. "That pride evaporated at various times for each of us as we found ourselves disagreeing with both policy and practices within the administration that lacked integrity. It became clear that his focus was not on meeting his obligations to the public but to advancing his own political career at a tremendous cost to taxpayers and families."

A spokesman for Walker suggested Jadin mismanaged WEDC and was not credible.

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The former officials said they will not be voting for Walker because of his record on transportation, education and safety issues, "pervasive questionable practices within the administration" and how state matters were handled while Walker sought the presidency.

"All of us have witnessed how job preservation and the siren call of higher office have influenced the governor's approach to conducting business in Madison," the three wrote. "During the recall in 2012, he stopped attending cabinet meetings and delegated state business to his chief of staff and (administration) secretary. When he decided to run for president in 2015 he subordinated Wisconsin interests to those in Iowa and New Hampshire and his policy/budget proposals started to clash with members of his own party who still would have to stand for election in Wisconsin."

Walker's former transportation secretary, Mark Gottlieb, also said in September that the GOP governor isn't telling the truth about road projects and is taking a high-risk gamble that could see the state invest billions of dollars in obsolete highways.

Gottlieb, a Republican who also was in the Assembly for eight years, said Walker has been "increasingly inaccurate" when describing the state's highway system, but did not say he would vote for Evers in November. He did not sign onto the letter released Thursday.

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Austin Altenburg, a spokesman for Walker, did not address the claims in the letter but suggested Jadin was to blame for problems at the state's job agency, which has been under scrutiny since its creation.

WEDC — with Jadin in charge — lost track of millions of dollars in loans carried over from the state department it replaced, and awarded loans to businesses not properly vetted, which failed to create jobs or repay what was borrowed in some cases.

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"Eight years after creating the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), this successful public-private partnership has been the linchpin to huge wins and good-paying jobs in the Wisconsin comeback, including bringing Amazon, Haribo and Foxconn to Wisconsin," Altenburg said. "WEDC has grown leaps and bounds in success after moving on from the days of Paul Jadin's management."

Altenburg also said Evers "doesn't even have an economic development plan, and said he would disband state economic development efforts, which shows a fundamental lack of leadership and lack of understanding of the competitive global marketplace in which Wisconsin plays."

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Evers has proposed eliminating WEDC if elected and replacing it with a state Department of Commerce, which was disbanded when Walker was elected.

Like Jadin, Wall and Bildsten also fell out with Walker. Wall was in charge of the prison system as an abuse scandal unfolded at the state's juvenile lockup and Wall and Walker's team have blamed each other for problems there. Bildsten had a dispute with Walker over a plan to merge his agency with another one.

Britt Cudaback, a spokeswoman for Evers, said Jadin "absolutely" did not seek nor was he offered a job within an Evers administration should Evers be elected.

"Scott Walker's disastrous record as a career politician is bringing people together all on its own," she said.