Wisconsin GOP hits Tammy Baldwin with ethics complaint Citing local media reports, it accuses the Democratic senator of a ‘coverup’ involving veterans’ abuse of prescription drugs.

Wisconsin Republicans are determined to make a long-simmering local news story about Sen. Tammy Baldwin stick, filing an ethics complaint in hopes of leaving a black mark on the freshman Democrat’s first term.

The state GOP issued a complaint Thursday to the Senate Ethics Committee that alleges Baldwin offered a former employee a severance package not to talk about her office’s bungled response to opioid problems at a Veterans Affairs facility in Tomah, Wisconsin, which state investigators have linked to at least one death.


The former Baldwin aide, Marquette Baylor, was terminated last month following allegations that Baldwin’s office knew about an inspector general report of loose prescription practices last summer and did not immediately act on them, according to a series of reports by USA Today and local media. That report, however, did not find “any conclusive evidence” of illegal practice, though it raised “serious concerns” about the facility.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel also reported that Baylor was offered severance pay to keep a lid on the mishandling of the Tomah VA’s issues, but declined.

The Wisconsin GOP alleged Thursday that Baldwin is involved in a “massive cover-up” and that offering severance money to Baylor while she was no longer employed by the Senate was improper.

“Tammy Baldwin wrongly appropriated taxpayer funds to compensate a Senate employee who would not have performed official government duties while also fraudulently offering a contract to silence a former employee in order to save Baldwin’s career,” Joe Fadness, the executive director of the state Republican Party, wrote in the complaint.

Baldwin has retained Marc Elias, a major power player in Democratic politics, as counsel to deal with the fallout over Baylor’s termination and the Tomah VA facility. Elias said in an emailed statement that GOP’s complaint is “nothing more than a political stunt.”

“This is a frivolous allegation wholly without merit,” Elias said. “It is unfortunate that the Republican Party has made the choice to play partisan politics with the serious and tragic issues facing the VA and our veterans.”

The GOP’s request for an investigation now goes to the secretive Ethics Committee, which rarely makes a peep about ongoing probes until the matters have been fully reviewed. The committee is now chaired by a Republican for the first time in years, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

Baylor stopped working for Baldwin as deputy state director in January, according to congressional database Legistorm. Elias told Wisconsin media that Baylor was fired for “her long-term performance on a range of issues” and that Baylor’s “handling of the problems at the Tomah VA was only one of those issues.”

Baldwin’s office also provided POLITICO with a detailed timeline of Baldwin’s requests for investigations into the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s practice of providing drug prescriptions for veterans in active treatment for substance abuse. It says she first raised the issue with the Tomah facility’s director on April 7, raised an anonymous constituent’s concerns with treatment practices on June 25, requested inspector general reports on Aug. 11 and last month asked for Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald to take “immediate action to address the extremely troubling reports of improper opiate prescribing practices” at Tomah.