Wisconsin Governor Lays Out Strategy in Prank Call

By AMY MERRICK And DOUGLAS BELKIN
WSJ

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker laid out his strategy for pressuring state Senate Democrats to return from Illinois, in a prank telephone call by a liberal activist posing as conservative donor David Koch.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker laid out his strategy for pressuring state Senate Democrats to return from Illinois, in a prank telephone call by a liberal activist posing as conservative donor David Koch. Joe Barrett has details.

In the 20-minute call, Mr. Walker, a Republican, floated the idea of tricking the Democratic holdouts into returning to the capital of Madison by offering to talk with them. He said his office is looking into whether Republican state senators could then use a legal maneuver to pass the bill, which would strip most of Wisconsin's 170,000 public workers of many of their collective-bargaining rights.

Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Mr. Walker, confirmed that the governor's voice is on the audio recording, which initially was posted on the website of the Buffalo Beast, a liberal online news site. The recording, in which a reporter tells the governor he is Mr. Koch and prods him for information on his plans for dealing with the Democrats, quickly spread over the Internet on Wednesday.

The 14 Senate Democrats fled Wisconsin on Thursday, depriving Republican senators of the quorum they needed to vote on a fiscal bill. The Democrats have remained in Illinois since last week, as thousands of protestors have flooded the capitol building, most of them teachers and other union members opposing the governor's plan.

(Original here.)