The news that a Dane County judge struck down key parts of Act 10 — former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s signature anti-union law — prompted Walker to comment on X: “Collective bargaining is not a right. It is an expensive entitlement.”
That’s the kind of message that helped make Walker a national Republican star back in 2011. The billionaire Koch brothers supported him and his pioneering approach to politics — turning neighbor against neighbor by weaponizing the resentment of working class people and training it on teachers and other public employees whose union membership afforded them health care and retirement benefits. Walker memorably called his approach “divide and conquer.” That philosophy is at the heart of Judge Jacob Frost’s decision, which found that Act 10’s divisive carve-out for “public safety” employees (i.e. Republican-voting cops) is unconstitutional.
Walker started by pitting private sector workers against public employees. The next step, he promised his billionaire backer Diane Hendricks, would be to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state, smashing unions across the board.
Walker made good on that promise and signed the right-to-work law that undercut private sector unions. And he certainly succeeded in dividing Wisconsin, ushering in a toxic style of politics that set the stage for Donald Trump and nationwide polarization.
But Walker’s war on organized labor is out of tune with the populism of today’s Trump-dominated Republican party, which courted union support in the recent election. It’s also out of step with public opinion. A September Gallup poll found near record-high approval of labor unions with 70% of Americans saying they approved of unions, compared with 48% approval in 2009.
In embracing Act 10 and Walker’s dubious legacy, Wisconsin Republicans are marching to a different beat than the rest of the country.
“Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers more than $16 billion,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our arguments on appeal.”
Other Republicans have made even bigger claims about the “savings” that came out of teachers’ paychecks and benefits. But over time, it has become clear who the real beneficiaries of those savings were. The Kochs and Hendricks didn’t support Walker because they thought he would do wonderful things for working class voters. They backed him because they wanted to squeeze workers and enrich themselves.
Act 10, and the other measures passed by the Wisconsin Legislature in its wake, including right-to-work and prohibitions on local governments from increasing wages and improving working conditions in city and county contracts, hurt Wisconsin workers and the state economy.
“The changes, labor leaders and experts say, have caused flattened real wages for construction workers, higher pay for their bosses and local governments stuck offering wages that make it difficult to hire contractors — and hard for those workers to make a living,”Wisconsin Watch reported.
A study by the Economic Policy Institute compared the economies of states with strong collective bargaining laws with so-called “right-to-work” states from 2011 to 2018. “Those ‘right-to-work’ states see slower economic growth, lower wages, higher consumer debt levels, worse health outcomes and lower levels of civic participation,” one of the study’s authors, Frank Manzo, told Wisconsin Watch.
On top of all that, Walker’s oft-repeated promise to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term was a bust. He made it just over halfway to that goal, according to a “gold standard” report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the end of his second term, Walker still hadn’t reached the 250,000 jobs number. Instead, when he left office, Wisconsin ranked 34th in the nation for private sector job growth, according to the BLS. Walker’s 10.3% growth rate fell far behind the national growth rate of 17.1%. And Wisconsin public schools have never recovered from Walker’s savage budget cuts.
There has been a lot of talk since the 2024 election about how Democrats have lost touch with working class voters, allowing the Trump-led Republican Party to capture disaffected working people who are suspicious that politicians don’t really care about them or represent their interests.
The Act 10 fight, which will be front and center in Wisconsin’s spring state Supreme Court race, reverses that dynamic. Democrats in Wisconsin have been fighting all along for better wages and working conditions for working class people, and Republicans have been outspoken in their opposition to workers’ rights.
Walker’s war on workers prompted historic protests in Wisconsin back in 2011, bringing together teachers, firefighters, police, prison guards, snowplow drivers and tens of thousands of citizens from across Wisconsin to protest at the Capitol. Democrats in the state Legislature fled to Illinois to temporarily deprive Republicans of the quorum needed to pass the law. Walker dismissed the protesters as “union bosses” and agitators brought in from “out of state.” But anyone who was there could tell you the crowd was made up of lots and lots of regular Wisconsinites outraged that the governor had made hardworking people his target.
The uprising in Wisconsin inspired other pro-democracy protests around the globe. Egyptian activists ordered pizza from Ian’s Pizza downtown for the protesters at the Capitol.
Still, in the short term, the protests failed. A grassroots recall effort against Walker fell short, and he went on to be reelected to a second term. But the tide has been turning steadily ever since. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers defeated Walker in 2018. Evers’ reelection by a larger margin in 2022 was one of 7 out of 10 statewide races Democrats have won since 2019. In one of those races, the Democratic-backed Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz beat her conservative rival by more than 10 points, flipping the ideological balance on the court and setting up the demise of Republican gerrymandering and, potentially, a final judgment against Act 10.
Today, as Democrats reel from their losses in the recent national elections, Wisconsin offers an example of a state where the fight over workers’ rights is at the center of politics. The Act 10 battle makes it clear which side each party is on. That’s good news for Democrats. For Walker’s brand of Republicanism, not so much.
Leading up to this past spring’s Wausau mayoral election, conservative talk radio host Meg Ellefson of WSAU brought mayoral candidate Doug Diny on her show, and together they blamed incumbent Mayor Katie Rosenberg for high property taxes, raised water rates and a lack of economic development in the city.
“There seems to be a lot of dysfunction that follows this mayor around,” Ellefson said of Rosenberg.
At the end of the segment, Ellefson plugged Diny’s campaign website and encouraged listeners to donate to his campaign or volunteer to knock on doors on his behalf.
The day after Diny defeated Rosenberg in April, Ellefson invited him back to her show to celebrate. In that same broadcast, Ellefson also announced a new focus of her attention: ensuring Donald Trump’s presidential election.
“That’s what we have to do, is take this victory as motivation to win again in November,” Ellefson told a caller.
A powerful force in Wisconsin politics for three decades, conservative talk radio continues to wield significant influence at the state and local level.
For years, radio personalities like Mark Belling and Jay Weber at WISN, Vicki McKenna at WIBA and Charlie Sykes at WTMJ have banged the drum for conservative ideas and Republican politicians. Ellefson and others like Joe Giganti in Green Bay represent a new generation of conservative hosts employing similar methods.
Although less popular than local television and some other forms of media, local radio generally gains strong trust from those who listen, according to Mike Wagner, a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communication researcher and professor. In Wisconsin, during the 2016 election, radio stations were airing around 200 hours of conservative talk every day, according to one UW-Madison study.
In 2022, ahead of his re-election to a third term, Sen. Ron Johnson had made hundreds of talk radio appearances — the New York Times reported they tallied more than four full days of listening.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who regularly appears on conservative talk radio shows in the state, told Wisconsin Watch he tunes in daily for as much as a half hour while driving.
“I would say it’s as powerful as it’s ever been,” Vos said of conservative talk radio.
Liberal radio has struggled to gain a foothold in the state, giving Republicans an advantage over the airwaves. With large audiences and little partisan competition, conservative radio hosts wield significant influence over elections, politicians and more in Wisconsin.
And those with political interests in the state are keenly aware of their power. Republican politicians, conservative lobbying organizations and even lawyers helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election have turned to conservative radio to advance their political aims.
‘Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker’
Perhaps most famously, Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with former Gov. Scott Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. Having publicly exited the talk radio sphere in 2016 after refusing to endorse Trump, Sykes now takes responsibility for this role and what came of it.
“As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician,” Sykes said. “At that point, your show … becomes advocacy and propaganda, and it becomes more about winning and scoring points than it does about what’s right and what’s true. I really do know how you get sucked into that.”
Sykes’ WTMJ show was Walker’s primary connection to a statewide audience, according to Lew Friedland, distinguished journalism and mass communication professor emeritus and researcher at UW-Madison.
“Without Charlie Sykes, I don’t think there would have been a Scott Walker,” Friedland said, calling Sykes “one of the top three most important political actors” at the time.
Charlie Sykes: “As I look back on my career … I’m not trying to make the same mistakes that I made early on. I don’t ever want to be a cheerleader for a politician.” (Video screen shot)
Walker told Wisconsin Watch that Sykes had a unique listener block at WTMJ, made up of not just traditionally white men, but also stay-at-home moms and non-conservatives tuning in during the morning commute. Sykes had a larger influence because it was more than just conservatives listening, Walker noted.
“Years ago, before the surge of podcasts … this was the place for a lot of conservative candidates or officeholders to get their message out in ways they felt like they couldn’t elsewhere,” Walker said.
Walker used Sykes’ show as a testing ground for numerous political talking points. Private school vouchers were a key issue that created an avenue to attack the teachers unions and Milwaukee public schools, Friedland noted.
Vos said Walker’s early use of talk radio built his credibility among Republicans.
“The reason that I think Charlie Sykes had such an impact on people is because he was there for three hours a day for decades, so people just thought they knew Charlie Sykes and they trusted him,” Vos said. “That’s why I think Governor Walker had such a huge impact because he had that exposure on Charlie’s show.”
Sykes’ influence among Republicans was widely recognized, in and outside of party circles.
“The Sykes Republicans from southeastern Wisconsin are worried that he will castigate them by calling them RINOs, ‘Republicans in name only.’ So (he makes it) very difficult for Republicans to be independent of the party line on any issue,” Jay Heck, executive director of the nonpartisan group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said in a 2005 speech.
The final testament to Sykes’ influence as a host came during the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Sykes interviewed Trump live on air and hit him with hardball questions about Trump’s disparaging comments about opponent Ted Cruz’s wife. Sykes gave a far more supportive interview to Cruz, who went on to win the Wisconsin primary.
Short-lived bipartisanship during the pandemic
The pandemic’s 2020 onset prompted a brief period of bipartisanship in which even Republican state lawmakers and conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity-WI supported the COVID-19 relief bill that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers quickly signed into law.
Evers’ deputy chief of staff at the time, Melissa Baldauff, said the bill fell short of what was needed, and it reflected what Republicans had wanted to see in the legislation. But the governor signed it because quick relief was critical.
Nevertheless, WISN’s Belling used his conservative radio program to criticize the relief measures and the Republican lawmakers and groups supporting the bill, accusing them of “selling themselves out” and caving to Evers without fighting harder against stay-at-home restrictions.
“This level of frustration that I’m trying to communicate to you is real,” Belling told then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, on his show. “And people don’t know who to turn to because on the one hand they know Evers isn’t going to listen to them, but it is extremely apparent to me that conservative think tanks and Republican legislators are not listening.”
According to Baldauff, Republicans in the Legislature were initially willing to let Evers lead on these difficult policy decisions. But she said the narrative started to shift after radio hosts like Belling loudly condemned the pandemic-era restrictions, fomenting Republican opposition to Evers and COVID-19 policies.
“They feel the heat. They have a host like a Mark Belling talking about it and saying they should do this or they shouldn’t do this, and then lo and behold, a little while later they are taking that position,” Baldauff said. “I think that’s a lot of where the power is in conservative talk radio. Republican politicians know that it can really make or break their career.”
Vos had a different take. He told Wisconsin Watch that conservative radio hosts want to be the voice of what conservatives really think, rather than political influencers.
“I look at talk radio as being a mirror to what real people think, not being the one that leads real people to say x, y or z,” Vos said. “They are a megaphone for what the average person thinks, rather than being a mouthpiece that people just copy as if they didn’t have a brain.”
Alec Zimmerman, formerly a top Republican communications strategist for Sen. Johnson and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, said state politicians are aware of what is generally being said on conservative talk radio.
“You have to be aware of what they’re saying,” Zimmerman said. “I think all conservative electeds are. … That power does come from the audience and the listener that they can reach.”
Fake electors sought to tip off radio hosts
Attorneys who plotted to disrupt the 2020 election using fake Wisconsin electors discussed sending info to conservative radio hosts with the hope of influencing Wisconsin’s conservative Supreme Court justices.
In 2020, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, two of former President Trump’s attorneys, crafted a plan to overturn the results of the presidential election in Wisconsin and other swing states. The scheme was for 10 Republicans to pose as fake electors and file paperwork falsely stating that Trump had won Wisconsin.
Documents released following a March lawsuit settlement include texts that reveal Chesebro and Troupis planned to use conservative talk radio in Wisconsin to carry out their scheme.
In November 2020, as a Supreme Court decision loomed regarding Trump’s attempt to invalidate thousands of votes in Wisconsin, Troupis texted Chesebro, suggesting they “tip off” conservative talk radio hosts McKenna, Dan O’Donnell, Belling and Jay Weber, “Mostly to maximize the chance that SCOW (Supreme Court of Wisconsin) justices hear about this quickly and prejudge the case?”
In another message regarding his memo urging the Trump campaign to push back against his loss, Chesebro reminded Troupis to send copies to a number of conservative radio hosts, including McKenna and Belling.
Less than two weeks after the first text, Troupis joined McKenna on the air to discuss why the lawsuit seeking to invalidate over 200,000 ballots was “the strongest legal challenge in the country,” according to McKenna. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the challenge 4-3.
Talk radio flexes power in power line debate
In February, the Assembly passed a controversial bill related to transmission line construction via a voice vote that Vos approved, leaving no record of how each representative voted. The legislation, which had failed before, died without a vote from the Senate in March.
It would have blocked out-of-state competition on long-distance power line projects in Wisconsin, granting owners of in-state transmission lines the right of first refusal to build new projects.
Conservative lobbying groups like AFP-WI, nonpartisan consumer advocacy groups like AARP and free-market conservatives like WISN’s O’Donnell opposed the bill, claiming the lack of competition could drive up utility costs for Wisconsin ratepayers. Supporters, including Wisconsin-based American Transmission Company, said the bill would have protected in-state companies bidding on transmission line projects without raising costs.
LS Power, an out-of-state transmission line company, has lobbied against similar bills in other states, but did not register against it in Wisconsin. Ellen Nowak, a lobbyist for ATC, said in an email to a lawmaker that an LS Power lobbyist told her the reason the New York-based company didn’t register was because it turned to AFP-WI to handle lobbying so as not to look like a “carpetbagger.” The email was first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal.
AFP-WI turned to conservative talk radio to encourage listeners to oppose the otherwise low-profile legislation.
Shortly after the bill was introduced in October last year, Ellefson invited Megan Novak, state director of AFP-WI, to discuss opposition on her show. When Novak returned to Ellefson’s show to repeat her criticism in February, Ellefson noted that she used to work for AFP.
On Feb. 15, the day the Assembly voted on the bill, Jerry Ponio, legislative director of AFP-WI, tagged three prominent conservative radio hosts in a social media post.
“Why does no one want to put their name behind a bill that eliminates competition and leading to higher utility bills for families and businesses in #Wisconsin?” Ponio posted.
Earlier this year, Jerry Ponio, legislative director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, called on conservative radio hosts to help defeat a bill that would have given an advantage to Wisconsin-based companies in building new electrical transmission lines.
McKenna, one of the tagged hosts, responded that same day, posting:
“The GOP-controlled WI Assembly passed a bill on a VOICE VOTE with no debate that gives utilities a MONOPOLY in WI. Not because anyone who will pay the rate increases asked for the bill. Not because WI businesses are begging to see their electricity bills skyrocket. No … they did it because utility lobbyists PAID them. To f***k over WI.”
After Ponio’s tweet, conservative WIBA radio host Vicki McKenna and other conservative radio hosts railed against the transmission line bill. It never received a full Senate vote.
Belling, who winters in Florida and only occasionally appears on his WISN show during that time, devoted his one February appearance to railing against the bill.
In a statement to Wisconsin Watch, Novak said AFP-WI spoke to a variety of additional news outlets to express its position, including WPR, the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“AFP-WI’s goal for educating and informing Wisconsinites about the potentially harmful impact of (right of first refusal) was to reach as broad of an audience as we could,” Novak said.
Eric Bott, state director of AFP-WI, and LS Power’s senior vice president Sharon Segner denied the claims made by Nowak, the ATC lobbyist. They didn’t respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for further comment.
The Wausau mayoral race
In this year’s Wausau mayoral race, Rosenberg lost to Diny even after the Democratic Party of Wisconsin spent $191,000 in advertisements on her behalf, according to WisPolitics. Republicans spent heavily on Diny in the nonpartisan race.
Diny blamed Rosenberg for an increase in water rates following the discovery of PFAS contamination in city wells — a hike Rosenberg called necessary, but which many constituents opposed. Rosenberg said in an interview that issue shaped the race’s outcome more than any other, with Ellefson’s program playing a role.
On her Jan. 8 show, Ellefson read Diny’s campaign message stating that ratepayers should be “outraged” over these “unacceptable” and “unnecessary” water bill increases. She introduced the message saying “please God let him win” and followed that by calling Rosenberg “unfit” to be mayor.
“It did whip people up into frenzy,” Rosenberg said. “It connected this race to a more statewide network.”
In an interview with Wisconsin Watch, Ellefson downplayed her role in the election of Diny, who has been in the news recently for removing the city’s ballot drop box, an action under investigation by the state Department of Justice.
“I perhaps played a tiny little role in helping to get him elected,” Ellefson said. “I would say it was just giving him the opportunity to share his vision of what he wanted to do, and I’ll admit, being very critical of the former mayor.”
Ellefson’s advocacy for Diny, which doesn’t have to be disclosed as a campaign donation, is legal because of the Federal Communications Commission’s 2014 decision to stop enforcing the Zapple Doctrine. The doctrine used to require radio stations to provide another opportunity for the opposing side to come on the air.
The FCC’s decision to ditch the doctrine came after a 2012 complaint made by supporters of Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for governor of Wisconsin. The Barrett supporters claimed they were not being given free airtime on WISN, whereas WTMJ and WISN frequently aired statements supporting Walker, the Republican candidate.
The FCC decided that while WISN and WTMJ had violated the Zapple Doctrine, it was not enforceable because of its ties to the Fairness Doctrine, which the commission eliminated in 1987.
Gov. Scott Walker speaks at the State of the State address at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Jan. 24, 2018. Charlie Sykes, the former WTMJ host, had a unique relationship with Walker and boosted his career through on-air endorsements going back to Walker’s days as a state representative and Milwaukee County executive. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Looking ahead in an election year
In April, O’Donnell of WISN interviewed Trump, then the presumed GOP presidential nominee, ahead of his rally in Green Bay. O’Donnell called himself the “officially Trump-endorsed host.”
Unlike Sykes’ hardball interview of Trump in 2016, O’Donnell, referring to the criminal indictments against Trump, asked how all of this “lawfare” against him has affected him and his family.
“I’m able to talk on shows like yours, which are very important shows. I’m able to talk about it,” Trump told O’Donnell of his criminal trials. “Because if I couldn’t talk about it … nobody would be able to explain that it’s a hoax.”
Share your views on talk radio
Talk radio still wields a lot of power and influence in Wisconsin politics, but the landscape is changing. Investigative journalism students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Wisconsin Watch spent the spring 2024 semester reporting on those changes, resulting in a six-part series: “Change is on the Air.”
One piece missing from that series: the perspectives of radio listeners. Do you listen to talk radio in Wisconsin? Do you listen to both conservative and liberal voices, or do you stay in one media bubble? Do you listen to local or national programs? Or during your commute have you switched entirely to podcasts?
Share your thoughts on the state of talk radio in Wisconsin, and we may publish your response in a future part of our series. Send an email to: changeisontheair@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Labor & Industry Review Commission (LIRC) interprets Wisconsin laws on unemploment insurance, workers compensation and other worker-related protections. (Getty Images)
Six years after Gov. Scott Walker left office, an official he appointed continues to interpret state laws covering jobless pay, workplace injuries and civil rights.
Georgia Maxwell’s term as one of three members of the Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission (LIRC) expired March 1, 2023, more than 18 months ago. Nevertheless she remains in the seat even though Gov. Tony Evers has appointed her replacement.
Maxwell is following the example of another Walker appointee, Fred Prehn, a Wausau dentist who refused to step down from the Natural Resources Board at the end of his term in May 2021.
As the Wisconsin Examinerreported, Republican leaders in the Legislature held off formally confirming Evers’ appointed successor to Prehn and encouraged the Walker appointee to hang on to his seat. Alegal battle led to a landmarkstate Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 declaring Prehn could remain in the post until the Wisconsin Senate approved his successor.
In response to an interview request Monday, Maxwell said she would not answer questions about her decision and instead referred to the letter she sent Evers the day before her term expired.
In that Feb. 28, 2023 letter, Maxwell cited the Supreme Court ruling in the Prehn case and asserted her belief “in the continuity of work that we do” at the commission.
Prehn ultimately did step down from the Natural Resources Board before his successor had been confirmed. But environmental advocates said the Walker appointee’s decision to linger for 20 months after his term expireddelayed efforts to advance new measures to address pollution — chief among them, imposing limits on PFAS “forever chemicals” in groundwater.
Regardless of whether Maxwell’s decision to hold on to her LIRC post has materially affected policy — and notwithstanding the Supreme Court ruling — critics say such maneuvers are an affront to the democratic process.
Jay Heck, Common Cause Wisconsin
“It’s wrong,” said Jay Heck, director of the nonpartisan voting rights and good government group Common Cause Wisconsin. “When people elect a governor, he’s elected or she’s elected statewide, and the expectation is that the governor will be able to implement policies with his or her own personnel.”
The role of the labor commission
The Labor & Industry Review Commission interprets state laws governing unemployment insurance (UI), workers compensation, and the discrimination and fair labor standards laws that make up Wisconsin civil rights laws.
The three groups of laws are all administered by the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD).
The department’s equal rights division investigates discrimination in jobs and housing, labor standards such as job misclassification, child labor law violations and wage theft, Wisconsin’s family and medical leave law and other related worker protection laws.
DWD investigators review complaints filed by workers or advocates alleging violations of those and related laws. If an investigator concludes that there’s probable cause of a violation, the case can go to a hearing with witnesses and evidence before an administrative law judge.
UI and workers comp cases involve claims that workers file with DWD for benefits under those programs. If DWD accepts or rejects a claim, workers or their employers can file an appeal, which also leads to a hearing before an administrative judge.
The labor commission is the next step in the process: The three-member commission hears appeals of administrative law judge decisions, whether involving UI, workers comp or equal rights. The commission is an independent agency separate from DWD.
Commission rulings in turn can be appealed in circuit court, a process that can extend through the state court system to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The Labor & Industry Review Commission’s three members are appointed by the governor to staggered six-year terms and confirmed by the state Senate.
In 2019, his first year in office, Evers made his first appointment to the commission, appointing Michael Gillick, a veteran workers comp attorney. Gillick took office March 1, 2019. His term expires March 1, 2025.
Evers’ next appointment to the commission came March 1, 2021, with Marilyn Townsend, a Madison lawyer.
Republican leaders in the state Senate have never scheduled confirmation hearings or held confirmation votes for either Gillick or Townsend.
With Walker from the start
Georgia Maxwell was the last labor commission member Walker appointed before he left office at the end of 2018 after losing the election to Evers. Maxwell’s tenure on the commission has had a complicated history.
Georgia Maxwell (Labor & Industry Review Commission photo)
Maxwell joined Walker’s administration when he first took office after his election in 2010. She started as assistant deputy secretary at DWD in January 2011, moved to assistant deputy secretary at the Department of Financial Institutions in April 2013, and returned to DWD as deputy secretary in July 2015, according to her commission biography.
In November 2017 Walker tapped Maxwell to fill the last year and a half of a commissioner’s post that expired March 1, 2019. The state Senate confirmed her on a unanimous vote.
A year later, on Nov. 29, 2018, another commissioner, Laurie McCallum, sent Walker a letter announcing she would resign midway through her term. She announced her departure just four weeks after Evers defeated Walker’s bid for a third term as governor.
In her resignation letter McCallum said her last day would be Jan. 4, 2019.
Four days after McCallum’s announcement, Walker appointed Maxwell to fill out the balance of McCallum’s term, which ended March 1, 2023. The appointment took effect on Jan. 6, 2019.
Maxwell’s second appointment as a commissioner went before the state Senate for a confirmation vote on Dec. 4, 2018 — one month before that new appointment started. The lame-duck session vote took place on the same day that the Legislature’s Republican majority passed a series of bills placing new limits on the incoming Democrats, Gov.-elect Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul.
The confirmation vote for Maxwell’s first appointment to the commission a year earlier was unanimous. For the December 2018 confirmation vote she was one of more than 80 lame-duck Walker appointees confirmed as a group, en masse. The party-line vote was 18-15, with no Democrats voting for the slate.
For the first two months of the new Evers administration, the labor commission had only two members — although one of them, Maxwell, appeared to fill two positions. The expiration of the term for the first of those positions created the opening that Evers’ appointee Michael Gillick took starting March 1, 2019.
Maxwell remained on the commission, now solely filling out the term that Laurie McCallum had vacated — the one expiring March 1, 2023.
Asks to be reappointed
On Jan. 11, 2023, a little more than six weeks before her second term expired, Maxwell wrote to Evers asking to be reappointed for another six-year term — Holding herself out as a someone who combined “empathy and impartiality” and citing her tenure as “the longest-serving LIRC Commissioner.”
Evers declined the request, instead appointing Katy Lounsbury, an attorney and currently a staff lawyer at the Labor & Industry Review Commission, as her successor effective March 1.
Her next letter to the governor was the one Maxwell sent Evers on Feb. 28, via email.
“I have been verbally informed that you have nominated someone to succeed me as a Commissioner on the Labor and Industry Review Commission,” Maxwell wrote. “Please be advised that pursuant to [the state Supreme Court opinion in the Fred Prehn case], the ‘expiration of a defined term for an appointed office does not create a vacancy.’ … I will continue to serve as Commissioner until my successor is confirmed by the Wisconsin State Senate.
“As I outlined in my January 11, 2023 letter to you, I believe strongly in the continuity of work that we do at the Labor and Industry Review Commission. I thank you for your consideration.”
Victor Forberger
A veteran Wisconsin unemployment insurance lawyer contends Maxwell’s refusal to step down may have led to commission decisions that penalized some workers seeking to collect jobless pay.
Victor Forberger, whose law practices consist almost exclusively of assisting unemployment insurance applicants in legal disputes arising from their claims, told the Wisconsin Examiner that in the last several years he has seen commission decisions increasingly equate genuine mistakes by applicants in the information they submit as instances of fraud against the U.I system.
Changes in state law during the Walker administration as well as in procedure at the Department of Workforce Development during that period paved the way for penalizing applicants’ innocent errors as fraud, Forberger said. At the time, Maxwell was deputy secretary at DWD.
In a 2015 memo, the Labor & Industry Review Commission warned the department against assuming fraud without evidence of fraudulent intent by the person accused, he said.
Nevertheless, Forberger said he’s been seeing more recent commission decisions that have moved away from the principle that requires evidence of intent — a reversal from the agency’s own memo to DWD nine years ago.
“I chalk this all up to the influence of Georgia Maxwell,” Forberger said.
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