MADISON, Wis. – During a prank call that quickly spread across the Internet, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was duped into discussing his strategy to cripple public employee unions, promising never to give in and joking that he would use a baseball bat in his office to go after political opponents.
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Walker believed the caller was a conservative billionaire named David Koch, but it was actually the editor of a liberal website. The two talked for at least 20 minutes Tuesday — a conversation in which the governor described several potential ways to pressure Democrats to return to the Statehouse and revealed that his supporters had considered secretly planting people in pro-union protest crowds to stir up trouble.
The call also showed Walker’s cozy relationship with two billionaire brothers — David and Charles Koch — who have poured millions of dollars into conservative political causes, including Walker’s campaign last year.
During the call, Walker compared his stand to that taken by President Ronald Reagan when he fired air-traffic controllers during a labor dispute in 1981.
The audio was posted by the Buffalo Beast, a website based in Buffalo, N.Y., and quickly went viral.
Ian Murphy told The Associated Press he carried out the prank to show how candidly Walker would speak with Koch even though, according to Democrats, he refuses to return their calls.
Murphy said he arranged the call Tuesday after speaking with two Walker aides, including the governor’s chief of staff. He placed the call using Skype and recorded it.
At a news conference, Walker acknowledged being deceived but stuck to his message that the union changes were needed to balance Wisconsin’s budget.
“I’m not going to let one prank phone call be a distraction from the job we have to do,” Walker said. “The things I said are the things I’ve said publicly all the time.”
On the call, the governor said he was ratcheting up the pressure on Senate Democrats to return to the Capitol a week after they fled to block the legislation. He said he supported a move to require them to come to the Capitol to pick up their paychecks rather than have the money deposited directly.
He also floated an idea to lure Democratic senators back to the Capitol for negotiations and then have the Senate quickly pass the bill while they are in talks.
Walker said aides were reviewing whether the GOP could hold a vote if Democrats were not physically in the Senate chamber but elsewhere in the building. At the news conference, he insisted that idea was not a trick but an effort to get Democrats back to work.
Democrats seized on Walker’s recorded comments as evidence that the governor plans to go beyond budget cuts to crush unions.
“This isn’t about balancing the budget. This is about a political war,” Rep. Jon Richards of Milwaukee yelled Wednesday on the floor of the state Assembly.
The governor’s plan would strip most public employees of their collective bargaining rights and force them to pay more for their health care and retirement benefits. Unions could not collect mandatory dues and would be forced to conduct annual votes of their members to stay in existence.
Unions have said they would be willing to pay more for health care and retirement, but would not give up collective bargaining.
The proposal has set off more than a week of protests at the Capitol.
The GOP-controlled Assembly began debating the bill Tuesday and was still hearing dozens of Democratic amendments nearly 24 hours later before taking a break. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he expected to take a vote on the bill by the end of the day.
On the prank call, Walker said he expected the anti-union movement to spread across the country and he had spoken with the governors of Ohio and Nevada. The man pretending to be Koch seemed to agree, telling Walker, “You’re the first domino.”
“Yep, this is our moment,” Walker responded.
The remarks showed Walker’s private relationship with David Koch. He and his brother, Charles, own Koch Industries Inc., which is the largest privately-owned company in America and has significant operations in Wisconsin.
On the recording, after Walker said he would be willing to meet with Democratic leaders, the caller said he should bring a baseball bat to negotiations.
Walker laughed and responded that he had “a slugger with my name on it.”
The caller suggested he was thinking about “planting some troublemakers” among the protesters, and Walker said his administration had thought about doing that, too, but decided against it. Walker said the protests eventually would die because the media would stop covering them.
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