Walker will be lucky if the Democrats even give him a key to the Governors Office. Vince Beltrami through Jim Duncan (ASEA/AFSCME) and Jake Metcalfe (PSEA/AFSCME) will run the State. Like Palin, Walker has little meaningful experience and has few people around him who could find the light switches and rest rooms in State offices. The Democrats have apparatchiks seeded all through State government and in fact more than a little bit of Knowles second term is still there waiting for the Democrats to return. During Murkowski we only mucked out 30% or so of the Democrat appointees. Sarah only got rid of Murkowskis Republican appointees. Frankly, I dont see how anybody who is acceptable to the Walker/Palin/Halford crowd would be acceptable to the unions/Democrats. Undoubtedly French will be the AG, the AFL-CIO will get to designate the Commissioner of Labor and Duncan/Metcalfe will get to designate the Commissioner of Administration and the Director of Personnel and Labor Relations - if they let the State even have one. AFN will get to designate the Commissioner of Community and Economic Development and probably the Commissioner of Health and So-Called Services. NEA will get to designate the Commissioner of Education and vet any appointments to the State Board of Education and the Board of Regents, though APEA might get a say on the BOR. Metcalfe will get to pick the Commissioner of Public Safety. The Correctional Officers havent been reliable for Democrats and arent AFL-CIO so they probably wont get to pick the Commissioner of Corrections but theyll have a say and the whole Joe Schmidt crowd will be replaced. The COs can hope they wont be replaced by lesbian social workers. The Democrats might let Walker pick his own front desk clerk, but the rest of the government will be Democrat apparatchiks and congenital crats. Unless theyve been disloyal and performed some great service for the Democrats I doubt any Murkowski/Palin/Parnell Era appointees will survive the transition. I cant rule out someone having performed a great service with the whole National Guard mess; unless the Governors Office was ignoring advice from Law or Admin or simply not asking, many of their actions in the NG mess are unfathomable. Law is a place where lots of bad things have happened in an election year and theres never a shortage of AAGs who could see themselves as a judge. While many of the old hands in the Government were forced out during Knowles or have retired in the ensuing 12 years, there are still plenty of smart people at and just below the appointee level who know that you NEVER trust an operating department to tell you the truth about anything going on in that department. I know that when I did arbitrations or ALRA hearings I never much worried about what the guy on the other side of the table was going to do, my worry was what the people on my side of the table knew and were keeping from me, and DMVA was one of the worst in that respect Art Cance.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 05:43:53 +0000
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