Mike Licht / CC
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – One of the best jobs in the media is to appropriate the title of ‘fact checker’ for yourself. In Wisconsin the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel claims that mantle.
Fact-checkers bring all of their biases to their work. Some of the Journal Sentinel’s fact-checks are slanted. Others are simply wrong. And none is more incorrect than determining that Governor Tony Evers hasn’t been emptying Wisconsin’s jails as part of a 2018 campaign promise to reduce the state’s prison population by half.
Politifact notes that the governor does not control the state’s parole board. They rule candidate Tim Michel’s claim as a “pants of fire” lie.
Really?
The Governor makes appointments to the parole board. Tony Ever’s appointment as chairman was John Tate. It is nonsensical to suggest that Governor would name someone who doesn’t share his reduce-the-prison-population goal.
And apparently Governor Evers does exert control over the board. He personally intervened when the board was going to release Douglas Balsewicz, a wife-killer who served 25 years of an 80-year sentence. The decision was reconsidered and reversed because the victim’s family went to the media.
Evers used his influence again. He asked for and received chairman John Tate’s resignation.
The names of 2022 parolees hadn’t been released until the website Wisconsin Right Now went to court. Why would the most basic public records not be released? Could it be that the Evers parole board wanted to delay information that would be problematic to Evers’ reelection chances?
So it appears that Tony Evers exerts a great deal of control over the parole board: from choosing who serves, to when or if they resign, to whether they reconsider certain cases, and to what information is released.
And a fact-check that says the parole board is independent is simply wrong, and gives political cover to Tony Evers on an issue where he’s vulnerable.
Chris Conley
Comments