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Bill Richardson joins PR firm

Former Gov. Bill Richardson has landed at a new job — but it’s probably not the one he really wanted.

Public relations firm APCO Worldwide announced Wednesday that it has brought on New Mexico Democrat and one-time presidential candidate as chairman of Global Political Strategies, an advisory service. “Gov. Richardson has a unique combination of local, state, congressional, executive branch and foreign policy experience gained through high-level diplomatic and political posts held throughout his career,” said Margery Kraus, the firm’s CEO.

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Richardson, who left office in January after serving two terms as governor, served as energy secretary during the Clinton administration and was President Barack Obama’s first choice for commerce secretary. Last year, he was said to be under consideration to be the Motion Picture Association of America’s next chairman — a position that now looks likely to go to former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who could be named to the position as soon as this week, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Richardson withdrew his name from consideration in early January 2009, a month after being nominated by Obama, as his office was in the midst of being investigated for improperly awarding a government contract to donors, a complaint that has since been dropped. He also ran for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Richardson also spent 14 years in the House of Representatives and 18 months as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“I am very pleased to be affiliated with APCO Worldwide through my new role as GPS chairman, and I look forward to working with colleagues and clients, old and new,” Richardson said in a statement. “In today’s evolving world, business success increasingly depends on understanding the global forces affecting economies and cultures, and the GPS team presents an unparalleled resource to companies and institutions who seek to understand how to better navigate their futures.”

He will be based in New Mexico but will have an office in Washington.

CHICAGO — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday denied committing any wrongdoing when he told a blogger posing as a billionaire contributor that he was trying to lure his Democratic opponents into coming back to Madison.

Walker had taken a 20-minute prank call from a blogger posing as “David Koch,” one of two conservative activist brothers who contributed to Walker’s campaign contributors and allegedly have been funding the counterprotests in Madison. In the call, Walker revealed an apparent plan he had to bring Democrats back to the Capitol in order to establish a quorum in the Senate to hold a vote on his budget measure, which would strip collective bargaining rights from state employee unions.

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“I take phone calls all the time,” Walker said in an afternoon news conference. “The bottom line is the things I’ve said are the things I’ve said publicly all along. … It’s not a trick, we’ve said it point-blank, come on in and talk about it … [but] ultimately it needs to lead to a vote.”

Walker added that he can’t allow “one prank phone call to be a distraction from the reality,” before he again urged 14 Senate Democrats who had fled the state to return to Wisconsin.

On the call, Walker is heard saying: “If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have a quorum because it’s turned out that way. So we’re double-checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the Capitol with all 14 of them.”

He adds: “My sense is, hell. I’ll talk. If they want to yell at me for an hour, I’m used to that. I can deal with that. But I’m not negotiating.”

Earlier Wednesday, Walker’s representative confirmed the recording was legitimate. Meanwhile, Democrats in Illinois don’t seem ready to move. Their only leverage at this point seems to be to stay away, and they’re doing just that.

After the news broke of Walker’s “plan,” Senate Democratic leader Mark Miller responded on a national press call run by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee that the recordings raised questions about Walker’s character and certainly would not inspire Democrats to cross state lines.

“I’ve heard rumors of it. Maybe it reveals something about the governor’s character. The possibility of us having to be dragged back to the Capitol before this bill has had enough public scrutiny has always been a possibility, and that’s why we left the state in the first place,” Miller said. “Employees have given him a victory, they’ve given him the money he needs. … The ball is in the governor’s court.”

A spokesman for Senate GOP Leader Scott Fitzgerald confirmed statements he had made earlier Wednesday to local reporters that the office had “never had a conversation with the governor” on any sort of plans for Democrats discussed on the recording.

“We’re coming from the starting position that they should be here to vote on every bill,” said Fitzgerald spokesman Andrew Welhouse, who noted the growing frustration within the united Republican caucus over the absence of their Democratic counterparts.

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In his third appearance before the cameras in as many days, Walker continued to disparage his state’s Democrats while firmly holding his line on a controversial move to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of many public workers as part of his budget-cutting plan. Democrats remain out of state because they believe employee unions have made enough concessions, including pension cuts and increased health care and retirement plan buy-ins, and shouldn’t have to give away their right to negotiate.

“It’s not just about the budget, it’s not just about jobs and workers, it’s ultimately about the future of our state,” Walker said. “Our bill is not filled with furloughs, it’s not filled with layoffs … politicians have made promises and failed to deliver on them, they’ve pushed tough choices to the future … the future is now.”

Republicans here have been allowing Democrats to vote via teleconference in committee, for example, but that courtesy, extended at the discretion of each chairman, might not last much longer. The 19 Republicans who have been coming to work every day are becoming increasingly miffed with their opponents in exile, who they feel are negotiating via the media with talking points instead of returning phone calls.

Fitzgerald told reporters Wednesday that he worried that if and when the Democrats do come back, the relationship between the two parties could be forever strained. Many of the lawmakers in the Legislature have served side by side in the Senate or the Assembly for years — and Wisconsin observers note that the state Senate is usually the more reasonable body — but those working ties are fraying the longer Democrats stay away.

Walker continues to raise the stakes of the game, though, warning for the third straight day that state employees could receive notice as soon as next week if Democrats don’t return to debate, and therefore let Republicans pass, his budget proposal.

The governor did seem to introduce a new talking point Wednesday, though, by highlighting how public employees could save money by dropping their union membership.

“It gives them an option whether they want to participate in unions,” Walker said, noting that dropping membership could save Wisconsin public union members up to $1,000 a year in dues.

As Walker continue to make his case for his plan, and protests continued to rage in the Capitol on Wednesday, so did debate in the lower chamber on amendments to the bill. Assembly Democrats are continuing in maneuvers to delay passage of the bill. Republicans hope to pass it out of the Assembly on Wednesday, but sources watching the legislation say that given the rate of debate, that likely won’t happen until very late in the evening, if it happens Wednesday at all.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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