Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Open records request reveals smoking gun in Evers-Dickert connection

This afternoon on WISN-AM's Late Afternoon Show with Mark Belling, Belling reported he filed an open records request of e-mails between Tony Evers, candidate for state superintendent for public instruction, and Jeff Dickert, the CESA official who confessed to using his state e-mail account to fundraise for Tony Evers. The open records request revealed an e-mail from Evers on his state e-mail account to Dickert's state e-mail account asking Dickert to raise money for him.

As you are probably aware, using state resources for a political campaign is illegal, and using them to fundraise for a political campaign is a serious offense.

In the e-mail, Evers asked Dickert to hold a fundraiser for him. Dickert replied via his state e-mail account that he would hold the fundraiser for Evers, and then asked Evers about his impending endorsements.

Evers also sent an e-mail to Dickert at his government e-mail address asking Dickert to publicize the March 4th fundraiser that was the subject of the Feberuary 27th e-mail that originally got Dickert in trouble. Evers sent the e-mail to Dickert on February 26th.

So much for the denials that Dickert had any connection to the Evers campaign, and now it's been revealed that Evers is in violation of the law, too.

Belling is reporting that he has received no comment from the Evers campaign. The question remains how many other people Evers contacted using his state government account asking them to raise money for him.