Last Friday (Jan.25th), Milwaukee Journal political watchdog reporter Dan Bice broke a story on his No Quarter blog that Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch's ex-chief of staff, Jeanne Tarantino, accused her former boss of age and sex discrimination. The accusation came in Waukesha County court, under oath, while being questioned by the lawyer for Mrs. Tarantino's ex-husband back on Dec. 28th, 2012. Upon review of the court documents, the case is all part of long drawn out divorce with money and support as the central issue.
The ex-husband's lawyer, Karen Zimmerman, asked Ms. Tarantino why she lost her job working for Lt. Gov. Kleefisch. Dan Bice reported her answer as follows;
"Because I'm an older female, and they wanted to put a younger man in the position," Tarantino responded.
Zimmermann clarified, "Do you feel you were discriminated against?"
"Yes," Tarantino replied.We have all heard the old saying that a lawyer never asks a question in court that he, or she, does not already know the answer to. Or at least have a good idea what the answer will be. MediaPolitical is not a lawyer and I do not want to speculate as to what the lawyer was trying to accomplish with this line of questioning, though I do have some ideas.
Ms. Tarantino was Kleefisch's 2010 campaign manager, and after she won the election Tarantino became the Lt. Governor's chief of staff. This is not uncommon, but very common in political campaigns, and staff members serve at the leisure of their boss. They can be fired for almost any reason, but it's a federal crime to fire someone for reasons that discriminate, such as sex, age, or race.
According to Bice's report, Ms. Tarantino was transferred to a job at the Department for Workforce Development, at the same pay she had before, just shy of 70K a year. However, in court testimony, she felt she was given a job with less responsibility. It would seem to me she felt slapped down or unappreciated.
Bice adds in his report that when questioned by him Ms. Tarantino's lawyer wanted to downplay her testimony saying things like she didn't know the legal definition of employment discrimination and that her client has no evidence of discrimination. MediaPolitical would suggest you read Bice's full report for all the details and the details of her court case is not so much what I want to get into here. I just needed to lay out the basic background of the story.
Ms. Tarantino left her job at the Department of Workforce Development last month and is now running for the state assembly in a special election for the 98th district, in Waukesha County. In this race, there is a five way Republican primary. Lt. Gov. Kleefisch just last week gave a glowing endorsement of Ms. Tarantino for the job. I seriously doubt the Lt. Governor knew of the discrimination accusations at the time she did this.
On his WISN radio show, Mark Belling, has continued digging into this story, reporting both his findings and opinions. First, briefly on Friday as Bice's story broke, then more in depth on Monday (Jan.28th). Belling reported that Lt. Gov. Kleefisch, who usually will always talk to him, had an aide make excuses to avoid talking to him about the matter. Belling also stated on his program that he thought Ms. Tarntino was lying on the stand, under oath. I took from what Mr. Belling said is that he thought she did it as a cover for whatever the real reason is why she lost her job. Given her own lawyers backtracking of her testimony, I would tend to agree that she was at least less than fully truthful. Like Mr. Belling, this is merely my opinion. Belling went on to say that Lt. Gov. Kleefisch should retract her endorsement and that Ms. Tarantino should withdraw from the assembly race. I also would agree with those sentiments, strongly.
As usual though, MediaPolitical has another angle on this. I don't question Dan Bice's reporting of this story at all, with regard to the facts. Those are all court records. Bice also enjoys dragging Republicans through the mud, and he has personally admitted to me that he is a liberal but said this does not effect his reporting. MediaPolitical has a very hard time believing Bice's claims of no bias, but I do give him credit when he reports something, when he gets it right.
Where I have had run ins with Bice, especially his reporting of the John Doe investigation into Gov. Walker by the Milwaukee County DA, John Chisholm, is his use of un-named sources. I use un-named sources, and I understand the need for source confidentiality. But as in the case of the John Doe investigation, which after two years turned up nothing with regard to Gov. Walker, and this supposedly secret grand jury, the leaks came to Bice like the Titanic taking on water. One could tell from his reports that all that water was coming from one big hole in the ship. Using a process of elimination, and not what Bice did say, but what he didn't, MediaPolitical came to the conclusion that his leak came from the feds involved in that case. I still stand by this because nobody has proved me wrong, including Bice.
I needed to lay that out because I have a similar problem with this Kleefisch discrimination story. Bice did not dig this story up on his own, somebody tipped him to it, and knowing that persons motivations is very important. First, you could look at the ex-husband, but I think he has little to gain from this. Also, the ex-husband's lawyer on Monday, Jan. 28th, filed papers with the judge in the case to seal the court documents. This was done as an obvious response Bice's report, so hardly a husband out to shame his ex-wife.
The next easy call would be the Democrats digging up dirt on Ms. Tarantino. While she is in a five way primary with other Republicans, she is the front runner and will face a Democrat in the general election in April. Waukesha County is almost a lock for any Republican, but you dirty up Tarantino to other Republicans then maybe the Democrat has a chance to win by default. This is certainly a possibility, but I think there might be one more likely.
Who would be the most likely to be digging up dirt on Ms. Tarantino? That would be the other Republicans running against her in the primary. One could say with regard to this and with the Democrats motivation that all things like this are fair in politics. In theory, I agree with that idea. However, if one of her Republican challengers tipped Bice to this story, wouldn't that put him in the same place as Ms. Tarantino? Didn't he throw Lt. Gov. Kleefisch under the bus just the same? That candidate didn't know how Tarantino would respond. What if instead of backing off her accusations of discrimination she doubled down on them?
To MediaPolitical, if a Democrat tipped Bice off, then it's just nasty, yet fair, politics. If a Republican did it, then I really don't put him much above Ms. Tarantino. I don't want either of them in the state assembly. This is why I think those voters in the 98th district should take great interest into just who is the rat. I don't expect Bice to give up his rat, nor do I think he should, but I do believe some folks in Waukesha County ought to start asking some questions of those other four candidates because I think one of them is the most likely suspect.
*Notes* As to the accusations of age and sex discrimination. Ms. Tarantino is 46 years old and not an unattractive woman. Here is her Linkedin profile, you can be the judge. Bice makes it a point in his story to say that Tarantino once worked for Democrat state Sen. Barb Ulichny. In the late 1980s, Ulichny had to cop a plea with the Dane County DA due to ethics violations and pay a $6K fine. Bice added this just to pile on to Tarantino, tie her to a Democrat and a dirty one.
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