This is just weird:
Chris Larsen, a low-level Wisconsin state employee, was fired for the apparent cause of using his work e-mail to mock and disparage state policy to his co-workers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The policy in question: The state’s decision for DMV employees to not tell citizens about the availability of free photo identification to satisfy the state’s new Voter-ID law, unless they ask first.
Larsen, a limited-term employee at the state Department of Safety and Professional Services, sent this e-mail Thursday morning to colleagues, encouraging them to tell all their friends about the free ID cards:
“Do you know someone who votes that does not have a State ID that meets requirements to vote? Tell them they can go to the DMV/DOT and get a free ID card. However they must ask for the free ID. a memo was sent out by the 3rd in command of the DMV/DOT. The memo specifically told the employees at the DMV/DOT not to inform individuals that the ID’s are free. So if the individuals seeking to get the free ID does not ask for a free ID, they will have to pay for it!!
“Just wanted everyone to be informed!! REMEMBER TO TELL ANYONE YOU KNOW!! ANYONE!! EVEN IF THEY DON’T NEED THE FREE ID, THEY MAY KNOW SOMEONE THAT DOES!! SO TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!”
He was subsequently fired for misuse of e-mail.
There just has to be more to this story, because I don’t see how he mocked or disparaged the policy. He has to be someone they’ve wanted to get rid of for a while but could never figure out how.
MoeLarryAndJesus
His supervisor is just sucking up to the powers that be and looking for a promotion.
The GOP attracts malicious brown-nosers like shit attracts flies.
PurpleGirl
Of course he’s mocking the powers-that-be and the policy. He used all caps for part of it and exclamation marks.
I agree that there is more to the story and they were looking for a reason to fire him.
sukabi
the ‘unofficial’ official policy was to charge folks for their state IDs, and this guy sent out an email DIRECTLY challenging this policy, and informing folks of their right to a FREE ID card… that’s why he was fired.
mark
Cole, you are reading this wrong.
The state had to pacify the “moderate” republicans to pass the law and try to fend off the courts, so they threw in a get-a-free-id-card-if-you-need-it provision.
Then, after it was law, the republican appointee in charge of the department made a “rule” that workers were not to tell anyone about the ID cards being free for voting, unless they *specifically* ask for it.
This state employee sent an email to colleagues telling them to inform anyone who needed one that they are there free.
Because this went “against policy” of NOT informing the populous, he was fired.
Because the republican in charge politicized the department, the law, and the rules, and now is firing people who try to help out those old and elderly who need free ID cards because their medicaid was just cut and they have no disposable income.
MC
Um, it seems to me that you’ve never worked for a jerky boss. I’ve worked for a few who would fire someone for sending this e-mail, especially a low-level guy who was “limited-term” (code for a temp). The system is probably in place so that they have lots of people hired as “limited term” so that they don’t have to go through the usual disciplinary process to get rid of people.
Sam Houston
Sounds like a memo from the owner of a used car lot to his salespeople.
BGinCHI
The key to this story:
Republicans are dicks.
Also, too, if they hate government, why do they try oh-so-hard to work in it?
joes527
Hard to tell how big his distribution list was. I wish automatic termination for sending an email to everyone in the company was the rule where I work.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Not necessarily. Larsen could be someone who just pissed off the wrong Republicans by urging people to publicize the free ID option.
Pugnuts don’t like it when you tell people how to avoid being humiliated by them.
.
Nothing More To It
These does not have to be more to it… The employee dared to make a statement that conflicted with the boss on a politically sensitive matter. The offense was using state email to send it.
Note to fired employee – in the future, use Gmail.
Shinobi
I’m not surprised he was fired. He’s deliberately subverting “company” policy. Since apparently MBAs run everything now his failure to respect their authoritah would have been enough at any other company.
jsfox
I just have to say by firing this guy they have brought far more attention to the how of getting a free voter ID than this email ever could have.
MikeJ
Dangerous people like this might allow Democrats to vote. Can’t allow that, he had to go.
b-psycho
So the ID card for voting is free if you ask for it for free, but not free if you don’t…
Basically it’s a tax on the uninformed. How cynical.
tomvox1
@BGinCHI:
To steal as much shit as they can and make them & their friends rich and you and me poor.
Jude
He couldn’t subvert a policy that was for an agency that didn’t employ him. He didn’t work for DOT or DMV; he worked for DSPS. Also, it’s only subverting the policy if he’s telling DMV clerks to ignore it.
(Wisconsin state employee here)
Redshift
It’s like Newt’s declaration that accurately quoting his past statements constituted a smear — this is a policy that is so ridiculous that accurately stating it is inherently mocking it.
BGinCHI
@tomvox1: Solid answer to a rhetorical question.
Same reason Sarah Palin hovers around the GOP primary states like a fat fly around a BBQ.
Winston Smith
Look, if you don’t watch what you say, the terrorists win.
DZ
I don’t know Wisconsin law, so I don’t know for sure, but this is a potential wrongful termination suit. I’m pretty sure that it is illegal in Oregon for a State offical to order State employees NOT to tell people of their rights under the law.
Gravie
Perhaps he’d like to file a suit for unlawful termination and some kind-hearted attorney would take it on as a high-profile pro bono case.
Redshift
@BGinCHI:
So they can infiltrate it and destroy it from the inside.
wasabi gasp
Dude sucks at keeping secrets.
gnomedad
Fixt.
fuckwit
I will ante up to give $20 to any group in Wisconsin that is aggressively getting the word out about this, by social networks, flyers, door-to-door, mailing and phonebank lists from the recall election, and registering voters NOW, driving people to the DMV, helping them (particularly the elderly and poor) get to the DMV and fill out the paperwork, all of this.
Fuck you, Rethug aristocrats. You didn’t like ACORN? Well this is ACORN TIMES TEN YOU FUCKS!
SteveinSC
@Jude: “He couldn’t subvert a policy that was for an agency that didn’t employ him” If there were a directive signed by someone at the Governor’s level and then distributed as official state policy, I think he could be fired, essentially for insubordination. If it was not sent to his organization then he ought to file a grievance. Second thing is that if there was such a written policy, discouraging people from getting free cards, that ought to be plastered on billboards across the state for all to see.
Amir Khalid
@b-psycho:
What surprises me here is that it’s against policy to tell people that, if they qualify to get it free, they needn’t pay for an ID card valid for voting. In other words, that a benefit for poor people is supposed to be kept secret from them, as part of a scheme to circumvent a prohibition on poll taxes. It’s a clever piece of dirty trickery, but I wonder how it got through the state legislature (said the innocent foreigner).
TooManyJens
@Amir Khalid: The “don’t tell people they can get the free ID” policy didn’t have to go through the state legislature. It’s an internal WI Dept. of Transportation directive.
GVG
Umm. I think he could have been fired for exactly what it said. Misuse of company/state email for personal purposes. In practice it doesn’t usually get enforced but in the rule book here in Florida (working for the state government) we aren’t supposed to use email, phones, copy machines, fax machines etc for personal use nor take envelopes or pens. Surfing the internet during work hours etc…can be used against us. Now in practice over time the internet rule and a little bit of the email rule has just not been enforced.
I suspect his boss or bosses boss is well very rule bound and kind of a fool. This is going to get more negative attention that ignoring it would. somebody who only cares about the rules and not the strategic implications of enforcement chose to enforce it. a politician probably would have been smarter but they are kind of dumb sometimes so I can’t tell for sure.
The policy itself (not telling them they can get one free) is also kind of dumb as was a lot of what got attempted in Wisconsin. I think this was doomed to cause some bad publicity (the rule about telling) but the details
catclub
@b-psycho: “Basically it’s a tax on the uninformed. How cynical.”
So you’ve never heard of the state lottery?
Joel
Perhaps the firing was intentional. Obviously, if you’re an activist working a temp job, you can get some mileage out of getting fired for subverting an unfair state policy.
Amir Khalid
@TooManyJens:
Then it’s even dirtier trickery than I thought.
soonergrunt
They don’t need to make anything up to fire a temp employee or, as they are called in Oklahoma, Unclassified (which can be fired “for the good of the service” whatever the fuck that means) or “Unclas Nonperm” which can be fired essentially with a harsh glare.
Jane2
As a government employee, I can say that email would be inappropriate from a work computer, as it is commenting negatively on policy, albeit in a roundabout way. Best to send from your personal account.
kay
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t think it got through the state legislature. It’s an agency rule. The legislature directs the agency to make the free ID’s available, then the agency administers that directive.
This is all very familiar to me. When Republicans put in the first Ohio ID law, they went out of their way to make complying with it as confusing and difficult as possible. The voter ID law itself is just the first step to suppressing votes. They can really do a lot of damage with arbitrary and nonsensical rule-making and administrative actions after the law is in.
It makes me furious at federal judges, how impractical they are. They blithely and cavalierly permitted these laws, with no thought to the potential for harm regarding when and how the laws are administered, or carried out.
Any time a step is added to the voting process, the potential for error or malicious voter suppression increases. Judges should know that. It’s obvious.
A provisional ballot (as an example) is more complicated than a first class ballot. There’s going to be increased error, and there’s going to be additional opportunities for malicious vote suppression and invalidation. Really. Can you be a good judge and be this oblivious to how the real world works? What did they think was going to happen?
joes527
@Jane2:
But no one told him that GMail is free. The Bastards.
japa21
Hypothetical question. The stated policy is to only give the ID free if the person asks for it to be free. Otherwise the charge is $28.
So, a person goes into the DMV and asks for an ID crad. Said person is asked to fork over $28. Said person does not have the $28 and says so. If that person is not then infomred that it is free and leaves, does that not open the window for the law to be illegal because it is then in effect a poll tax?
PhoenixRising
I’m guessing that had he sent an identical email from his personal account from home, that would have been the same degree of ‘inappropriate use’.
Because the recipients were using their work resources to pick up his email, which was not related to his job duties.
In sum, his boss or whoever insisted that he be fired for internally publishing an internal memo–he didn’t broadside everyone he knows in WI, but confined himself to people who work for the state too–is really dumb.
No one would have known about this executive policy had they just had the sense to take the slap and turn the other cheek. Now they have to defend a policy that appears to be a violation of the VRA. Whoops!
Suffern ACE
@DZ: You would be surprised.
@Amir Khalid: Frances Fox Piven is almost 80 and has been fighting this fight against this kind of fake unhelpfullness in services directed to poor citizens for 50 years.
Michael D.
ORRRRR, even more plauibly, it could be the way things work inside Scott Walker’s government
Emerald
@GVG:
I suspect his boss or bosses are Republicans who don’t want poor people to vote.
danimal
@jsfox: Agreed that the boss is
probablyalmost certainly a giant dick and that the likely cause for firing is insubordination. But jsfox makes the most relevant comment about this matter. By firing this one lowly employee, everyone will hear about the free id provision for MONTHS. Also, if the WI Dem Party is smart, and recent events tell me they are, this is a perfect platform to advertise the GOP War on Voting.Scott Walker is worse than evil; he’s stupid.
kay
@Amir Khalid:
This is still my favorite:
Democrats and others had been making copies of voter registration forms, because the forms had suddenly and mysteriously become unavailable. The copied forms were within the federal rules, but Republicans found an obscure state rule as to paper weight and began enforcing it.
It’s really the gold standard for stupid rule changes intended to thwart voting. He insisted it had to be 80 lb bond, or they were throwing them out.
This is a game to conservatives. Disfavored voters and their allies jump over one hurdle, and conservatives set up another one.
trollhattan
@danimal:
This.
Fools could have handled things on the QT and kept the policy under wraps. This gets it out into the sunshine where it deserves to wither and die.
Sounds like Win to me.
trollhattan
@PhoenixRising:
I don’t think so. Government employees can engage in political activity, they just can’t use work time or resources to do so. And he’s certainly not a confidential employee.
scarshapedstar
Gee.
A Democrat, probably even one of the black ones, tries to undermine Scott “Jim Crow” Walker’s efforts to keep Democrats (especially the black ones) from voting.
So he gets fired.
Big fucking mystery!
cmorenc
Something I learned the couple of times I worked for state government in North Carolina (back in pre-internet/email times) was to be VERY VERY careful what calls I made to whom to discuss what using a phone line belonging to the state, BECAUSE improper use of state phone lines was the most convenient, often-used weapon available to one’s detractors or enemies to get you terminated “for cause”, rather than for nakedly political reasons. The rules on permissible (and impermissible) use created a potential quicksand for you to walk into in an unwary moment.
I suspect the rules for using state email accounts present closely analogous hazards for the modern age. I’m not surprised at all that higher-ups used “improper use of state email accounts” to justify “for cause” firing of Mr. Larson. Yes, it’s slimy, nasty political retaliation thinly dressed up in “impermissible use against regulations” clothing, but the hyperpartisan nasties in Scott’s administration didn’t invent any sort of new tactic or low in state administration behavior here. This sort of crap has been going on for decades across many states across many different political stripes of state government administrations.
Mnemosyne
@Sam Houston:
I think I see part of the problem here:
I know that Republicans want to run the government like a business, but that should not mean bilking citizens out of their money. People who want an ID so they can vote aren’t customers, they’re citizens who want to exercise their rights.
wobbly
I remember a case during the Bush years of a VA hospital employee fired for distributing flyers (copied on her own time and at her own expense) to patients in the waiting room telling them of all the benefits they might be eligible for and how to do the paperwork involved.
This was against Bush’s VA policy. The VA then was primarily interested in cutting costs rather than serving the needs of military veterans, although it did find the money to hand out big bonuses to managers who cut costs by under serving our former heroes and heroines in uniform.
She took her case to court and won.
I hope this guy can do the same.
Honus
I just think it’s funny that republicans have a policy that keeps Government clerks from telling citizens that they don’t have to give their money to the government. And then they fire people that violate it. I’m sure Ronad Reagan would be proud.
VidaLoca
John,
A Wisconsin limited-term-employee has few courses of appeal within the system in cases like this — so if someone had been wanting to get rid of him they would have punted him out the door tout suite. Figuring out how would not have taken a great deal of ingenuity.
Was it stupid tactically to fire him, given the negative publicity it has caused? Certainly that’s the down side of it, but don’t forget that within at most a week everyone will be all up in arms about the next cause celebre; this will all too quickly drop down the memory hole for the majority of the public.
For the rest of the State employees who still have jobs, however, the lesson learned will be more sobering. This may be a poor way to deal with a current whistleblower but it’s an excellent disincentive for any future ones.
Jay in Oregon
@MC:
Crappy managers can go through good employees a lot faster than good managers seem to get rid of bad employees.
I was working in a sheet metal shop and I was asked to come in on a weekend. I did, and there were no jobs scheduled for me to do; the team lead told me to just take some that weren’t assigned to others. I did, I ran them, and went home.
The next Monday the manager brought me into his office. He asked me why I came in on Saturday, even though I wasn’t scheduled to come in. I told him that I was. He replied that there were no jobs assigned to me; I pointed out that it was a mixup and the team lead gave me work to do anyway; my signature was all over the paperwork for the jobs that I did, so it’s not like there was no proof for this.
Then, he tells me that some people reported that I was surfing the web on one of the machine shop’s computers instead of working! I was flummoxed — primarily because the only PC I touched that day was the controller for a laser-cutting device (with no internet access), but mostly because all of the desktop computers require a user login and as a machine shop tech, I didn’t have one.
I pointed this out, and he said “well, that’s what I was told”. I asked him if he had any evidence that I was using someone else’s login (which would have been grounds for termination). He reiterated that several people told him that I was surfing the web. “Even though it was impossible?” I said. He shrugged; apparently, “several” people telling them that I climbed up the walls and spun myself a cocoon to take a nap would have been all of the proof he needed.
I was fired a few weeks later for “too many accidents” even though everyone in the shop was making mistakes, including a skilled machine shop tech causing several thousand dollars’ worth of damage to a brand-new machine press. From what I hear, several others either quit or were let go shortly after. I don’t know what happened to that manager; I suspect he moved on to bigger and better things.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@japa21:
Yes.
SATSQ
AlphaLiberal
The Republicans are saying he had it coming because he violated work policy and used computers for political activities.
No, it’s not political. It’s American.
Did I mention Walker is under investigation for misusing Milwaukee County resources for political activities?
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/103836734.html
AlphaLiberal
@VidaLoca:
Well said. It’s a conditioned response favored by authoritarians throughout the world and history.
All the more reason for us to expose this now to condition the FitzWalkerite reponse.
AlphaLiberal
@Jay in Oregon:
Good God that sounds familiar. America has so many terribly lousy bad horrible managers who rely on rumors to make decisions and make decisions without hearing and employee’s side.
Fix our bad management and our GDP would skyrocket.
harlana
He’s on Sharpton’s show right now
AA+ Bonds
Pretty disgusting!
Omnes Omnibus
FWIW the WI DOT and the Government Accountability Board are working on coordinating a major effort to publicize the need to for ID and make people aware of their options. Print media, radio, and efforts are being prepared. I do not know the specific circumstances behind what happened to this guy, but I can say that there is no organized effort afoot to keep people from knowing about the new law, its consequences, or available services.
Triassic Sands
Supplying state residents with accurate information?
Since when has that been in the job description of a state government employee?
Firing isn’t good enough for this guy. He needs to do some hard time — maybe even send him to Pakistan for questioning.
If this guy isn’t dealt with severely, it won’t be long before some rogue state government employee encourages poor people to exercise their right to vote. And we all know where that would lead!
Dollared
@SteveinSC: Awesome legal interpretation, Steve in South Carolina. However, you are lost here. Wisconsin is a free state, not a slave state.
Dollared
John Cole, this post really pisses me off. First of all, if you had the minimal diligence to read TPM at least once daily, you’d know that the Wisconsin Voter ID situation is an attempt to implement a de facto poll tax by trying to trick people into thinking the voting ID costs $28. Somebody published a memo from a political appointee hack that prohibits employees from informing citizens of the law. This guy wrote an internal email urging state employees to be honest with citizens, and you think he must be asshole who should be fired anyway.
Second, you so fucking obviously live the life of somebody who doesn’t have to kiss up to a boss 60 hours a week, and so you seem just completely fucking oblivious to the power of intimidation in the workplace at a time when unemployment is 10%. That mismatch of power leads to all sorts of corruption and inefficiency, but that’s our current free market economy. But you don’t notice. That’s a guy who obviously deserves to be fired.
Go back to Twitter and keep up with your bread projects, John. We who don’t have time for lunch at work really like to read your posts and wonder what it would be like to live without a boss.
Dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: Except, of course that the guy in charge of the Driver’s License offices, where the people come to get their IDs, is mandating and organizing exactly what you say no one is doing.
Darkrose
@Jane2: It really depends on the government. In my semi-state job, the Acceptable Use Policy you have to agree to in order to get an email account states that “incidental personal use” of electronic resources is allowed.
What the person in question probably should have done instead of telling his co-workers, would be to tell it in a way that he’d qualify for whistleblower protection, if WI has such a thing.
sfrefugee
Note to team:
Publicizing the poll tax is anti-Walker and therefore ipso facto mocking.
Truth = anti-government propaganda.