In Green Bay, you can bug city hall and still be elected mayor.
Such is the case of Mayor Eric Genrich, a highly partisan Democrat who won a second term in Tuesday’s spring elections despite facing a lawsuit over his involvement in the secret installation of audio recording devices in city hall — among other political controversies.
Genrich beat back a challenge from Chad Weininger, director of Brown County’s Department of Administration, in Tuesday’s spring election.
The incumbent acknowledged the race was “grueling,” telling SpectrumNews1 it was a “real serious fight.”
The challenging race, it would appear, had much to do with the fact the controversial mayor has been involved in so many scandals over his first term, not the least of which is the secret audio recordings of citizens.
As The Wisconsin Daily Star first reported, Green Bay city officials installed at least three audio recording devices in City Hall — without notifying the City Council or the public.
Records obtained by The Daily Star show the audio equipment was put in place last year — two devices on the second floor outside the council chamber and the mayor’s office and one on the first floor outside the clerk’s office.
Earlier this year, a Brown County judge issued a temporary injunction demanding the city shut down the bugs while a lawsuit proceeds.
The lawsuit alleges the installation of secret recording devices installed at city hall is a violation of the Wisconsin Electronic Surveillance Control Law.
Plaintiffs include Green Bay-area State Senator Andre Jacque (R-De Pere), former city council member Anthony Theisen, and an anonymous female complainant. They claim to be among the many who have had private conversations in the hallways of city hall “since the mayor secretly installed these audio surveillance devices,” the lawsuit states.
Genrich and the city’s legal department have defended the use of the listening devices, asserting they were installed after city staff was involved in threatening interactions with citizens. They claim use of the monitoring equipment is legal because they are located in public spaces.
Green Bay City Council members overwhelmingly voted to ban audio recording devices in city hall. Alderman Chris Wery led the effort to check the audio surveillance effort.
“Since when is a conversation in a hallway between two people, without anyone in sight, considered open to spying and taping by the government? Never!” Wery wrote on his Facebook page. “What a great way to bully the public into obedience and fear of their own word perhaps misspoken or out of context now ripe for search and replay. Our city hall shall not become a place of darting eyes and hushed tones for fear of Big Brother.”
Genrich also is accused of violating state campaign ethics laws, facing a complaint alleging he used his office to send out campaign materials to hundreds of residents.
And then there’s the matter of Genrich’s role in the Zuckerbucks election administration funding scandal of 2020.
But a majority of Green Bay voters apparently brushed all of the controversy aside, giving the liberal mayor a re-election win by more than 1,500 votes.
Jacque said the election results are “disturbing.”
“What we’re seen is that the Democratic Party and liberal candidates have thrown away any last vestige of pretending to be pursuing anything other than a partisan ideological agenda in these local offices,” the senator said. “Frankly, these are things that would have been beyond the pale to consider before.”
Genrich did what Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz did in her successful campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court: he made the local election about abortion.
His liberal friends, including newly appointed Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, held a made-for-TV press conference a couple of weeks before the election to trumpet the mayor’s support of the “importance of reproductive health care in the state.”
“It’s a huge community issue, something that is a point of discussion every day across this city, state and country. In my opinion, it’s very vital for voters in this city to have an understanding of what my values are and what my opponent’s are,” Genrich said in a story by Green Bay’s WBAY-TV.
The reporter noted would should be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of the division of powers , that “mayors don’t have a say in state and federal” law-making. But that fact made little difference in the Democratic Party’s use of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as a political cudgel in the spring elections.
It was a successful weapon. Liberal Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court campaigning as a protector of abortion. While her telegraphing of how she will decide cases presents some significant ethical questions, as the late U.S. Senator Harry Reid (R-Nevada) infamously said after falsely accusing then-republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of not paying taxes for a decade, “[Our opponent] didn’t win, did he?”
“What does that say? That these voters are more concerned about abortion than their country,” said Matt Roeser, a Green Bay resident, Republican, and ardent critic of the mayor and his administration. “Green Bay apparently did not care about our mayor being hyper-partisan, that a large portion of his funding came directly from the Democratic Party. We’ve come to a point where we are more worried about our party and certain issues than the country, and that is really concerning.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin dropped at least $60,000 on Genrich’s re-election campaign, according to the latest campaign finance filings. He took in a total of $216, 713, outraising his opponent by nearly $150,000.
Genrich has not returned several calls from The Daily Star.
He told Spectrum News1 after his re-election victory that the city has “a lot to do” under his leadership.
“We’ve done things a bit differently as well. We’ve welcomed some new people into the process. We’ve put a focus on resiliency and fighting climate change and opening up city government and leaning into democracy,” Genrich said. “I’m really proud of that stuff, but we have a lot to do.”
Roeser said he fears the victory will only embolden Genrich to press for more authoritarian power in pursuit of his leftist agenda.
“I think he is working on his resume for a higher office. I think he’s got one more term to get through the presidential election. Then he will be looking for his reward by the Democrat Party to elevate him,” the conservative said.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Eric Genrich” by Mayor of Green Bay. Background Photo “Brown County Court House” by DavidFarmbrough. CC BY-SA 3.0.
