Complaint is Filed Aginst Randy Hopper for Campaigning with the Taxpayers Resources

A copy of the complaint is here.

The Journal has an overview here.

The FdL Reporter has a story here.

It is funny how the story out of the Hopper camp keeps changing. Here is the direct quote from the WIEYE interview:

"I came to Madison to meet with John to talk about my potential for running. We went to lunch and then we went back to his office and shut his door so we could talk about what I needed to do in the campaign."

In the Reporter, he claimed:

"We stopped in his office — I don't remember, I think I left my coat in his office or I dropped my books off. We didn't discuss specifics of a campaign. In fact, I don't even live in his (Townsend's district), so it's irrelevant," Hopper said.

The WI GOP claims:

Keith Gilkes, director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, said Hopper and Townsend talked over lunch outside of the Capitol. They returned to look at Townsend's office but never discussed the campaign there because as soon as they arrived Hopper looked at a map of the district on the wall and discovered he didn't live in the district, Gilkes said.

In the WI EYE interview, Randy Hopper did say he looked at a map in Townsend's office.

This would mean that, unlike in Hopper's statement to the FdL reporter, they did discuss politics in his office.

Also, even if they looked at the map after they "shut his door so we could talk about what I needed to do in the campaign" and decided he was not in Townsend's district, they still discussed politics enough to get there, behind the closed door.

They are also admitting that whether they discussed campaign strategy or not, they were planning on it, right up until they saw the map.

Parse their words all they want, they broke the Assembly's rules, and perhaps the law.