Walker Describes Separate Phones For Different Roles As Governor, Politician

Democrats are raising questions about Gov. Scott Walker’s system of using two phones that the governor said keeps state business separate from his political work.

With the release of 28,000 pages of e-mails dating back to Walker’s 2010 campaign for governor come questions about how the governor is currently communicating with his state and political teams. The governor said he has two phones: one state-owned and one that he owns.

“If I get someone who sends me something and if it in any way involves state business, I forward it to the state account and from that point forward use my state account to make sure that it’s distinguished between the two,” Walker said. “The reason I have a personal one, though, is that if someone sends me something political, I don’t want it on a government device. You can see it’s difficult.

“You can’t win either way. That’s why I have two separate ones. So, that one’s clearly for state business, one’s clearly for personal business,” he said.

State Democratic Party spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said Walker using two phones now raises questions about what he did when he was Milwaukee county executive and running for governor.

“I think what we saw in the documents that came out was that, that’s not how they were doing business when he was in Milwaukee County, and we don’t know if that’s how he was doing business in the state up until now, but it seems like an admission that he knew the way things were being handled in Milwaukee County … that it was wrong,” Baldauff said, “and I think that just underscores the need for Scott Walker to answer questions.”

Baldauff also said the public deserves to know whether the governor’s staff is currently using private email accounts to conduct politically sensitive state business.

Walker spokesman Tom Evenson won’t say.