On Thursday I posted a letter state Rep. Peter Barca (D–Kenosha) sent to Dodgeville Mayor Todd Novak about state Rep. Todd Novak (R–Dodgeville).

Mayor Novak and Rep. Novak are the same person, which amused Novak, Novak and myself.

But there may be more to this story. Media Trackers reports:

The top Democrat in the Wisconsin Assembly is using his legislative office and taxpayer funds for political campaign work. Rep. Peter Barca, a former Democratic Congressman who represents Kenosha, has twice used his office in recent weeks to carry out political work better suited for the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, a political arm of the Democratic Party controlled by Barca and dedicated to attacking Republican candidates and electing Democrats to the Assembly.

On Wednesday, state Rep. Todd Novak, a first-term Republican lawmaker, shared on his Facebook page that he received a letter from Rep. Barca urging the recipient – in this case himself – to contact Rep. Novak and urge him to stop supporting legislation that undermines local control. The letter was aimed at local officials, and Novak also serves as mayor of the City of Dodgeville.

After outlining Republican legislation he disagrees with, Barca wrote:

“If you are concerned about the potential negative effects of these proposals or others, I strongly urge you to contact your state legislator, Representative Todd Novak. Let’s work together to preserve local control and stop the Republican state legislature from impairing your ability to serve your communities now and in the future.”

Barca went on to write, “For your convenience, I have provided contact information for Representative Novak below” before listing Novak’s official e-mail address and state Capitol office phone numbers.

The Assembly’s top Democrat closed his letter by pledging to keep the recipient updated on future Republican proposals claiming, “It is disturbing that Republican legislators continue to publicly claim that they support local control when in Madison they vote to continue to pass measures to take away local control.”

A postscript warned, “Republicans intend to eliminate local control in at least 15 additional ways” during the final days of the now-concluded Assembly floor session.

Novak told Media Trackers that he’s not aware of anyone else in his district who received the letter, and his office hasn’t received any contacts as a result of the letter.

But the letter raises questions about Barca’s integrity as he uses his taxpayer-funded office to create and mail overtly partisan letters on official state letterhead to be sent not to his own district, but to a competitive district across the state from his own and held by a Republican. …

On February 19, Barca and Assistant Minority Leader Katrina Shankland (D) issued a joint press release savaging GOP state Rep. Scott Krug for voting in favor of an amendment to a bill before voting against the measure on the Assembly floor. The bill dealt with water rights and high volume users of water.

“In a desperate attempt to protect himself and save face in an election year, he is willing to intentionally mislead our Central Sands community,” Shankland wrote in the release, which carried her name and Rep. Barca’s name on the official letterhead. “It’s cynical and manipulative politics that he believes will fool people and protect his seat while selling out his constituents’ water interests,” she asserted. …

Barca, Shankland and other Assembly Democrats have repeatedly complained about the confluence of politics and official legislative business this session, but with these moves the top two Assembly Democrats are using taxpayer-funded offices to conduct overtly political attacks on Republicans they hope to take out in November.

State law prohibits elected officials from using taxpayer resources for political campaign efforts.

Media in my area have been getting these emails for months, and probably longer than that, from Barca and his Dumocrat apparatchiks. The sender address is rep.barca@legis.wisconsin.gov, which is, yes, an email address your tax dollars are paying for.

Media Trackers’ last sentence applies to the headline. “Chuck” refers to former state Sen. Chuck Chvala (D–Madison), who along with Sen. Brian Burke (D–Milwaukee) and former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R–Waukesha) did prison time for violating that law in the 1990s caucus scandal.