GOP aide leaves job after Twitter flap about Kaepernick

MADISON - A legislative aide left his Capitol job this week after his boss expressed anger over him using her Twitter account to criticize Colin Kaepernick during a tense floor debate about Black History Month.

As lawmakers argued about whether to recognize the National Football League quarterback on Tuesday, Rep. Barbara Dittrich’s Twitter account weighed in on the issue.

“Colin Kapernick wore socks depicting police as pigs. Flags are flying at half-staff for a murdered policeman. Are you kidding me ???? ” her account tweeted.

The tweet, which misspelled Kaepernick’s name and referred to the recent shooting of Milwaukee Police Officer Matthew Rittner, was soon deleted.

Afterward, Dittrich disavowed the tweet and said she had not posted it or authorized it. Dittrich, an Oconomowoc Republican, said her aide, Keith Best, had access to her account and she would discipline him if she determined he had posted the tweet.

He retired on Wednesday, according to Kit Beyer, a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester.

“Keith Best is no longer an employee of the state Assembly,” Beyer said by email. “He elected to retire following the representative’s concerns over his unauthorized tweet.”

Best was paid $52,000 a year before he relinquished his job. He had worked for the Assembly for four years, according to Assembly Chief Clerk Patrick Fuller.

Best did not immediately return a call Thursday.

The episode unfolded amid a broader fight over Black History Month that consumed the Wisconsin Legislature and attracted national attention.

White Republicans refused to take up a resolution written by black Democrats that honored numerous black Americans, including Kaepernick, who was born in Milwaukee and has drawn controversy for kneeling during the national anthem to protest what he views as racial injustice.

Republicans dropped his name from the resolution. The Assembly passed the measure unanimously, but many Democrats afterward registered their opposition to it.

Senators passed the resolution on party lines, with all Democrats opposed because Kaepernick’s name was stripped from it.

Not the first Twitter incident

Best has gotten attention before for his use of Twitter.

In July, Best used the Twitter account of then-Rep. Tom Weatherston, R-Caledonia, to respond to a tweet from Democratic Sen. Lena Taylor of Milwaukee that argued voter suppression was overlooked.

“Those claiming that minorities are not smart enough to follow voting rules with a Photo ID are the true racists,” read the tweet from Weatherston’s account.

Weatherston later called the tweet racist and said Best had told him he had posted it “by mistake.”

In 2016, Best was a spokesman for the Waukesha County Republican Party when it tweeted that then-U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Janesville had “played into Democrats’ hands” by uninviting Donald Trump to a Wisconsin event that was taking place just after the release of the “Access Hollywood” video that featured Trump talking about assaulting women.