Why didn’t State Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) support cutting the legislative sick pay benefit back in 2003 when State Assembly Representative Sheldon Wasserman (D-Milwaukee) drafted the bill to do just that?

Darling is now trying to claim leadership on the issue but that claim doesn’t exactly hold water. It would have been easy for Darling to get a sick leave bill through in 2003 since Senator Darling is a Republican, the State Senate was held by the Republicans, the State Assembly was held by Republicans, and the Governor was a Republican. That’s a legislative trifecta and it would have assured that, had the GOP been sincere about cutting the legislative sick pay benefit, they could have done it without a single democratic vote.

But that didn’t happen.

Senator Darling remained silent on the issue as did several of her legislative cronies. Back then Darling and the rest of her Republican pals knew they were buttering each others bread and they weren’t going to give it up.

But this story is laced with irony.

Last fall, three Republican Senators were ousted from their seats and one gave up the seat willingly. All four State Senate seats were captured by democrats, stripping the GOP of their majority status in that house. John Lehman (D-Racine), Jim Sullivan (D-Wauwatosa), Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) and Kathleen Vinehout (D-Eau Claire) were the four democrats who captured those seats and it’s no small irony that it is those four who have authored the Senate bill to strip legislators of the sick leave benefit.

Whether her efforts are an attempt at revisionist history, covering her own wayward tracks or just playing catch up, Darling is misleading her constituents by claiming she’s a leader on the issue. Her district newsletter even boasts an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in which Darling plans to voluntarily give up the sick leave benefit.

One would think that, if Alberta was sincere in her late night conversion on the issue that she would focus on legislative sick pay. Instead, she has chosen to muddy the waters by talking about stripping the benefit from other public employees — an addition that would make her version unlikely to pass.

Wasserman, who is expected to challenge Darling for her senate seat in 2008, has got to be wondering which one of his ideas she’ll steal next.