There may be many adjectives to describe the 14 union-loving Wisconsin Democrats who hot dogged it to Illinois in order to prevent a quorum on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill. There is only one, truly accurate descriptor though: Elusive.
When they crossed over to a state without an extradition treaty in place, the Elusive 14 first crashed the world-famous Chocoholic Frolic (“Rockford’s Sweetest Night of The Year”) at the Clock Tower Resort. However, it seems the bell really was tolling for thee once reporters got word of their location, and thus, these Democrats scattered clandestinely throughout the state. Sort of.
The Elusive 14 were just good enough at hiding to give the occasional interview from an “undisclosed location.”
The Daily Caller has been hound-dogging the Democrats for two days now, relying on the efforts of part-time Tea Party activists and full-time, pissed-off Illinoisans. From Rockford, it was rumored that the Elusive 14 sought sanctuary on Northern Illinois University’s liberal campus. Word had it, some may have gone to Galena. Winnebago was mentioned — the town, not an RV. Chicago is supposedly lovely this time of year, went another whispered clue. No tip could confirm how many of the Democrats were huddled in one place.
Needless to say, the exercise has been an annoyance. In hopes of expediting the entire investigative process, TheDC reached out to some private investigators in Illinois.
Contacted was a representative from one of the largest private detective agencies in the U.S. with more than 64 offices and 500 investigators. They have a Spanish-language option. They are also “The Next Best Thing To Having The Answer.”
After waiting for “the next available investigator” for less than a minute, TheDC spoke with an unassumingly nice PI on the phone.
The Daily Caller: I was trying to look into getting a private detective to find some folks.
PI: Oh-kay. Who were you looking for?
I’m looking for 14 people from Wisconsin. Senators actually. They left and went to Illinois to hide until the state governor decides to talk with them. I’m having trouble finding them by myself.
Ok. So when did they leave to hide?
Thursday.
So they left because of a political situation?
Yeah. Without those 14, the Senate can’t vote. It’s a political crisis, really.
Oh-kay. And you wanted to find them … to talk to them?
Sure, why not?
I just want to locate them. They’ve talked to a couple journalists but no one really knows where they might actually be. They might be all over Illinois. I’ve had a few leads, but no definitive answer as to where they might be … to just, you know, talk to them.
Oh-kay. Um, you know, it’s really kind of a tough situation. You think they all left to go to Illinois?
Definitely. I think.
Are you trying to locate all 14 people? Is locating any one of them good?
Yes. Obviously, the more I locate, the merrier. But if one were to be located then yeah, obviously, he’ll do fine, too.
I mean if I was going to try and locate 14 people, then what I would want to start out with is name, address, date-of-birth, cellphone information. Stuff like that. And I would just go one at a time. But obviously, these guys are in hiding. They’re trying to avoid being found.
Right. But they’re public figures, so that info shouldn’t be that hard to find.
So you don’t have their basic info, either?
No. But I have high hopes. And Wikipedia.
So that’s what I would do. But you know if this is a political situation where they’re trying to hide, it could be a very difficult task. I want you to know this right off the bat.
They have family in Illinois?
I’m not entirely sure. I had an intern do most of the hard work. He said one of them did. Then again, that’s according to the intern. I don’t normally trust anyone who does something for free.
Are they all together?
My suspicion is that they’re not all together, otherwise you’d think they’d be easier to find. I’ve heard rumors that they’re in three or four locations.
Oh-kay. Did you want us to check out those locations?
Yeah! That’d be great!
Are these locations in Chicago.
These locations are … no. They’re just podunk towns near the Wisconsin boarder.
Oh-kay. So you want us to send an investigator to these places? You have exact address to check out?
No. And again, these are just rumors of where they might be. So hotels, I guess. Cheap ones.
Oh-kay. So, you’re kinda looking for 14 people.
Normally, under normal circumstances if we’re trying to look for one person, we would charge $350 for a minimum four-hour investigation.
Oh, Wow! That’s uh, let’s do that math on that real quick [delay, muttering]. So we’re looking at about $4,900 for 14 people for four hours?
And you know, in this situation, you’re not trying to hunt somebody down who has moved from one location to another. You’re trying to find somebody who is temporarily staying somewhere?
That’s correct.
So that makes it very difficult. And I’ll tell ya, we could engage in this investigation and when we’re done, we may not have success because of the fact that they’re staying temporarily.
Yeah, sure. It’s just sort of a time-crunch thing on my end.
So, before tomorrow?
Before they go back, which is at an indefinite time. So the clock’s always ticking, if you catch my drift.
Oh-kay. I guess what I would say we could start out with some kind of budgeted amount. We charge $75 an hour plus expenses if we’re traveling.
So we could start out with like a $2,000 amount and see what we could do over that allotted amount of time.
Great. How many people could you send out to, uh, detect?
Well, I mean, we could send out 14 people if you wanted us to send out 14 people. Of course, that’s a lot more. Normally when we do an investigations for $349 that’s an inside investigation. And really, all these local cases are usually an inside investigation.
But if you’re trying to track down a specific address, then you’re talking about having an investigator go out, physically go out and search that address then he’s on the clock.
That is time consuming and costs a lot more money. But it’s not a problem dispatching the people.
Really, it depends on how you want to handle it.
Is there anyway I could get a discount on this? Like “hunt 13 get the 14th free”?
We can do that. We could do that.
You know, in this case, just so you know, you’re talking about 14 senators and none of them are home and they’ve all gone off to lie temporarily. … It’s just a very difficult thing and there’s just not a lot of room for margin and I’ve already given you a pretty good price for 13 or 14 people.
Well, have ya’ll tried to do something like this before?
Well, I’ve never had a request where we’re trying to find senators that are hiding from a vote, no, to be perfectly honest.
But we you know we normally try to locate spouses that are hiding form their wives. Individuals that are hiding from debt. So we’ve had a lot of experience trying to locate people.
Right. Well, I guess this technically qualifies as a little bit of both. The senators are part of the Wisconsin family and they’re voting on a budget bill. The state is in debt. So I guess that counts?
Sure.
Ok. I appreciate it. I’ll talk to the higher-ups and we’ll go from there.
Sure.
Email Jeff Winkler and follow him on Twitter