Packers-backing senator tweets Roger Goodell's phone number over "Monday Night Football" call

Officials signal a touchdown by Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate, obscured, on the last play of an NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Sept. 24, 2012, in Seattle. The Seahawks won 14-12. / AP Photo

Updated at 1:51 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - One politician let his feelings be known after the wild ending of the Seattle Seahawks' 14-12 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Monday night.

Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach tweeted two different public phone numbers for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and urged people to call and voice their displeasure after the replacement officials mishandled the final play of the game.

Seattle's Golden Tate pushed one Green Bay defender out of the way then wrestled another for the ball and was awarded a disputed touchdown on the final play.

"I could never ref an NFL football game, ever," Erpenbach said. "The replacement refs are doing the best they can do out there, but the commissioner doesn't want this to sink to a World Wrestling Federation-type event on Sunday. They have to do something. It calls into question the integrity of the game."

As CBSSports.com reports, the NFL's rules (PDF) appear to side with the Packers:

"If a pass is caught simultaneously by two eligible opponents, and both players retain it, the ball belongs to the passers. It is not a simultaneous catch if a player gains control first and an opponent subsequently gains joint control. If the ball is muffed after simultaneous touching by two such players, all the players of the passing team become eligible to catch the loose ball."

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NFL: Week 3

Erpenbach said in a separate tweet that if Monday night's ending did not spark an end to the lockout of the regular officials "this season will be a joke."

The NFL locked out the officials in June after their contract expired. The league has been using replacement officials, and through three weeks of the regular season there has been much criticism over the way some games are being handled.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who made a national name for himself by going after public employee unions last year, also posted a message on Twitter calling for the return of the locked-out officials, who are unionized.

Walker's spokesman Cullen Werwie tried to spin the governor's post on Tuesday, saying it wasn't meant as a pro-union political statement.

60 Minutes profiled NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in January (left).

Walker's tweet was being widely mocked on Twitter in light of his push last year that effectively ended collective bargaining for teachers, nurses and most other public workers.

"I don't think this anything to do with unions, but has everything to do with refs making bad calls," Werwie said.

Erpenbach, who was one of 14 Democrats who fled to Illinois for three weeks last year in opposition to Walker's union proposal, said he saw the irony in Walker's post but in Wisconsin "we're all fans, first and foremost."

"If you were born and raised in Wisconsin, you were raised on the Packers," Erpenbach said. "Every Sunday it's Packers and pancakes, not necessarily in that order."

While Erpenbach himself plans to leave a message for Goodell urging an end to the referee labor dispute, he won't be advising the Packers to employ the same tactics he and the other Democratic senators did last year.

"I would not recommend the Packers get on a bus and leave the state," he said.

[Cigar_Smoker]

It's not the Commissioner that's the problem, it's his bosses. The team Owners and their "let them eat cake" attitude is the issue here.

[pjk12354]

When the NFL gets real game officials and a real commissioner they will again have a real game........then I will decide if I again want to start watching them again.

[mikeinwisconsin]

You can see stuff happening now that you would not see before, refs being grabbed by coaches, if the guys running the show from the replay booth couldn't fix this, nothing can. It'll be WWF..........so what's the new script for this week?

[thinkaboutit13]

Ok, the game HAS NOT been ruined. No more so than when Barry Bonds lied to congress about the juice. No more so than the NFL lockout last year. No more so than the NFL Players strike that affected not only an entire season, but probably who played in the Superbowl. No more so than the NBA lockout, the teacher's strike in Chicago and on and on and on. Look, as long as there are unions, there will be strikes. Some of them we will stand behind and support their "noble cause", while others we will whine, cry foul, complain to the lawmakers (who complain the loudest and apparently act the most immature) when a union's action affects the stuff WE hold dear, and support or enjoy. This will not bring about the end of the free world as we know it. As far as I know, the players get paid win, lose or draw. Sure there's an element of pride, but no one died as a result of poor performance in the course of their duties. For things like that, we elect a president. The gambling element? Get over it. I lost money on it too.

[rightofwrong]

Please see film of Super Bowl XL for truly terrible officiating. They were the "real" referees.

[tcato-2009]

It's just a GAME people. Bad calls are made all the time in every sport. Seattle got a bad pass interference call when the packer drove for a TD. Seattle won better luck next time packers. .... in the 8th grade my BB team was robbed of a championship :)

[teflondonn]

Yes, very curious about Paul Ryan. I wonder if he's come down on the employee side of any other labor dispute. I guess when it comes to a game it's a different story.

[freeamerica31]

People need to get over it.

Even when we had the Union Referees good and bad calls were made on both sides of the ball (definitely less than now) but we always say a good team overcomes the calls and in my opinion the Packers didn't do the job last night. The Packers didn't have to make it that close and people are underestimating the Seahawks. Seahawks may not be as talented but their working as a team and not giving up regardless which big boy their playing.

[bonzothemonkey]

It's one thing for Jon Erpenbach, a Wisconsin Democrat, to be upset over the terrible mistake made at the end of the Seahawks/Greenbay game; it's something else for some one like Paul "Lyin" Ryan, a tea bag Republican to chime in.
Tea Baggers all have an unequivocal hatred for union activity. The fact that this foul up wouldn't have occurred except for the owners' determination to save a few pennies on Referee's salaries and at the same time do what all these rich owners (not only of football teams but every other big business owner does) which is to break the unions at every opportunity makes Ryan's comments especially nauseous. Yes, the Packer's owners spun the dice and lost but as long as they hang onto this issue of union breaking whatever it costs them out of their pockets is not nearly enough!

[Rafterman11]

To be fair, both should keep their mouths shut and let the NFL and player's union settle it. I don't want to hear what politicians from either side have to say about this.

[nomorelibs]

Get a clue. It's about public sector unions, not all unions.