After an exhausting three-week stalemate, Wisconsin Republicans maneuvered late Wednesday to curb collective bargaining for public-sector workers, passing an amended budget-repair bill by an 18–1 vote in the state senate. The surprise legislative gambit stunned labor activists, who have flocked to Madison in recent weeks, and stymied the 14 Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois on February 17 in protest of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal.
“The Senate Democrats have had three weeks to debate this bill and were offered repeated opportunities to come home, which they refused,” Walker said following the vote, which occurred on short notice in the early evening. He hailed the effort as a necessary step toward closing the state’s $3.6 billion budget deficit.
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Until Wednesday, the Democrats’ absence had denied Republicans a quorum on Walker’s plan, which also includes reforms of pension and health-care contributions for state workers. But after negotiations between senate leaders stalled, Walker, according to sources, urged senate Republicans to move forward Wednesday during a closed-door meeting. With little debate, Republicans agreed to repackage the bill into a non-appropriation measure, setting off a series of legislative procedures that pushed the revamped bill to the floor within hours.
State senator Alberta Darling, the Republican chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, tells National Review Online that she and her colleagues held their ground even as the roars under the rotunda grew louder by the hour. “Governor Walker told us that he had tried to negotiate, but Democrats refused. We had to get the job done.” By moving the collective-bargaining section of his budget bill “off of the table,” Darling says, Walker hoped to bring the Democrats home, as soon as possible, to address other pressing fiscal matters.
With his colleagues’ backing, senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, brought the bill into conference committee, where legislators pruned the plan’s fiscal elements during the late afternoon. Republicans kept the collective-bargaining provision as the bill’s keystone, but gutted language related to debt refinancing, for instance, therefore bypassing the state constitution’s quorum requirements for fiscal legislation.
In a bit of political theater, Rep. Peter Barca, the Democratic leader in the assembly, shouted at Fitzgerald as he initiated the mark-up, calling it a violation of the state’s open-meetings law. But the bill, to Barca’s vocal dismay, was stamped with the committee’s approval and hustled to the chamber. What remained, though similar to Walker’s original outline, required a simple majority. It easily passed at around 6 p.m., with one only one member of the 19-strong GOP caucus, moderate senator Dale Schultz, objecting.
Mayhem engulfed the state capitol following the vote. Thousands of protesters streamed into the four wings of the historic white-granite building, screaming at the GOP lawmakers, who were quickly escorted out by police. College students from the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus mingled with union leaders, teachers raised fists with progressive organizers. Cries of “Shame!” echoed throughout the marble halls.
"It's more important to do our jobs than keep our jobs" in the face of death threats, mob abuse and harassment. That sounds like a deserving chapter in Profiles in Courage.
This story underlines the fact that these unions are gangs and that the Democratic party, since at least 2004, has not stood so much for principle as for raw power. This is all about the force of will over reason to preserve an abusive and coercive power base.
Thank you, Jesus, the union goons are on the run! I understand that 2 or 3 of their senate stooges are vulnerable. Recalls for them? And, to NRO, have your "prove you're human" math question involve two-digit numbers as a Democrat filter.
I fail to see a problem here. The unions et al should relax and remember the advice of the minions of "The One". To wit, you have to pass it to see what's in it. Perhaps this isn't the end of the world.
The private citizens of the state of Wisconsin have been patiently waiting for the 14 Democratic Senators to come home and do their jobs. Oh sure, they state that they 'are' doing their jobs by staying away. Typical. Nowhere in private companies do workers get paid to stay away and do their jobs. It's a union mentality to think so. The unions and their highly-bribed Democratic Senators need to face the reality in the real world, you have to show up to your job to get work done. Don't show up, the job will get done without you.
The game is never over. The illuminating part of this has been the light shone on just how poorly most people are doing in the United States when it seems to many that government workers are so well rewarded. Since the days of Reagan, incomes for the majority have remained stagnant. We've turned into 2 earner households as a result. The only jobs program that has bipartisan support is the military, for which poor people volunteer. Have a nice day, retro thinkers.
Two thoughts: First: The Republicans have shown some moxie (finally); second: who is engaging in hate speech on this matter? Not the Republicans or those on the Right.
My guess is that Gov. Walker released copies of his emails to show that he attempted to engage in good-faith discussions with the Democratic opposition. When the Democrats once again showed their true colors, and it became apparent that their top priority was to stall, they handed the Republicans a much needed PR coup.
PS...I do have one tactical question/concern: Why didn't the legislature set up the process so that it could be completed in one day? Hopefully, none of the Republican legislators will be beaten, killed or kidnapped on their way to the capitol today.
The Right says union workers are overpaid. The real problem is that so many others are underpaid. No no, the Right answers . . . let the market decide wages. But the market for wages is dominated by three hundred million middle class Indians and Chinese who didn't exist in 1960, and have taken tens of millions of high-paying factory jobs from Americans, leaving Americans in a $11.75/hr world. And it's only going to get worse.
Education is not the answer to this. You can't educate a factory worker to be a doctor or a lawyer. You can only educate the bottom half of America, which by definition is of below-average intelligence, for $11.75/hr-type jobs. Look around -- that's what's happened.
There are two solutions to this. One is to accept the market results and live in an America where a small class of very affluent people is served by a vast army of low-paid service workers. The other is to redistribute wealth.
There are gargantuan problems associated with wealth distribution. I submit that these problems are manageable. I know that's anathema to conservatives, but the alternative is acceptance for our children of an America we didn't grow up in.
They did the right thing by not letting this drag on like the Democrats had hoped. Walker had everything to lose by looking weak. All these unions need is to be faced down, the rank and file would rather be home watching sit-coms than standing around a public building following some activist script anyways.
Again, like to celebrate, but I see a "small" strategic problem here.
If the bill had ANY financial/budget elements to it, then it violated the WI Senate rule on quorums being required....i.e. an opening for the Dems and unions to take it to court and overturn it. ((Admit ignorance on which Appeals Court that would end up in, but have a bad feeling it'd be a pretty liberal one))
If the bill didn't have any fiscal/budgetary elements in it (to avoid the quorum requirement), then it's going be a field day for the Left who will use that to say that Governor Walker was lying about it being a deficit issue and not "union-busting".
As I noted on another article, the word "Pyrrhic" unfortunately comes to mind on this.
The University of Wisconsin begins spring break tomorrow and is out all next week. Dorms will be closed. The campus will be quiet - thus fewer protesters and useful idiots available to the unions.
Oh dear, looks like the sore losers have come out of the woodwork today. Perhaps it's best to remember our president's words: "Elections have consequences."
The mindset of liberals is a truly fascinating thing. Conservatives are accused of "retro thinking" by people who desperately want to preserve a hopelessly antiquated compensation/spoils system that, just coincidentally, benefits Democratic politicians over 95% of the time.
Reality is staring you people in the face, front and center. Ours is a globalized economy, and there is no going back. The auto manufacturing industry of 50 years ago could get away with providing ever higher wages and benefits when there were only 3 domestic competitors and no foreign presence in the market. Today Toyota is the world leader and Detroit is in ruins, and their unskilled laborers still clamor for their pensions and benefits, while workers in non-union Hyundai plants in Alabama do quite nicely for themselves.
This is a market correction that has been a long time in coming. This is not the America you grew up in, because the free lunch is over, and it is past time to grow up and deal with it.
It has been the unionists and their fellow travellers who are making this a "life and death" moment.
In reality, the bill only affects public-sector unions and of those, I believe the police and fire-fighters unions are exempt (but I could be wrong, correct me if I am.) Also, it only removes benefits and work rules from collective bargaining. The public sector unions can only collectively bargain on wages. So, the hue and cry about people being forced to the ravishes of the free market and will be forced to work for minimum wage, etc...is hyperbole at best and outright distortion (fancy word for "lying") at worst.
Yes, I agree it is a big moment for state government and COULD be a bell weather. I HOPE it is. Personally, I have little use for unions.
The real benefits for public union workers center on empowering them more in their relationship to their union. They now have the right NOT to pay union dues. They do not have to just shell the money. This can be an effective way for them to vote displeasure at their unions actions. Union bosses will have to pay attention to the membership who can now vote with their dues.
THIS is the heart of the angst and horror of union leaders and hardcore unionists and other socialist. The ATM has been turned off and without the steady stream of revenue, union power is reigned in.
This, indeed, is a bright day. I hope these changes (and more) replicate through all the states but let's not celebrate this passage as more than it is which is simply "a start."
Your fundamental premise is false: In a free market, wealth isn't distributed, it is created. "Re-distribute" is a misnomer; you just want to distribute it in the first place.
"...an America where a small class of very affluent people is served by a vast army of low-paid service workers..." Isn't that what just changed last night in WI? Cheer up.
MikeB - I'm just curious. How much do you earn? Are you willing to give up at least half of it to someone who earns less? Why don't you write a check to your neighbor? Maybe he deserves to have it more than you.
The only reason jobs are leaving the country to China and India is the over regulation of every aspect of production. How many permits would a new factory have to get to open? How many environmental studies to make sure some obscure bug isn't being harmed have to be done? How many workplace rules, like the height of every desk relative to the keyboards, or how many minutes a worker can work before having a break? Do I want unsafe factories? Of course not. But we've gone way too far the other way.
Oh, and if you've never been to China or India let me tell you that most of the people still cook on open fires, have a well outside their homes, and have outhouses. And these are the folks that work in the factories, the rural farmers are even worse off. I have pictures taken by my husband if you'd like to see them. If that's the middle class, I don't want it.
Yesterday was a great day! First, NPR implodes under its own idiocy and then the Wisconsin Republicans show the world the moxy of those who want to save their state. Hey, union guys, what you want isn't as important as what the state of WI can afford to give you. And, WI taxpayers are tired of paying to elect Dems who continue to rob them blind.
It's about time this circus closed down.
Walker and fellow R's left this in the headlines for too long when the ability to end it was always there.
After the first week (if not sooner), media spin will ALWAYS shift, or at least report that, public opinion favors the Libs. Republicans (read: TParty) need to take that lesson to heart. Make your proposal, and do what you can to enact it ASAP - the Left isn't going to run to the Right regardless of how much time you give them to.
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