A Heroic Effort Falls Short

Well that didn't go well. In last night's recall elections in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker scored a pretty decisive win -- 52% went for Walker, while 46% went to challenger Tom Barrett. Democrats take the consolation prize of the state senate, with former state Sen. John Lehman eking out a win over incumbent Sen. Van Wanggaard. The days of Walker's rubber-stamp legislature are over, so not a total loss. At least, for now.

Looking at the results, it seems that the national polling was correct. Barrett's and Democrats' internals were not so correct. Milwaukee didn't turn out as much as had been hoped (but Dane County, you are awesome), so perhaps that was the problem there -- the projections were off.

So what happened? The Wisconsinites who did turn out simply had no taste for a recall.

Wisconsin State Journal:

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said the overriding message from Tuesday's election was that many Wisconsin voters are sick of the "recall madness," which has led to recall elections against 13 state senators, Walker and Kleefisch.

"People are tired of recalls, and they don't think a recall was justified," he said.

Exit polling (which, admittedly, was shown last night to be flawed) backs that up. 60% of voters polled believed that recalls "are legitimate only for official misconduct."

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Scott Walker's Alternate-Reality Version of Wisconsin

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker scheduled his annual State of the State address the night after President Obama delivered the State of the Union. It says a lot about how little press he hoped to get with his speech. He probably would've scheduled it for the same night, so it wouldn't have even been broadcast, but at a certain point the attempt to hide something becomes attention-worthy in itself, and I suppose that would've been a national news story. So the night after would have to do. In any case, the truth was not invited.

Wisconsin State Journal:

Facing a recall and speaking over a loud and angry crowd outside the Assembly chamber, an unbowed Gov. Scott Walker delivered a State of the State address Wednesday that touted the successes of a difficult year and promised better days ahead.

“During the past year, we added thousands of new jobs,” Walker said. “And we balanced the state budget. We balanced it without raising taxes, without massive layoffs and without budget tricks.”

How much of that is true? Well, pretty much none of it.

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Wisconsin Ruling Has a Partisan -- And Possibly Corrupt -- Odor

Something is not right here. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin threw out a lower court's ruling that, in passing Gov. Walker's union-buster, legislative Republicans had violated the state's open meetings law. In doing so, the court cleared the way for the law to take effect -- mere hours away from Republican's arbitrary and self-imposed deadline for passing it themselves.

The problem for Republicans: they didn't have the votes to pass the thing and everyone knew it. In other words, the conservative majority on the court swept in and saved the bill from dying. Something is not right here.

Let's start at the beginning. In March, Senate Republicans stripped a provision that would remove collective bargaining rights for most state employees from the state budget and passed it as a stand-alone bill. They did this because the state's rules require a quorum for passage of all bills that have a fiscal impact and Democrats had famously denied them that quorum by fleeing the state. In order to do this, they had to skirt open meetings laws. They also had to admit that removing collective bargaining was a policy issue with no fiscal impact. This admission was later confirmed by Gov. Walker himself, while testifying under oath in Washington. File this little tidbit away for later.

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Republicans and Homegrown Terrorism

This is terrorism, right?

Wisconsin State Journal:

A Marshfield man who drove to Madison to kill an abortion doctor faces federal charges after he was arrested Wednesday night when his gun went off in his motel room not far from the Planned Parenthood clinic that he planned to attack Thursday.

Ralph Lang, 63, told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun "to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies," according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Lang said he planned on shooting the clinic's doctor "right in the head," according to the complaint. Asked if he planned to shoot just the doctor or nurses, too, Lang replied he wished he "could line them up all in a row, get a machine gun, and mow them all down," the complaint said.

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Red State = Welfare Queen

Yesterday, the Wisconsin State Journal ran a piece comparing two states: Wisconsin and Missouri. For the most part, Missouri didn't come out well in the comparison. In only one category -- small business survival -- did Missouri surpass Wisconsin (at a glance graphic here). On that point, Missouri is 19th in the nation, while Wisconsin is 33rd. On everything else, Wisconsin won.

Why pick Missouri for comparison?

Wisconsin State Journal:

Missouri, perhaps more than any other Midwestern state, provides a long-term prototype of policies championed by Walker: a state government that's less lucrative for public workers but more friendly to businesses and tax-averse citizens. A look into Missouri's past could provide a glimpse into Wisconsin's future.

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A Last Chance to Vote?

I get to vote today. I don't really see it as a duty -- although I believe it is -- but as a privilege. I get to vote today.

I confess that I'm still torn on my choice for mayor here in Madison. Between Paul Soglin and Dave Cieslewicz, I'm having a hard time imagining myself disappointed with an outcome -- which may be bad news for incumbent Mayor Dave. The Capital Times endorses Soglin, Wisconsin State Journal endorses Cieslewicz. That alone may be enough to finally seal the deal for me -- when in doubt, go with TCT.

But you don't care about that. There's only one reason for anyone outside this state and this city to give a crap about this particular election -- the state Supreme Court race between JoAnne Kloppenburg and David Prosser. There's more than just Scott Walker's union-buster at stake here -- conservatives hold a one seat majority on the court -- but also the fact that you get to vote. Like the union-buster, a voter ID bill (still in the works at this point) is headed for the state's highest court. This is an absolute guarantee. In other words, if Wisconsinites don't vote in this election, they may find it harder to vote in the next.

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A Setback for the Walker Administration's Union-Busting

When Gov. Walker's union busting bill was passed by the state legislature and signed into law, there was only one thing standing in the way -- Secretary of State Doug La Follette. The law would need to be published by the office of Sec. La Follette and the Secretary decided he'd publish it at the latest date allowable by law, which was ten days after signing.

This was, apparently, nothing new. "I'm doing what I normally do," he explained to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which was publish the law at the latest possible date, in order for opponents to have a chance to file legal challenges. La Follette estimated at the time that this was the case with 96% of the bills that come through his office. If it's not an emergency, it cools off for a bit.

It turned out to be a good practice today, as a judge put a halt to implementation of the law:

Wisconsin State Journal:

A Dane County judge Friday issued a temporary order blocking implementation of Gov. Scott Walker's controversial measure limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees, saying a legislative committee likely violated the state Open Meetings Law when it rushed passage of the bill March 9.

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Sire, The Peasants are Revolting!

I've been writing almost exclusively about Wisconsin on this blog and I realize that this is a switch from the national perspective I usually take. But I think I can justify it in a few ways: one, I'm in Madison and there's pretty much just one story here and two, Wisconsin is a warning to the country on the dangers of naked Republicanism. There's more here than just a desire to bust unions. That's just part of it. What's really going on is an attempt to move the tax burden off the wealthy and on to everyone else.

Wisconsin State Journal:

Low-income taxpayers in Wisconsin would lose hundreds of dollars in tax credits a year under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget — at the same time the governor wants tax cuts for businesses and investors to boost jobs.

Walker proposes cutting about $16 million a year from the program, which in 2009 paid 273,939 low-income Wisconsin residents a total of $133 million.

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I'm Sticking With the Union

This is the extent of my morning post today. I'm hitting the streets with a few thousand of my fellow Wisconsinites.

WISC-TV, Madison:

Public and private sector union leaders in Wisconsin are coming together to oppose Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to take away collective bargaining rights for nearly all public employees in the state and force them to pay more for their pensions and health insurance.

Union leaders at a news conference on Monday said ending collective bargaining will weaken the middle class in Wisconsin. They are urging Walker to instead resume negotiations with the unions. Thousands of union members were expected to converge on the Capitol on Tuesday for a hearing.

Wisconsin State Journal:

"It is very possible that if the vote goes against public employees, we will witness something that hasn't happened since the 70s: massive strikes," [Mike Sacco, president of the WLEA local that represents UW and Capitol cops] writes. "This may be the only way to fight this 'wartime' mentality of the state. Only with mass unity of the teachers and all other public employees will we be able to beat back this aggression by the governor's office."

While I'm not a public employee, this just plain ain't right. These are good people and good workers. They've been loyal employees and when their employer treats them like crap, someone has to stand up for them. Especially in this case, where the people of Wisconsin are the employer.

Scott Walker may think it's fun to be a lousy, tyrannical boss. But I don't. I'm going out to stand with my employees.

-Wisco


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No, the Government Doesn't "Just Print Money"

It's not often that I blog about a letter to the editor in my local paper. Generally, one person's misinformed opinion isn't worth worrying about. But sometimes, the opinion expressed is so wrong, yet so widespread, that it must be addressed. I'll quote the whole thing here, so you can get the full impact.

Wisconsin State Journal:

It amazes me how supposedly intelligent folks can claim that the stimulus, bailout, bribery money is an actual benefit to those receiving it. You read about brain drain out of Wisconsin when it comes to jobs, but what about brain drain when it comes to intellect?

It's not hard to understand the simple concept of currency value. Print more money and the existing money becomes worth less. Print even more and it continues to drop. At some point it will become worthless. Read about Germany's Weimar government of the 1920s to get a glimpse of what it could be like here.

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