In Wisconsin
Battle on Unions, State Democrats See a Gift
Published: March 10, 2011 - New York Times
MADISON, Wis. — After nearly a month of angry demonstrations and procedural
maneuvering in the State Capitol here, Gov. Scott
Walker won his battle on Thursday to cut bargaining rights for most
government workers in Wisconsin.
But his victory, after the State Assembly passed the bill, also carries risks
for the state’s Republicans who swept into power last November.
Democratic-leaning voters appeared energized by the battle over collective
bargaining on a national stage. The fight has already spurred a list of
potential recall elections for state lawmakers this spring. Protesters are
planning more large demonstrations this weekend.
“From a policy perspective, this is terrible,” said Mike Tate, the leader of
the Democratic
Party of Wisconsin.
“But from a political perspective, he could not have handed us a bigger
gift,” Mr. Tate said of the governor.
In the last 24 hours, he added, the state party had received $360,000 in
contributions and volunteers have streamed into offices where signatures were
being collected for recall bids.
The Republican-dominated Assembly voted mainly along party lines, 53 to 42 in
favor of the bill, during a tense and bitter proceeding punctuated by shouts of
“No!” from angry lawmakers, cries of “Shame, shame!” from protesters in the
gallery, and chants from thousands outside the locked-down chamber.
The vote had been delayed after law enforcement completely closed the Capitol
for a time, when protesters filled a section near the Assembly hall and refused
to leave. Some demonstrators were carried out.
Some lawmakers were locked out, and the police ignored their pleas to let
them in so they could vote. They resorted to climbing in through first-floor
windows.
The tenor of the debate took an angrier edge this week because of the
legislative brinkmanship that helped get the bill passed.
Republicans complained that Senate Democrats had brought state business to a
halt for nearly three weeks by fleeing the state and preventing a quorum.
The Democrats fumed that the Republicans had ended the episode in less than a
day, with the Democrats still out of town, by forcing a rewritten bill that
needed no quorum through the Senate on Wednesday night and the Assembly on
Thursday. Though the outcome of the vote was all but certain, each side made its
case one more time in the final hours of debate.
On the floor of the Assembly, Jeff Fitzgerald, the Republican speaker, said
the state’s finances were on a “crash course” if collective bargaining remained
the status quo. “We ran on this,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “We were going to get the
fiscal place in order. This is the first piece of the puzzle. We’re broke.”
Democrats, who noted that public-sector union leaders had already agreed to
pay more for their pensions and health care costs, argued that slashing
collective bargaining rights was no budget-saving measure, but a way to break
unions in a state with deep labor roots.
Peter Barca, the Democrats’ Assembly leader, railed against the Republicans’
tactics. “Our democracy is out of control in Wisconsin,” Mr. Barca said. “And
you all know it — you can feel it.”
Political analysts said they would watch for the fallout of the Wisconsin
vote, and whether it would affect similar battles now playing out over
collective bargaining issues in statehouses elsewhere, including Ohio, Michigan,
Iowa and Indiana.
Republicans here, including Governor Walker, contend that Wisconsin residents
were seeking change in the election last fall — when the state made one of the
starkest flips in the nation from blue to red — and that this was just the sort
of bold move they would ultimately embrace.
Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the state Republican
Party, said he felt Democrats had been particularly loud in their protests
to send a warning shot to the other states considering such measures.
But Democrats say the collective bargaining fight may lead to a political
shakeup in the Capitol, where more than a dozen senators, Republicans and
Democrats, are now the subjects of heated recall efforts. That in turn could
shift political equations, since Wisconsin has long been a presidential
battleground, for the 2012 election.
“The voters absolutely sent a message that they wanted fiscal conservatism,”
said Michael B. Wittenwyler, a lawyer who once served as a campaign strategist
for Democrats like Russ
Feingold, the senator who lost his seat last fall. “Now they learned what
that really means and I think they’re saying, ‘Hmmm, maybe that’s not what we
really want.’ ”
Others, though, wondered whether the protests might fade.
“If things go back to normal and Wisconsin continues to improve economically,
balances its budgets, bring jobs, there probably won’t be a lot of pain for
Republicans down the road,” said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist who used to be a
campaign manager for Republicans like Tommy
Thompson, the former governor, and is a supporter of Governor Walker. “I
think things will get back to normal for the average Wisconsin citizen, but it’s
going to take some time, though, before government employees get over this,” he
added.
For the moment, the wounds remained raw and personal in a Capitol where
politics have long been more polite than intensely partisan.
A number of legislators told law enforcement authorities that they had
received death threats, an Assembly spokesman said. And Democrats in the
Assembly tried, briefly, to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed as speaker for what they
said was his “incredibly impaired” judgment.
Democrats said they planned to seek legal recourse for what they viewed as
violations of the state’s open meetings rules. Republicans had announced a
meeting to present their rewritten bill (the one that would not require a
quorum) less than two hours before the meeting took place on Wednesday evening.
Democrats said 24 hours was required, except in cases of emergencies. But
Republicans said that amount of time was not needed during special legislative
sessions and that they needed to provide only enough time to, say, post a
scheduled meeting on a legislative bulletin board.
At least some of the Senate Democrats — who have been gone from Wisconsin
since Feb. 17 and have become known to some here, admiringly, as the “Wisconsin
14” — refused to even return to the state on Thursday.
Senators like Fred Risser, who was first elected to the Legislature in 1956,
said he was concerned that the Republicans might have some other legislative
trick in mind if the Democrats came back to the Capitol right away. “Why would I
trust them now?” Mr. Risser asked.
Outside the Capitol Building itself, though, many teachers, state workers and
others were taking stock of what the entire episode would now mean for their
lives.
The bill, which Mr. Walker said he would sign soon, significantly alters most
public-sector union rules, limiting bargaining to matters of wages and limiting
raises to changes in the Consumer
Price Index unless the public approves higher raises in a referendum.
It ends the state’s collection of union dues from paychecks, and requires
most unions to hold votes annually to determine whether most workers still wish
to be members. Firefighters and law enforcement personnel will be exempt from
those changes.
As the sun set, a crowd again gathered for yet another rally.
Peggy Coyne, a middle school teacher, predicted more big crowds, more
rallies, more protest. “We’ll keep our presence known here,” she said. “I think
they felt there would be a little fuss and we’d go away. But this continues to
get bigger and bigger.”
Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting from Chicago, and Steven Greenhouse
and Timothy Williams from New York.