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The fight to stop Wisconsin gov. Scott Walker and the Republican state legislature from unilaterally abolishing collective bargaining rights for most state workers took another dramatic turn on Thursday.
After days of protests from public employees and others opposed to Walker’s budget that included the anti-union legislation, Wisconsin state senate Democrats walked out of the senate chambers and left the state, preventing a vote on the measure by denying the majority Republicans a quorum.
Debate on the bill has stalled, with the governor and Republican lawmakers demanding that Democrats return to cast a vote on the legislation. Democrats have refused, and the pblic outcry against Walker and the GOP has only grown more intense.
In a last-ditch effort to stop the passage of Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill, Senate Democrats staged a walkout Thursday, leaving the state to avoid a forced return to the Capitol and a doomed vote against the bill.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, D-Monona, gave an interview on CNN, saying only that he and his colleagues were in “a secure location outside the Capitol.”
Miller said the senators, who are not all in the same location, would return to the Capitol when the governor decides to end his bid to curb collective bargaining powers for state and local employees and returns to the negotiating table with union leaders.
On Thursday, Walker called for the senators to return to Wisconsin
“Out of respect for the institution of the Legislature and the democratic process, I am calling on Senate Democrats to show up to work today, debate legislation and cast their vote,” Walker said. “Their actions by leaving the state and hiding from voting are disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of public employees who showed up to work today and the millions of taxpayers they represent.”
His calls were echoed by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who said the process to find the missing legislators is under way.
“With the tremendous show of democracy we’ve seen this week, it’s a shame that the Senate Democrats decided not to show up to do their job today,” he said.
Thursday marked the fourth day of protests at the Capitol. More than 35,000 union supporters flooded the statehouse the past three days, and some 20,000 more showed up Thursday. They packed three floors of the rotunda and surrounded the Senate.
They have come to fight a bid by Walker to remove collective bargaining rights for most of the 175,000 state and local employees, allowing workers to negotiate only over salary. The governor’s bill exempts most law enforcement, firefighters and Wisconsin State Patrol troopers from the change.
The governor’s proposal, unveiled Friday as part of a bill aimed at overcoming a $137 million deficit in the current budget, was expected to pass Thursday. The GOP holds a 19-14 edge in the Senate and a 57-38-1 edge in the Assembly.
At 11:30 a.m., when the session began, a roll call revealed that nearly all of the 14 Senate Democrats were absent. At 11:35, Republican Senate President Mike Ellis announced a “call of the house” to send officers to force errant Democrats to return to the chamber.
Lacking enough of its 33 senators to act, the Senate then suspended the session. Twenty senators are required for a quorum, more than the Republican senators could muster alone.
Assembly Democrats Thursday morning joined the protest, entering the Assembly floor together wearing orange T-shirts reading “Assembly Democrats fighting for working families!” The lawmakers later broke for party meetings.
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“In the most powerful show of unity in decades, we have joined together to send a powerful message to Gov. Walker and the entire state of Wisconsin,” Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca said in a statement. “We support our teachers, nurses, snow-plow drivers, 911 operators, EMTs and all the working people that keep our great state functioning in both the public and private sectors.”
The matter took a bizarre twist when Gov. Walker, who has threatened to use the National Guard to break up the protests by public workers, said he would call on the Wisconsin state Police to track down the AWOL lawmakers and apprehend them to force a vote on his budget bill.
A Wisconsin Senate Democrat told Greg Sargent that he and his colleagues are in a “secure location” and will not return to Wisconsin or the state capital until Walker and Republicans take their proposal to eliminate collective bargaining “off the table.”
I just got off the phone with Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson, one of the Democrats who has left the capitol in order to stall the GOP’s plan to roll back the bargaining rights of public employees. Speaking to me by cell phone from an undisclosed location, Larson said he and his fellow Democrats would not return until the GOP takes its assault on organizing rights “off the table.”
“Each of us is in a secure location,” he told me, confirming that they were not all together but were monitoring events on the Web and on Twitter. Larson refused to say whether he and his fellow Dems had left the state, as some have speculated.
“We’re going to be staying away until we hear that they are taking the right to organize seriously,” Larson continued, referring to Republicans. “They’re going after 50 years of history in one week. Until they take that off the table, it’s a non-starter.”
And Wisconsin isn’t the only state where newly elected “tea party” Republican governors and accommodating state legislatures are seeking to break public employees and their unions by slashing state jobs, reducing worker benefits, or taking aim at collective bargaining rights.
New Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich has proposed almost an identical measure to Wisconsin’s anti-union bill. It would strip public employees of their decades-old right to collective bargaining, and it has stirred up similar protests and bitter reaction from public workers in the Buckeye State. Wisconsin’s Gov. Walker has even called Kasich to offer him advice and support.
Demonstrations against bills to restrict public employees’ collective-bargaining rights spilled from Wisconsin into Ohio in what union leaders said was becoming a national fight.
In Madison, Wisconsin, crowds police estimated at 25,000 engulfed the Capitol and its lawns during a third day of protests as Democratic state senators boycotted the legislative session. In Columbus, Ohio, about 3,800 state workers, teachers and other public employees came to the statehouse.
Firefighters Dave Hefflinger and Jerry Greer stood near hundreds of workers elbow-to-elbow in the statehouse atrium and listened to a Senate hearing through speakers. Chants of “Kill the bill” echoed.
“We’re here to support our brothers and sisters,” Hefflinger, a 27-year veteran, said in an interview. “They’re trying to take away what we fought for all of these years.”
Hefflinger, 49, and Greer, 39, members of the department in Findlay, Ohio, drove two hours south to protest the bill. The measure would eliminate collective bargaining for state workers, prevent local-government employees from negotiating for health insurance and would eliminate binding arbitration in the case of an impasse. It would replace salary schedules with merit pay.
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In a telephone interview yesterday, Walker said he spoke with Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich by telephone.
“Don’t blink,” Walker said when asked what advice he gave Kasich about demonstrations. ”The bottom line is, it’s the right thing to do.”
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The best part of Gov Walker’s statement has got to be “Out of respect for the institution of the Legislature and the democratic process” If he had any respect for the democratic process, he would have first gone to the unions and asked for concessions. Then if he didn’t get them, he would have looked at what the consequences of this bill would be for the state of WI. He has no respect whatsoever for the democratic process.
Passing a law that takes away the right to bargain will have zero effect on the budget deficit. Such a law is most likely in violation of Federal Labor Laws. These unions are willing to negotiate pay, health, and pension benefits in order to help close the budget gap. These public service workers did not cause this problem. Greed by wall street bankers did. Ask them to help to close the gap.
To the people of Wisconsin: You put Walker in office. You can take him out. Press hard for his resignation and if he doesn’t comply; then recall him. In short you have the right to impeach him with the recall. It is still government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We are standing behind you. Keep on until you force him to resign. He needs to be recalled and all those Republican law makers need to have their pensions, health insurance and other benefits eliminated and their salaries reduced. “whats good for the goose is good for the gander as an old saying goes.” Our governments are still government by the people. Keep fighting until you get him to resign.We are standing in solidarity with you..