March 9, 2011
G.O.P. Tactic Ends Stalemate in Wisconsin Union Fight
By MONICA DAVEY
CHICAGO — The bitter political standoff in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s bid to sharply curtail collective bargaining for public-sector workers ended abruptly Wednesday night, as his Republican counterparts in the State Senate successfully maneuvered to adopt a bill doing just that.
After a three-week stalemate, Republican senators pushed the measure through in less than half an hour, with the Senate’s Democrats still miles away trying to block the vote. Democratic Assembly members complained bitterly, and protesters, who had spent many days at the Capitol, continued their chants and jeers.
The Republicans control the State Senate but had been blocked from voting on the issue after Senate Democrats left the state last month to prevent a quorum. Instead, they used a procedural maneuver to force the collective bargaining measure through: they removed elements of Governor Walker’s bill that were technically related to appropriating funds, thus removing a requirement that 20 senators be present for a vote. In the end, the Senate’s 19 Republicans approved the measure, 18-1, without any debate on the floor or a single Democrat in the room.
The remaining bill, which increases health care and pension costs and cuts collective bargaining rights for most public workers in the state, still needs approval from the State Assembly on Thursday morning, but that chamber has already once approved the measure, and most political experts in Wisconsin now considered approval a foregone conclusion.
Mr. Walker, a Republican whose efforts to diminish collective bargaining rights have placed him firmly in the national spotlight during his less than three months in office, applauded the Senate’s move on Wednesday night, and said it brought the state a step closer to balancing its budget. “The action today will help ensure Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs,” Mr. Walker said, in a statement released minutes after the unexpected vote.
Democrats, meanwhile, condemned the move as an attack on working families, a violation of open meetings requirements (most of them did not know there was to be a vote until not long before), and a virtual firebomb in state that already found itself politically polarized and consumed with recall efforts, large scale protests, and fury from public workers.
“In 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin,” said Mark Miller, the leader of the Senate Democrats who had fled to Illinois on Feb. 17 in order to block just such a vote from occurring. “Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten.”
Mr. Miller continued: “Tonight, 18 Senate Republicans conspired to take government away from the people. Tomorrow we will join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government.”
For weeks until late Wednesday afternoon, Republicans and Democrats in the state had been at an impasse over Mr. Walker’s bill. Because the bill was deemed a fiscal bill, it required 20 members — and, thus, at least one of the Democrats’ 14 members — to be in the room.
On both sides, as the Democrats camped out in Illinois, there had been negotiations, angry news conferences, breakdowns in negotiations, and talk of more negotiations. Senate Republicans had voted to fine each of the missing Democrats $100 a day. The Senate Democrats had talked almost every day, sometimes disagreeing over whether it was time to give up and go home or to continue demanding that the Republicans lessen the cuts to collective bargaining rights.
As the impasse has dragged on, some senators from both parties have found themselves the focus of recall efforts. All told, more than a dozen senators were being singled out, chosen in part because of Wisconsin’s rules for recalls, which require selected lawmakers to have been in office for at least a year and call for thousands of voters’ signatures to be gathered in a matter of 60 days — a process that was under way with canvassing all last weekend.
Even as recently as Sunday evening, a possible deal seemed in sight. In private e-mail exchanges with the Democrats, Mr. Walker’s representatives appeared willing to agree to some limited changes.
But on Wednesday afternoon, after talks had clearly broken apart, Republican senators met privately for hours, and eventually called a conference committee meeting of the leaders in the Senate and Assembly for 6 p.m. Central time. Peter Barca, a Democratic leader in the Assembly, protested vehemently as Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate Republicans’ leader, called the meeting to order, announced that a new bill — without specific mentions of appropriations — was being considered, and called for a vote.
“This is a violation of open meetings laws!” Mr. Barca cried out repeatedly, demanding to hear a summary of the bill and what had changed. But Mr. Fitzgerald swiftly moved to the Senate chamber, calling his Republicans to order, and calling for another vote in a matter of minutes.
“Enough is enough,” Mr. Fitzgerald said, in a statement he issued minutes later.
“The people of Wisconsin elected us to do a job. They elected us to stand up to the broken status quo, stop the constant expansion of government, balance the budget, create jobs and improve the economy. The longer the Democrats keep up this childish stunt, the longer the majority can’t act on our agenda.”
The bill makes significant changes to most public sector unions, limiting collective bargaining to matters of wages only and limiting raises to the Consumer Price Index unless the public approves higher raises in a referendum. It requires most unions to hold votes annually to determine whether most workers still wish to be members. And it ends the state’s collection of union dues from paychecks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10wisconsin.html
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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
