Wisconsin is set to have their final recall elections, ending the political E! reality show that has been their state government. It all started with the mid-term elections back in 2010. Our economy went down the toilet, the country was in a pretty bad place, and the democratically controlled U.S. government proved to be pretty limp.
Voters went out during those mid-term elections looking to blame someone. They blamed, rightfully so, those in office and voted them out. In Wisconsin, that meant electing republican Scott Walker for governor, and giving both houses of the state legislature to the republicans. Once in office, they set about achieving Gov. Walker's promise to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin by cutting a number of different taxes. They also brought up legislation to allow concealed firearms, to redraw voting districts, and to establish tougher ID requirements at the voting booth. Nothing too surprising for a republican administration.
What drew national attention to Wisconsin was Walker's concern that the state budget was too bloated. He proposed a Budget Repair Bill back in February of 2011 that proposed a number of sweeping changes, summarized in the following article:
One upsetting change was that all state and local employees would need to contribute more to their benefits package, a move that would have equaled roughly an 8% decrease in pay. But the main uproar came from the language stripping public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. Pay increases beyond inflation would have to be passed by specific public referendum. Unions could no longer have dues automatically withdrawn, and the unions' members would have to vote annually to decide if they wanted the unions to continue representing them.
The unions understood the economic shortfalls faced by the state government and were willing to accept the increased employee contributions, but they didn't see the need to attack their very existence as part of a financial bill.
In the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Wisconsin residents refused to accept this quietly and took to the streets to protest. Ironically, Gov. Walker's stance during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression pretty much lined up with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's view on the subject.
"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters." - FDRThe gist of the economic argument is that state employees don't have the same relationship to their employer because the state employer doesn't operate the way a normal employer operates. The state doesn't suffer the same kinds of restrictions a business owner would and therefore, lacks the same ability to push back during a collective bargaining process.
As part of the public outcry, fourteen democratic state legislators fled to Illinois to prevent the Budget Repair Bill from being voted on and passed by the republican-controlled government. Protests continued at the state capital and the entire story caught the national attention. People on both sides of the political spectrum latched onto this debate as a rallying cry for all that was wrong with the country. Democrats cried out about the assault on teachers. Republicans cried out about the stranglehold unions and exorbitantly paid teachers had on our government (suck it everyone who makes less than forty grand a year, high rolling educators are taking over and the unions are gonna make sure they keep blowing it up at forty grand a year).
Truth be told, I don't think the democrats entirely defended teacher unions like a maiden's chastity in a harlequin novel because it was the right thing to do. Democrats can't match republican fund raising efforts most of the time as it is, and that's with significant help from unions. Without unions, democrats would lose a real chunk of backing. And I don't think teacher unions actually set fire to republican puppies, despite the daytime-emmy-worthy outrage some of them demonstrated. They understand what union busting can do to their opponents' financing, so it makes sense on a tactical level.
But none of that has anything to do with the fact that Wisconsin state government is required to balance its budget and is about to face billions in shortfalls. The teachers chipping in more toward their benefits package does. The massive, typical republican tax cuts that Walker et al gave to corporations and the rich does as well.
The Wisconsin outrage led to a series of recall efforts. A total of eight senators, six republicans and two democrats, got challenged for their jobs. The republicans faced their recall a short time ago and you would think, given all the protesting in the streets, that it would have been a landslide. As it stands, only two of the six republicans were recalled, replaced with their democratic challengers. Today, the two democrats face their challengers, incensed that when a critical vote came before the state government, they fled and essentially shut down the process. Chances are, both democrats will retain their seats, and all that sound and fury last winter won't signify much.
Which leads back to the curious headline above from the Christian Science Monitor. These recall elections don't wreak of backlash against the Tea Party. It seems like the status quo proved to be pretty intransigent. What's interesting is that Wisconsin's political divide tends to fall almost exactly the same as the entire nation, so many political thinkers look to Wisconsin's microcosm as a potential indicator for 2012. Based on what's happened so far, if Wisconsin can be used as a predictor, we can probably expect far less shake up than some of us want.
But that feels like such a dry note to end on, so here's a picture of Gov. Perry eating something phallic:
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