Posts Tagged ‘Wisconsin’

There’s a hole in our budget. A big hole. Sen. Jim Holperin caused a half a billion dollar hole in Wisconsin’s state budget. Stop the hole, stop Holperin. Watch the video below.

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From Roll Call:

Though Yogi Berra is most often associated with the phrase “it ain’t over till it’s over,” it is Republicans in Wisconsin who are now uttering the phrase, hoping that their party can limit its losses to only a seat or two in next week’s state Senate recall elections.

Following the GOP-controlled Legislature’s passage of a bill limiting public employee’s collective bargaining rights, Democrats are targeting six Senate Republicans for recall. If they win even half, Democrats will turn a 19-14 seat disadvantage in the chamber into a 17-16 seat majority. Republicans also control the state Assembly.

The recall contests have turned into a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker (R), who isn’t subject to recall until he has served at least a year in office. Insiders acknowledge that voters on both sides of the aisle show a high level of interest in the elections, and partisan lines have been sharply drawn in the contests.

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RSLC Calls Out Democratic Party of Wisconsin over Efforts to Pull Ad from Airwaves

Alexandria, Va. (March 31, 2011) –Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) President Chris Jankowski issued the following statement today after the Democratic Party of Wisconsin sought to pull an RSLC issue ad that portrayed a Wisconsin teacher with every reason to leave the state if Senator Dave Hansen, in collusion with union bosses, had their way over the educational system:

“The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has set a new bar when it comes to hypocrisy in politics.  They silently stood by while former Senator Russ Feingold fabricated an entire person and did not disclose file footage, but now attack the RSLC for portraying a Wisconsin teacher and making this portrayal abundantly clear.
“The fact of the matter is that we took the extra step of adding “File Footage” to the ad to make it clear to Wisconsin voters that this was a vivid representation of the teachers in Wisconsin that could leave the state if Senator Hansen succeeded in continuing to tie the best teachers’ pay to that of the worst.
“Furthermore, after witnessing the abhorrent actions on the part of union-backed protestors at the state house, we would never put a teacher in an ad for fear that his or her safety would be endangered and because no teacher should be subjected to outrageous comparisons to unseemly figures.”

The RSLC plans to continue running the issue ad at a rate of approximately $50,000 weekly.

About the RSLC

The RSLC is the largest caucus of Republican state leaders and the only national organization whose mission is to elect down ballot, state-level Republican office-holders. Since 2002, the RSLC has been working to elect candidates for the office of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and State Legislator. The RSLC has more than 100,000 donors in all 50 states. The RSLC raised more than $30 million for the 2009-2010 cycle as part of an effort that picked up 20 legislative chambers, six Attorneys General, three Lieutenant Governors and seven Secretaries of State.  The RSLC spent $1.1 million in Wisconsin to help take control of the Senate and Assembly, including spending nearly $500,000 to target Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker.  The RSLC was the only group to target Decker who was defeated soundly by Republican Pam Galloway.

From the Politico:

National Republicans are launching a counteroffensive in the symbolically charged fight for control of the Wisconsin Senate, targeting two Democratic state senators with an ad campaign aimed at keeping the chamber in the GOP’s hands.

The Republican State Leadership Committee is expanding a television ad campaign against Democratic state Sen. Jim Holperin and launching a media blitz against state Sen. Dave Hansen, a member of the Democratic leadership.

Holperin and Hansen were among 14 Democratic lawmakers who fled Wisconsin to block a vote in the state Senate on a Republican-backed plan to scale back public-sector union rights.

Republicans ultimately passed the labor law in the Democrats’ absence by separating it from a larger budget bill. Implementation of the collective-bargaining law has been halted until a court challenge is resolved.

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From JSOnline.com:

In a sign GOP lawmakers are still smarting from the recent exodus of Senate Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) told his caucus Monday that Democrats can’t vote in committee because they remain in contempt of the Senate.

“They are free to attend hearings, listen to testimony, debate legislation, introduce amendments, and cast votes to signal their support/opposition, but those votes will not count, and will not be recorded,” Fitzgerald wrote his colleagues.

The Democrats fled to Illinois last month to avoid voting on a bill to curtail collective bargaining for most public employees. The bill passed without them last week, and Senate Democrats returned to the Capitol on Saturday.

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Check out the ad from the State Government Leadership Foundation here:

From Politico:

The first round is over. Republican Gov. Scott Walker delivered a crushing defeat to government employee unions in their fight over labor rights in Wisconsin.

But the passage of a law stripping away collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers has touched off a much larger political battle that threatens to spread over Wisconsin’s borders and across the 2012 landscape.

Democrats in Wisconsin are vowing to transform virtually every upcoming state and local election there into a referendum on Walker’s administration. Party leaders from Madison to Washington are gearing up for a major fight in the hope of sending an unmistakable signal to other ambitious GOP state executives.

Their efforts to make Walker and his supports pay a high political price for their victory has led Republicans to activate their own campaign machinery. Few expect the conflict will stay contained in Wisconsin.

“What you’re seeing is a reaction from the national Democratic Party to try and hold the line because they realize that if we’re successful in Wisconsin, there will be a national impact,” said Republican State Leadership Committee president Chris Jankowski, whose group supports GOP candidates in state-level campaigns.

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From the National Review Online:

On Wednesday night, Wisconsin Senate Republicans did what most people thought impossible — they passed Governor Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill virtually intact, without having to split out controversial provisions that limited the ability for government employees to collectively bargain.

A letter Democrat Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller sent the governor today, indicating Miller’s unwillingness to further negotiate any details of the bill, was what prompted the GOP’s decision to take the bill to the floor.

“It was like, ‘I’m in the minority, and I’m going to dictate to you what your options are,’” said one GOP source about Miller’s letter. It was just three days ago that Miller had sent Fitzgerald a letter urging more negotiations, despite the fact that Governor Walker had been negotiating with at least two Democrat senators for nearly a week. “With his recent letter, it became clear that all he wanted to do was stall,” said the GOP source.

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Democrats have until 4pm to get back to the capitol.

From Wisconsin State Journal:

Republicans voted 19-0 to give the Democrats until 4 p.m. Thursday to appear before the Senate. The 14 Democrats are believed to be in Illinois. If the senators do not return by the deadline, the Senate agreed to find them “in contempt and disorderly behavior.”

Declared Fitzgerald: “They have pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”

The Senate also voted to institute a “call of the house,” which is the mechanism used to compel senators to return to the chamber.

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From The Hill:

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), the group chaired by former Republican National Committee head Ed Gillespie, is preparing to jump into the ongoing budget battle in Wisconsin.

With activists on both sides already starting to organize recall efforts for members of the state Senate, RSLC president Chris Jankowski told The Ballot Box the group will do “whatever it takes to protect our incumbents.”

He said the RSLC, which spent millions in 2010 to help Republicans win control of more than 20 legislative chambers across the nation, will fund efforts to defend Republican state senators who may become recall targets, and that it will go on offense — supporting efforts to recall Democrats with paid media campaigns.

Currently, as many as eight of the Democratic state senators who have fled Wisconsin in the budget standoff, could be recall targets, with a Utah-based conservative group already organizing toward that goal.

“You can expect to see some aggressive radio, TV and mail campaigns from us,” Jankowski said.

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From JSOnline:

The groups need about 16,000 signatures to force a recall election for a senator, Magney said. The exact number will vary from 11,000 to 21,000 signatures, he said, depending on how many votes were cast in the 2010 governor’s race in the targeted district.

All 14 Senate Democrats fled to Illinois last week to prevent their Republican colleagues from being able to push through Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill. That measure would curb collectiv-bargaining rights for state workers and require them to pay toward their retirement and health care costs.

Democrats and labor unions are also weighing whether to recall up to six Senate Republicans for supporting Walker’s plan. Among those being targeted is Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills.

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