Scott Walker

Walker introduces more uncertainty to state and state government even while railing against it

November 18, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

When Republicans on the state legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER) yesterday unanimously approved the Walker administration's new "compensation" plan (actually, it's a dis-compensation plan with many changes to administrative rules and workplace policies), citizens who were paying attention once again were reminded that the current GOP majority in Wisconsin's statehouse is all about saying one thing and doing the opposite.

For months now, as I've pointed out in earlier blogs, a recurring theme in Republican rhetoric is that lawmakers have to take drastic and punitive economic actions (like cutting public employee pay and benefits and grabbing back a billion dollars or so from public school systems statewde). Why? Because the state was "broke" and they needed to reduce "uncertainty" in the business marketplace. Uncertainty, you see, hurts job growth. Their prescription: Be decisive and "bold" (another favorite Walker word) and certainty emerges, and jobs get created.

Walker Supported 1997 Effort to Recall Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold

November 18, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Scott Walker has been running around the state, lecturring everyone that will listen that the very notion of a recall election is preposterous.  Walker either A) attempts to confuse people by conflating the recall and impeachment or B) claims another election is unnecessary because the voters just weighed in last year.

Of course Walker is wrong on both counts:  An impeachment is a statehouse action intended as a checks-and-balance to kick-out someone for "crimes and misdemeanors" and a recall was put in place as a voters checks-and-balance to kick-out politicians that do something to rum-up enough outrage to motivate 25% of the electorate to sign a recall petition.  And, as others have pointed out, the origin of  the recall provision came in response to politicians pulling a bait-and-switch where they take extreme actions in office that they never bothered to mention during the campaign...  such as ending collective bargaining for teachers and other public workers and making the biggest cut to public education in Wisconsin history.  

Rank and file cops sign Walker recall petitions

November 17, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

You can try to cross the police, governor, but the police are going to hold the line.

Aside from the great news that the petition drive to recall Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleisfisch has within two days achieved a significant proportion of the necessary number of signatures, with nearly two months to go, the other great news is that petition drives are happening everywhere. And we mean everywhere.

For example, police officers in one of the state's largest cities started right out holding a petition drive, sharing food around and collecting a batch of signatures from their ranks seeking the ouster of the Republican governor and his lieutenant. [I'll refrain from naming the particular city, so that the police union can make its own announcement, in due course.]

Police, of course, are among the short list of public workers whose unions were exempted by Walker from his union-busting bill. Why? Because, as he said in his own words, he was afraid trying to bust police and firefighter unions along with the rest would lead to serious public disruption.