Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

Actually, they said OVER AND OVER that it was necessary to give the local government bodies the tools they needed to deal with a cut in financial support from the state. I don't recall ever hearing anyone say it was needed in order to balance the state budget.

Walker said: "In order to move the state forward, I applaud the Legislature's action today to stand up to the status quo and take a step in the right direction to balance the budget and reform government."

The recent vow by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) that he "can't compromise" with Democratic legislators on union rights runs sharply counter to preferences of Wisconsinites, according to a new survey of the state sponsored by a conservative think tank.

The poll, conducted last week and sponsored by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), finds nearly two-thirds of the state's adults (65 percent) prefer that Walker "negotiate with Democrats and public employee's unions in order to find a compromise solution" to the "current conflict over public employee benefits and collective bargaining rights." A third (33 percent) prefer the alternative, that Walker "stand strong for the plan he has proposed no matter how long the protests go on."

WPRI bills itself as "Wisconsin's Free Market Think Tank" and their web site features articles critical of the union protests and supportive of Walker's agenda. But Kenneth Goldstein, the University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor who directed the survey, tells The Huffington Post that he "had control over every aspect of the survey methodology" and applied the "best practices" of the field. The survey used live interviewers and reached respondents over both their landline and mobile telephones, and WPRI has released full results and cross-tabulations for every question asked (here and here).

The results of the WPRI survey on common measures are also in line with other recent public polls of the state. Like other surveys, for example, WPRI found that Walker has a net negative job rating, with 43 percent expressing approval and 53 disapproval. That result falls within the margin of sampling error four other surveys conducted in recent weeks, including an automated survey by the Democratic-affiliated firm Public Policy Poling and two surveys sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

The results of the WPRI survey on common measures are also in line with other recent public polls of the state. Like other surveys, for example, WPRI found that Walker has a net negative job rating, with 43 percent expressing approval and 53 disapproval. That result falls within the margin of sampling error four other surveys conducted in recent weeks, including an automated survey by the Democratic-affiliated firm Public Policy Poling and two surveys sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

The survey included a question testing reactions to the following description of Walker's plan:

As you may know, Governor Scott Walker recently announced a plan that would require public employees to contribute to their own pensions and pay greater amounts for their health insurance, which would, in effect, be a pay reduction. The plan would permit most public employees to negotiate only their wages, and future wage increases above the rate of inflation would have to be approved by a voter referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year. In addition, Walker's plan also changes rules to require public employee unions to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union, stops state or local government from collecting union dues, and allows individual members to decide if they wish to pay union dues. Unions for law enforcement and firefighters would be exempt from the changes.

More Wisconsin adults disapprove (51 percent) than approve (46 percent) of the plan as described, and strong strong opposition (42 percent) is 10 points greater than strong support (32 percent).

Tabulations of these results by party identification show strong polarization throughout the survey, but also show that political independents have largely broken against Walker. The give Walker net negative ratings, oppose his budget plan and, by a greater than two-to-one margin (69 percent to 30 percent), urge him to compromise rather than stand strong.

However, these same results also demonstrate the challenges of achieving any such a compromise. Walker's base of Republicans overwhelmingly approves of both his performance as governor (90 percent) and his budget plan (87 percent, 73 percent strongly), and 77 percent want him to stand strong rather than compromise.

The WPRI survey also included a "split form" experiment that tested two versions of a favor-or-oppose question about scaling back the collective bargaining rights of public unions. A random half of the sample heard a question that echoed the position articulated by the unions and their Democratic allies:

Stripping most public employees of their right to collectively bargain over benefits and working conditions as part of a ploy to eliminate public employee unions altogether.

ust 32 percent favor and 58 percent oppose this aspect of Walker's plan as described, and exactly half (50 percent) oppose it strongly.

The other half of the sample heard the proposal described differently, echoing the position of Walker and the Republicans:

Limiting most public employees' ability to negotiate over non-wage issues in order to prevent local union affiliates from obstructing the budgeting process for local governments.

The second version -- which changes a public employee's "right" to an "ability" and changes "stripping" to "limiting" -- still draws more opposition (50 percent) than support (47 percent).

The survey does include cautionary results on the ongoing controversy for the Democrats. By a narrow margin (47 percent to 51 percent), Wisconsinites disapprove "of Senate Democrats' decision to leave the state in order to prevent the passage of the budget repair bill that would reduce public employee benefits and change collective bargaining rights."

Now that the republicans got their way, I am betting that having the law which a majority did not want passed, will forgive those democrats in leaving.

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They claimed OVER AND OVER that it was ONLY a budget issue. So, no; they aren't just doing what they said they were doing, which is dealing with a budget issue.

Actually, they said OVER AND OVER that it was necessary to give the local government bodies the tools they needed to deal with a cut in financial support from the state. I don't recall ever hearing anyone say it was needed in order to balance the state budget.

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Now that the republicans got their way, I am betting that having the law which a majority did not want passed, will forgive those democrats in leaving.

They are once more are cutting their own throat by acting in the manner of we are in power and therefore we do not give a **** what the people desire we are just going to go ahead.

Republicans have a problem with knowing how to act then they do achieved power at the state level or the national level.

... Walker inspires stronger feelings in Wisconsin and bigger partisan division than President Barack Obama, who is a highly polarizing figure compared to most recent presidents. The president's approval rating is 87% among Wisconsin Democrats and 19% among Wisconsin Republicans. The gap between the two is 68 percentage points. Walker's approval rating is 8% among Democrats and 90% among Republicans. The partisan approval gap for Walker is 82 points - almost identical to the PPP numbers.

Walker's Democratic predecessor Jim Doyle was just as unpopular with Republicans at the end of two terms as Walker is with Democrats at the beginning of his term. But Doyle wasn't nearly as popular in his own party as Walker now is in his own.

These numbers are significant for several reasons. They highlight how divisive the issues behind the budget fight are, and how divided Wisconsin is politically. "It's a perfect storm," says Goldstein, who did the WPRI poll. "Wisconsin as a state is much more polarized than people thought, and you add on to that a very polarizing issue."

PPP's Tom Jensen notes that Midwest states tend to be more divided on partisan lines than in the Northeast, where the Republican Party still has a moderate wing, or in the South, where the Democratic Party still has a conservative wing.

But the polling also underscores how quickly and dramatically public opinion has polarized over Walker, in a way that sets him apart not just from other new governors, but from most governors, period.

The polls PPP has done on eight new governors since January measure the percentage of voters who approve of their governor, disapprove, or aren't sure. For the other seven new governors, the share of registered voters who answered "not sure" ranged from 17% to 40%.

For Walker, it was 2%.

In Wisconsin, everybody has an opinion about the governor.More

On Wednesday night, Republicans in Wisconsin's state senate rammed through a retooled version of Governor Scott Walker's controversial "budget repair bill" with the 14 senate Democrats still in hiding in Illinois. The senate bill eliminates collective bargaining rights for most public-sector unions, a provision that has labor leaders and protesters up in arms. But there's another explosive provision in the bill that's received little attention: The bill authorizes state officials to fire any state employee who joins a strike, walk-out, sit-in, or coordinated effort to call in sick.

Posted at 11:28 AM ET, 03/10/2011
Poll: Majorities support recall of two Wisconsin GOP senators
By Greg Sargent

Here's something that could give some momentum to efforts to recall Wisconsin GOP state senators in the wake of last night's end-run passage of Scott Walker's measure to roll back public employee bargaining rights.

I've got an advance look at some new polling by Survey USA that finds solid majorities in two GOP senate districts support the recall of their senators. The poll was paid for by MoveOn, which obviously has an ax to grind in this fight, but Survey USA is a respected non-partisan pollster that's routinely cited by major news organizations.

Here are the numbers, sent over by a MoveOn official, in the districts of GOP senators Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper.

When asked if they would vote for Hopper or something else if a recall election were held right now, 54 percent said they'd vote for someone else, versus only 43 percent they'd vote for Hopper.

In Kapanke's district, the numbers were even worse: 57 percent said they'd vote for someone else, versus only 41 percent who said they'd vote for Kapanke.

It gets even more interesting. The poll was taken yesterday, before last night's events, and fifty-six percent of voters in Kapanke's district, and 54% of voters in Hopper's district, said if their Senator voted for Walker's plan, it would make them more likely to vote for someone else. Last night, both Senators did vote for Walker's rollback of bargaining rights.

Survey USA surveyed 400 voters in the district of each Senator. In fairness, this poll asks people to choose between their senator and an unnamed opponent, when in reality they would face a real live human being in a recall election. But this is how recalls work: First support needs to be built up for the recall of an official, and once the key procedural hurdles are surmounted, someone steps up in the role of challenger and is nominated by the opposing party in what is effetively a special election.

This poll suggests that in two districts at least, support for recall is already there, which is a good gauge of the intensity of grassroots anger at Wisconsin Republicans and will only give momentum to efforts to gather the signatures required to make the recalls happen.

UPDATE, 11:34 a.m.: A MoveOn official adds that the organization has already raised over $800,000 to support the recall drives against GOP senators.

By Greg Sargent | March 10, 2011; 11:28 AM ET

March 10, 2011, 1:35 am
Wisconsin Dispute Could Mobilize Democratic Base
By NATE SILVER

“If only there were precedent for the upper chamber monkeying around with the fiscal part of a bill to bypass the need for supermajority,” the Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini noted on Twitter last night.

Mr. Ruffini was referring, of course, to the decision by Wisconsin Republicans to strip collective bargaining provisions from Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and vote on them separately, overcoming the need for the quorum that Democratic state senators had denied them by leaving the state. He was also referring to the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care bill that Democrats passed by using a budget reconciliation procedure that bypassed the possibility of a filibuster.

Democrats paid a price for passing their health care bill, however, which polls had long shown was unpopular. Some of the 63 seats they lost in the House last November were an all but inevitable result of the poor economy, and reversion to the mean after two strong election cycles. My research, however — as well as that of several political scientists — suggests that the health care bill was also a factor in their defeat; Democrats who voted aye on the health care bill were considerably more likely to lose their seats, controlling for other factors.

The quality of polling on the Wisconsin dispute has not been terrific. But there’s a general consensus — including in some polls sponsored by conservative groups — that the Republican position was unpopular, probably about as unpopular as the Democrats’ position on health care. And the most unpopular part of their position — limiting collective bargaining rights — was the one that Republicans passed last night.

Nor is the bill likely to become any more popular given the circumstances under which it passed. Yes, there’s some hypocrisy in claims by Democrats that the Wisconsin Republicans used trickery to pass the bill — they did, after all, approve it with an elected majority, just as Democrats did on the Affordable Care Act. Nevertheless, polling suggested that Wisconsinites, by a two to one majority, expected a compromise on the bill, which this decidedly was not.

One question is how much this might hurt Republicans at the state level. As David Dayen notes, Democrats will have opportunities to fight back almost immediately, including in an April 5 election that could swing the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as well as in efforts to recall Republican state senators. Essentially all of Wisconsin outside of the Madison and Milwaukee metropolitan areas is very evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, so there could be a multiplier on even relatively small shifts in turnout or public opinion.

Although most of the risks to Republicans are to the downside, Mr. Walker does have one favorable precedent to cite: that of Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who in 2005 signed an executive order ending collective bargaining for public-sector unions. Mr. Daniels’ popularity suffered initially before subsequently recovering along with Indiana’s economy.

Perhaps the more interesting question is what this could mean at the national level. As Mr. Ruffini noted, Republicans would rather lose in one state, Wisconsin, than all over the country, as Democrats did last year.

But there is no guarantee that the risk to Republicans will be confined to Wisconsin; national polls also suggest that the Republicans’ position is somewhat unpopular.

It is questionable how much voters outside the state will care about the Wisconsin debate a year from now, given other issues like the health of the national economy, the debate over the federal budget and the war in Afghanistan. Two groups that may have longer memories are two core constituencies in the Democratic base: union households and voters who describe themselves as liberal. A Pew poll conducted earlier this month found that while there was little overall change in opinion of unions — the public went from having a favorable view of them by a 45 to 41 plurality to a 47 to 39 plurality, not a statistically significant increase — there were exceptions among these groups.

In particular, the number of liberal Democrats who said they had a very favorable view of unions jumped to 32 percent from 14 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of labor household voters who held a very favorable view increased to 45 percent from 27 percent. There was no comparable change among conservative voters; the number of people who said they had a very unfavorable view of unions was roughly unchanged, both among the country as a whole and among different subgroups.

Wisconsin, then, could motivate these groups to vote — something that they usually do fairly reliably, but did not in 2010. (The share of union household voters in the electorate dropped to 17 percent in 2010 from 21 percent in 2008, according to exit polls.) Although self-described liberals almost always vote Democratic, between 35 and 40 percent of labor households have voted Republican in recent elections. If that fraction decreases to something like 30 percent at the same time that union turnout increases, that would hurt Republicans by a couple of percentage points nationally.

And, if the Pew poll is right, Republicans will have no particular counterweight to this; the Wisconsin dispute has motivated the Democratic base more so than theirs.

That does not mean that the Republican base will not have other issues to motivate them in 2012 — they will almost certainly have plenty. But the likelihood of an “enthusiasm gap” of the sort that was present in 2010 has diminished.

I think Walker is hoping there will be a strike, so he can fire union members en masse. It's pretty clear that his goal is to break the unions by any means necessary. Everything that has been said about financial matters has been a lie the entire time.

How "explosive" is this provision?

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They claimed OVER AND OVER that it was ONLY a budget issue. So, no; they aren't just doing what they said they were doing, which is dealing with a budget issue.

Actually, they said OVER AND OVER that it was necessary to give the local government bodies the tools they needed to deal with a cut in financial support from the state. I don't recall ever hearing anyone say it was needed in order to balance the state budget.

Walker: Union Bill's Changes 'Are Indeed Fiscal'
Eric Kleefeld | March 10, 2011, 12:10PM

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) spoke to the press on Thursday morning, at a heated moment when the Capitol was under lockdown amid protests over the impending passage of his anti-public employee union proposals. Walker himself used the language of class in his discussion of the bill's benefits -- and also touted what he said was the bill's clear fiscal impact, after the Republican effort to strip out fiscal elements in order to bypass the three-fifths budget quorum requirement.

"Ultimately what you saw in the bill that passed last night in the state Senate, and will shortly be debated and voted on in the state Assembly, a measure that's really about reform. It's about giving local governments the reform - and state government as well -- the reforms they need to make government work better, to make government work for the people of this state and in each of our communities.

"Along with that, it also gives the tools not only to improve government for the people of this state, particularly the middle-class taxpayers of this state, but it ultimately allows us the tools at both the state an the local level to balance our budgets, and to balance our budgets not just now but into the future. This is ultimately about a commitment to the future, so our children don't face even more dire consequences than what we face today. That's what this bill is all about."

Later, Walker discussed the maneuver launched by Republicans Wednesday night, to foil the boycott of the state Senate Dems who had fled to Illinois in an effort to block the three-fifths budget quorum required for a vote: The GOPers prepared a new version that stripped out the fiscal elements, passing the provisions that roll back collective bargaining rights for unions and place new limitations on union organization.

"We followed the law, and yet it allows us to move forward with these reforms -- which are indeed fiscal," said Walker. "They're not in conflict with that requirement for a quorum, but they are indeed fiscal. They give a fiscal benefit to the state, for the remainder of the year it'll allow us to save 30m, which allows us to save 1500 jobs, and for the next two years thereafter in the next budget it gives us the equivalent of $300 million worth of savings, which allows us to save 5-6,000 jobs."

Wow! The Navy and the Air Force sent air controllers? Aren't Navy and Air Force Personnel... public employees?

Hmmmmm

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