WISCONSIN
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says failing to pass a bill reducing union rights for Wisconsin public workers would have “dire consequences.”
Walker said in a speech broadcast live statewide Tuesday evening that if lawmakers don’t pass the bill, up to 1,500 state workers could be laid off by July with another 6,000 forced out of work over the next two years.
His speech came as the state Assembly was debating the measure that motivated tens of thousands of people to march on the Capitol in the past eight days. Senate Democrats skipped town last week, delaying action there indefinitely.
Walker said his proposal “isn’t about attacking unions; it’s about balancing Wisconsin’s projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall.”
With their Senate colleagues still in hiding, Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly began introducing a barrage of 100 amendments Tuesday to try to stymie the governor’s plan.
Both houses of the GOP-controlled Legislature had convened shortly before noon amid noisy protests outside the Capitol. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald pledged that his chamber would approve the bill this week, despite the blizzard of Democratic amendments.
If lawmakers take no action on the bill by the end of the week, the state will not be able to refinance debt that Walker had counted on for $165 million worth of savings under the legislation. The governor warned that not doing that would force even deeper cuts and possibly lead to 1,500 layoffs by July.
INDIANA
Indiana House Democrats refused to show up Tuesday, stalling action on a Republican-backed labor bill.
Most stayed away from the Statehouse, and two went to neighboring Illinois. Only three of 40 House Democrats were in the chamber when Republican Speaker Brian Bosma tried repeatedly to convene it. It was short of the two-thirds needed for a quorum.
Democratic Rep. Charlie Brown of Gary said he and Rep. Greg Porter of Indianapolis were traveling Tuesday afternoon on I-74 in Illinois but wouldn’t say where they were headed. “He’s driving. I don’t know how long we’ll be driving west like this,” Brown said.
While the desks of 37 Democratic legislators were empty, several hundred union members crowded the adjoining hallways and held up signs to windows looking into the House with slogans such as “Stop the War on Workers.”
It was the second day of large union crowds at the Statehouse, starting when a GOP-led committee took up “right-to-work” legislation Monday that would prohibit union representation fees from being a condition of employment at most private-sector companies.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had urged GOP legislators not to act on the right-to-work bill this year, told reporters that Democrats’ absence Tuesday was a legitimate move and he would not use state troopers to compel their attendance.
“I trust people’s consciences will bring them back to work,” Daniels said. “I choose to believe that our friends in the minority, having made their point, will come back and do their duty, the jobs that they’re paid to do.”
Missing a Tuesday procedural deadline would bar further consideration of the bill. Republicans released a list of 22 bills they said would fail at the same deadline, although none is on major topics.
OHIO
Protestors packed Ohio’s state Capitol and several thousand more gathered outside Tuesday as its legislature planned new hearings on a bill that would effectively end collective bargaining for state workers and dramatically reduce bargaining power for local workers like police officers and firefighters.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Shannon Jones, said it was designed to give state and local governments more control over their finances in troubled economic times. Outraged unions saw it as a direct attack on their workers.
Last week, protests swelled from a few hundred to about 4,000 Thursday, buoyed in part by demonstrations in Wisconsin, which have made national news. But while Democratic senators in Wisconsin shut down the Senate by fleeing the state, Republicans in Ohio’s Senate hold a large enough majority to convene with no Democrats present.
Ohio is facing an $8 billion budget deficit, about 11 percent of its budget, far less than the gap in states like California, Illinois and New Jersey, but still significant, and Gov. John Kasich, says drastic steps are required to plug it.
Democrats say the bill is about politics, calling it a direct political attack on the unions, which have long been reliable Democratic supporters.
VIEWPOINTS
State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Wis., one of the Democrats boycotting his state's legislature: "We could be up there this afternoon and pass this if [Gov. Scott Walker] would agree to removing the language that has absolutely nothing to do with balancing the budget."
Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Wis., state Assembly speaker: "When you talk about a compromise, no. We're going to make a reform."
State Sen. Shannon Jones, R-Ohio, sponsor of a bill that would reduce collective bargaining for public employees: "Let me be clear: I am not doing this to punish employees who serve this state day after day. I am doing this because I want to give the government flexibility and control over its work force."
State Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-Ohio: "State employees are not the cause of the economic problems we're having, and ... to point to them as the problem is absolutely unfair and untrue."
