{"id":13145,"date":"2012-01-19T12:33:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T17:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=13145"},"modified":"2012-01-19T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T16:59:17","slug":"in-spite-of-the-large-number-of-petitioners-recalling-wisconsins-governor-may-not-be-a-done-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/19\/in-spite-of-the-large-number-of-petitioners-recalling-wisconsins-governor-may-not-be-a-done-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"In spite of the large number of petitioners, recalling Wisconsin’s governor may not be a done deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Schneider<\/a> in City Journal<\/em> on the efforts underway in Wisconsin to recall Governor Scott Walker:<\/p>\n

\n

One morning last February, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker called his staff into his office. \u201cGuys,\u201d he warned, \u201cit\u2019s going to be a tough week.\u201d Walker had recently sent a letter to state employees proposing steps — ranging from restricting collective bargaining to requiring workers to start contributing to their own pension accounts — to eliminate the state\u2019s $3.6 billion deficit. That day in February was when Walker would announce his plan publicly.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a tough year<\/em>. The state immediately erupted into a national spectacle, with tens of thousands of citizens, led by Wisconsin\u2019s public-employee unions, seizing control of the capitol for weeks to protest the reforms. By early March, the crowds grew as big as 100,000, police estimated. Protesters set up encampments in the statehouse, openly drinking and engaging in drug use beneath the marble dome. Democratic state senators fled Wisconsin to prevent a vote on Walker\u2019s plan. Eventually, the Senate did manage to pass the reforms, which survived a legal challenge and became law in July.<\/p>\n

The unions aren\u2019t done yet: they\u2019re now trying to recall Walker from office. To do so, they will try to convince Wisconsin voters that Walker\u2019s reforms have rendered the state ungovernable. But the evidence, so far, contradicts that claim\u2014and Wisconsinites seem to realize it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The fight between the Governor and the public unions matters more than it may seem: Wisconsin was the first state to allow civil service workers to unionize and has traditionally been seen as a strong union (and therefore also Democratic) state ever since. If unions can have some of their power trimmed back there, it will hearten the efforts of other state governments to follow suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christian Schneider in City Journal on the efforts underway in Wisconsin to recall Governor Scott Walker: One morning last February, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker called his staff into his office. \u201cGuys,\u201d he warned, \u201cit\u2019s going to be a tough week.\u201d Walker had recently sent a letter to state employees proposing steps — ranging from restricting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,84,53,13],"tags":[697,71,188,392,684],"class_list":["post-13145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-government","category-politics","category-usa","tag-budget","tag-debt","tag-electionwatch","tag-unions","tag-wisconsin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3q1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13146,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13145\/revisions\/13146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}