Democrats rue the day Scott Walker decided to clean up Wisconsin.
"Scott Kevin Walker (born November 2, 1967) is an American Republican legislator and politician who is the 45th Governor of Wisconsin. He is a two-term Governor, elected in 2010 and 2014, who also defeated an effort to recall him in 2012.
Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Walker attended Marquette University in Milwaukee but did not graduate. He started his career working for IBM before gaining a marketing job with the American Red Cross. At age 22, Walker lost a run for the Wisconsin State Assembly in a Milwaukee district in 1990. He won his next bid for the Assembly after moving to a more conservative district in Wauwatosa, and served four more terms in the Assembly (1993-2002). In 2002, after the resignation of Tom Ament as Executive of Milwaukee County, Walker won in a special election to fill the seat, winning the first of three terms serving as County Executive in Milwaukee County from 2002 to 2010.
In his first run for Governor in 2006 he dropped out before the Republican primaries. Walker again ran for the governorship in 2010, winning in a three-person race in the Republican primary. He faced Democratic nominee, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the general election; Walker won with 52% of the vote. After being sworn into office in 2011, Walker introduced a controversial budget repair plan which limited many collective bargaining powers for most public employees. The legislation led to significant protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol and an effort to recall Walker. In June 2012, Walker again faced Barrett in Wisconsin's only gubernatorial recall election. Walker defeated him for a second time, obtaining more votes than he had in the original race, with 53% of the vote. Walker is the only governor in the U.S. to date to win a gubernatorial recall election... Source
The 2011 Wisconsin protests were a series of demonstrations in the state of Wisconsin in the United States beginning in February involving at its zenith as many as 100,000 protesters opposing the 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, also called the "Wisconsin Budget Repair bill." Subsequently, anti-tax activists and other conservatives, including Tea Party advocates, launched small pockets of counter protests. The protests centered on the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, with satellite protests also occurring at other municipalities throughout the state. Demonstrations took place at various college campuses, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. After the collective bargaining bill was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on June 14, the number of protesters declined to about 1,000 within a couple days.
The protests were a major driving force for recall elections of state senators in 2011 and 2012, the failed recall of Governor Scott Walker in 2012 and a contentious Wisconsin Supreme Court election in 2011.
........Wisconsin was the first state in the United States to provide collective bargaining rights to public employees in 1959. Over the past decades public sector labor unions have grown from 10.8% of public workers being represented by a union in 1960 to 36.2% in 2010. Over the same time period, the percentage of public sector employees in a union shrank from 31.9% to 6.9%. This increase in public-employee unionism coincided with the granting of collective bargaining rights to public employees........"