Posted on 03/09/2011 8:57:45 AM PST by Freedom56v2
Efforts to recall 14 Republican and Democratic senators in Wisconsin picked up momentum Tuesday while Gov. Scott Walker released emails suggesting the two sides discussed compromises in the three-week standoff over the governor's "budget-repair" bill.
A handful of emails between the governor's staff and top Democrats appear to show the governor softening his position on collective bargaining for public employee unions, which has been at the center of the stalemate. Fourteen Democratic senators left the state on Feb. 17 to prevent a vote on Mr. Walker's legislation.
The governor, who has previously said collective-bargaining rights should be restricted to wages, broadened his position to include mandatory overtime, performance bonuses and hazardous duty pay, the emails show. He also discussed scrapping a proposal to limit wage increases to the rate of inflation.
Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for the governor, said the emails "demonstrate that the lines of communications have been open and negotiations have been ongoing for more than a week. We have repeatedly tried to get Senate Democrats to come home and continued to provide reasonable offers for their consideration."
Democratic Sen. Bob Jauch, a recipient of several of the emails, said their release was a positive step that "enables people to see the kind of starting point you can get to achieve a compromise."
"There was some real serious discussion about bringing collective bargaining back from the grave," he said.
The talks, which began around Feb. 28 and continued at least through Sunday evening, appear to have faltered Monday when the two sides failed to agree on a face-to-face meeting. There are no indications that an agreement is imminent.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Good to know, thanks for posting. Hard to see thru all the chaff.
I wonder if this article is bs. I don’t recall any Republicans helping the Dems.
Sounds more like the Dems trying to include or make this the Republicans fault which seems to be their top priority everywhere.
The DNC and Obama’s campaign are sending in funding and operatives to run the recalls, both on the ones that can be recalled now, and the Republicans that can be recalled early next year.
Their goal is to wipe us out here in WI (and in OH, IN, and FL) before 2012 so they can steam roll us in the Presidential election, a fillabuster proof Dem senate, and give Pelosi the gavel again.
I think Rush just said that these emails being discussed are old emails from before polls indicating the gov is winning the argument with voters.
..and doing nothing (i.e. 9/11).
None of the five have done anything to warrant a recall. Some have just run an election campaign, and have NO funds for another this soon.
The key provision in Walker's Budget Repair Bill is the provision to stop the state from collecting union dues. Everyone seems to miss this - including many conservative talk show pundits (the guy who sat in for GB today was unable to understand that everything else in the bill is fungible execpt that.
This whole thing is simply boiling down to two things:
1) Can the public unions maintain their control over WI government as they have for the past 40 years or not? (While using continuing to use WI residents as a source of ready cash).
2) Without WI in the Dem column in 2012, Obizmo will not win.
Thus these five state senators must be made into examples lest other states follow suit by cutting off union funding and thus Dem election funds.
They will not have won, once they collapse our system of government and we are a third world hell hole caught up in civil war.
I agree...what result do you think will likely occur?
We must start planning to go after the most vulnerable democrat senators now.
There are three that are very vulnerable. They are in swing districts and the money to get them recalled would be the most effective. Most republicans are not is swing districts.
We need to start planning right now. If it appears that others have pissed off enough people in their areas, we need to add them in and plan to get them recalled.
We also need to make sure David Prosser, currently a WI supreme court justice, wins re-election this April for another 10 year term. Right now the court is 4-3 conservative (and each side hates the other) so we need him to win so the libs don’t send every piece of legislation to the courts and have a liberal 4-3 court continually strike down laws passed by Walker and the legislature.
Wis. Senate approves bill to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights (18-1)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2686281/posts
If Walker wins this one, then maybe other states will follow forcing the Unions to spread their money around.
As for the recall elections, if Walker wins, then is very likely that no matter how much money the Union spends, they will lose - hinging on voter turn out. The WI public will have to chose between being taxpayers who run the state or Union cash machines who do what they are told as they have for 40 years.
>> It’s gonna be a tough slog for the Dems to make any ground. They are more likely to lose ground.
The Republicans should not underestimate the influence of Leftist propaganda and the often fickle nature of the voter. The GOP is notoriously ignorant on this front.
As I posted in the other thread, the worst thing that can happen is if the GOP gets complacent on the recalls for the Fleebagger 14 now that the bill has passed.
The Dems will push recalls nonstop the next 12-months. So the GOP must push them as well on the vulnerable members of the Fleebagger 14. That way if the GOP loses a seat or two, they stand a chance of picking up one in these other districts.
>> the worst thing that can happen is if the GOP gets complacent
Definitely in this case, but is that not the GOP’s problem in general? Yeah, the “compassionate conservatives” are a bunch of frauds, but if we ignore those RINOs, the rest still seem to lose their orientation by the stroke of a feather. Maybe things will be different with the TPE class.
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