Harry

I apologise to everyone for taking up so much space here. I’ve kept going in part because I know there are still people who are looking here for news and discussion and impressions. And because, although at some level it seems parochial, this has been the most remarkable political movement I’ve witnessed close-to (and that included the 1984-5 Miners Strike and the peace movement in the early 80’s which was my first experience of a mass movement), and by far the biggest thing of its kind that I’ve known about in the US since moving here a quarter of a century ago. Unless something surprising happens, I’ll slow down from hereon, with maybe a couple of posts in the future giving more impressions and analysis, and maybe suggestions about where the movement could go.

But for the moment, there is one urgent thing. Several plans seem to have been made for events at the Capitol tomorrow. This is a sign of the lack of coordination among the diverse leaderships of a more or less spontaneous uprising. The time that most people are quoting is 11 a.m. I urge readers who can make it to get there, and those who cannot to encourage others to do so. The Bill is passed, and there is no point trying to kill it now. The key is a massive show of strength — not to show the Republicans what they will be up against in the coming year or so, but to show our quieter supporters throughout the state that we are strong and this is just the beginning of a much less spectacular and sexy movement that can reach far beyond the capitol into the cities, towns, and villages of Wisconsin, in which they can play a part with assurance that their efforts have a real prospect of success.

Here.

(from WisconsinEye, which is distinctly less user friendly than youtube).
Listen to the background noise.

The Senate passed the bill in a minute today. The process was very unusual, and seems to have violated Wisconsin’s open meeting laws, but we;ll see. Democratic staffers received a notice at 4.18 pm that there would be a conference committee meeting at 6pm (24 hours notice is required by law). The conference committee split the bill — so that the collective bargaining part of the bill is split from the budget part and, because the collective bargaining part is not, contrary to what Walker and the Republicans were saying till 4.19, a fiscal bill, it does not require a quorum in the Senate. Normal procedure would have the Senate and Assembly pass a bill, and only then go into conference committee. But this time, having split the bill in conference, the Senate took up the bill and passed it in the space of a minute with just one, Dale Schultz, voting against.

Also violating the open meetings law, the Republicans have called an Assembly Session for 11 am tomorrow. Of course, it is entirely possible that they will begin roll call at 10.05 am, they have, after all, been doing things like that.

News got out around 5pm this evening and by 6pm people were gathering outside the Capitol. The police had declared the Capitol closed and were trying to clear it, but no-one was leaving. The numbers increased progressively and impressively over the evening and about 30 minutes ago, finally, all doors to the Capitol were opened, and the Capitol is now full of people.

I haven’t verified the rumour that the 14 are returning, but it has been going around, and makes sense. The key thing, for the moment, is this: maximize the size of the demonstration at the Capitol at 11 tomorrow (Thursday) morning. If you can get there, please do, if you know anyone within a reasonable distance, call them and ask them to come. I don’t see any prospect of a good end to this in the short term. The aim now is to ensure that the people who have passed this feel the full strength of the movement against them, and that those who are determined to defeat them in the longer run will also see that they have vast resources on their side.

We’re close to the three week mark here, so I thought I’d provide an update and ask for some help. Over the past week the authorities have restricted access to the Capitol, and there is no question that this has combined with the cold weather to diminish the size of the protests, though not by much (our 4 year old is sufficiently recalcitrant that not being able to take some warmth in the Capitol means that my wife and I tend to go separately, rather than together). Earlier this week live ammunition was found in the Capitol, providing a pretext for the use of metal detectors. It is a sign of the esteem in which the police are held that I have heard no-one here suggest that the police planted the ammunition – everyone thinks it was a right-winger and that the police will make a good-faith effort to expose who did it. Assembly Democrats with ground floor offices responded by holding office hours outside in the cold — desks were being hauled back and forth through mercifully large windows. The Republicans put out a hilarious estimate of $6.5 million for cleaning up the Capitol (getting the adhesive off the walls) which the press pretty quickly ridiculed and was then reduced to $450,000 — after which skilled members of the relevant trade union offered to volunteer their services to do the cleanup (I imagine we’ll be setting up a fund soon for reseeding the mudbaths which which were once the lawns surrounding the building).

One Republican senator, Dale Schultz, after extensive consultation in his district, has announced that he will vote against the collective bargaining provisions of the budget repair bill, and the polls are consistently looking worse for Walker and the Republicans — and recall efforts are gradually being coordinated reasonably effectively. It takes two more Republicans to flip, and there are rumours that one might be flipping soon (but there are lots of rumours, put about by each side to demoralize the other).

The Wisconsin 14 are still solid. It is clear that there is considerable variation in their commitment – some would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of their lives their if that’s what it would take, whereas others (eg some with young children) are, understandably, really feeling the strain. They have lost their parking spots, are being fined $100 per day for every day they are not in the Capitol while the Senate is in session, have had their paychecks withheld till they pick them up in person, and the Republicans have passed a statute requiring that they all be arrested “with or without force” (a statute that is almost certainly illegal). So here’s the request for help. I’m told this is the most effective page through which to contribute to their campaign coffers, which money they can use to support living expenses etc. [1] (In discussing whether to post this my wife said “you’re not going to help fund-raise for the Democratic Party are you?” so I checked to ensure this would go direct to specific campaign funds — good grief, even I’m breaking my rule of only contributing to the best Democrat in the State now).

Michael Moore below the fold:

[click to continue…]

Extraordinary. (From Paul Krugman via Dan Hausman).

And I’d refer Fox news to this, which actually did happen in a warm place.

A very nice piece by long standing CT friend Christopher Phelps in the Chronicle (SM and I have known him for about 50 years between us), about the Wisconsin movement. An excerpt:

The crowds in red, as in the old Bangles song, are walking like an Egyptian. But they are also engaging in something we haven’t seen on this scale in a very long time: a dignified outpouring of a whole American community on behalf of labor. The events of late February are a striking example of what the English labor historian E.P. Thompson called “customs in common,” the web of shared traditions whose violation can propel people into the streets.

Custom in this case is the Wisconsin Idea, a notion that sometimes refers to the relationship between university and state but has a richer and more resonant history tracing to the state’s pioneering Progressive tradition. Its personification was the Republican Robert M. La Follette, who served as congressman, governor, and senator between the 1880s and 1920s. Through direct primaries, voter recall, civil-service standards, corporate taxation, regulation, and expert policy counsel from university scholars (rather than, say, corporate lobbyists)—a set of reforms together known as the Wisconsin Idea—La Follette sought to deal with what he called “the problems of vast financial power in private hands” on behalf of “the common man­—the worker, the farmer.”

It has been a very long time since a Republican senator from Wisconsin has said, as did La Follette, “The only salvation for the Republican Party lies in purging itself wholly from the influence of financial interests.” But Madison is a capital city filled with public employees who take pride in the knowledge that Wisconsin was, in 1959, the first state to recognize public workers’ collective-bargaining rights. The Wisconsin Idea—a classroom staple of the very schoolteachers whose labor rights are now threatened—has been given new life by the multitudes chanting, “This is what democracy looks like.”

I was unaware of Phelps’ use of the Wisconsin Idea until I read this piece — on my end of State Street a different version, which concerns the value of the University to the State and its population, tends to prevail, but the version Phelps adopts is, in fact, another version with real currency, that I didn’t know. A small irony for me is that the person who first introduced me to the idea of the University version of the Wisconsin Idea, when he was a student in a political philosophy class — and went to great lengths to convince me I should start really learning a lot about education policy issues so that I could make some sort of practical contribution — is now one of the Democratic Assembly members leading the movement (and moment), and totally committed to the version of the idea that Phelps cites. Reading Phelps’ piece reminded me how much I owe to Cory Mason — I must thank him when he gets some time to relax. (By the way, he has a narrow majority, so if your name is not Koch, he’ll probably welcome donations, if you can figure out where to send them).

An aside: I came home from delivering the boy to preschool this morning and found the signs my middle one and her best friend made at my wife’s crisis committee meeting last night. “Soccer Rocks! So Do Unions!”, “We Want Unions!” etc. Can you imagine a city in the US in 2011 in which hundreds of 10-year-olds are making signs like those? It is surreal.

An interesting piece in the Chronicle by Jerome Lucido is pretty damning of the college admissions system (especially among private very selective colleges, but not just among them). Last month I was at the conference he refers to at the end of the article (in fact I was a keynote speaker, and only at the last minute did I manage to suppress my inclination to channel James Stockdale, given that I basically know nothing about college admissions). I suppose the participants — about 175 people, almost all admissions or financial aid officials from a diverse array of selective schools, including the admissions deans of several Ivies and flagship states — were largely self-selecting, but still I was surprised how much consensus there appeared to be about what the problems are with the admissions system and how they are generated. Here is Lucido’s basic analysis:

College and university leaders—trustees, presidents, chief academic officers—have the unenviable responsibility of ensuring their institutions’ continued financial viability while pursuing increasingly ambitious academic missions. In this pursuit, their strong turn to the competitive marketplace is understandable. But it is also clear that more is happening here. There is an insatiable appetite for prestige and status that accompanies the drive for revenues. What we see now is that marketplace competition has escalated to the point at which it threatens to become the mission rather than to serve the mission. And for what gain?

An institution can achieve short-term market advantage through aggressive marketing, but in due time competitors will match and then surpass that edge. The escalating competition raises institutional costs, invariably resulting in higher tuition and a greater need to admit students whose families can pay full price.

While some institutions can handle the added expense, there are broader costs that no college can handle alone. As numerous scholars have documented, zealous pursuit of institutional interest has come at the expense of social goals and the public trust. Moreover, there is a loss of educational values, a loss that we cannot afford. One effect of our pursuit of rankings and prestige has been to change how students view college. No longer seen as the crucial capstone of an educational journey, a degree is now regarded as a ticket to economic advantage. Students and institutions alike, it seems, are branding themselves in pursuit of positioning.

My daughter having reached high school, and being surrounded by adoring juniors and seniors (don’t ask) I encounter a lot of kids who seem caught up in this world — applying to college seems to dominate an entire year of the life of upper middle class kids here, and, at least from my vantage point, does seem to discourage academic risk-taking, focuses attention unhealthily on grades over learning, and encourages them to partake in the proliferation of meaningless “awards” (my daughter was nominated for a “leadership award” from the American Legion while still in middle school, and was criticized by a friend for spurning the nomination on the grounds that the award would help her college applications (my daughter, as you might guess from previous references, says “I don’t want to go to some fancy east coast school. I want to go to a state college. In the Midwest”). I’ll take up the other part of Lucido’s article, concerning the metrics by which we should judge colleges another time (after I’ve read Richard Shavelson’s book explaining the CLA). The only advice I have if you are going through, or about to go through, this nightmare, is to peruse the Education Conservancy’s site for sane advice, or to read Lloyd Thacker’s collection College Unranked, which contains plenty of sensible advice mainly from admissions deans, to your kids when you tuck them up in bed at night.

Here.

My assembly representative (whom I didn’t support — he is not known to be particularly leftwing, and the Reps don’t bother running in this seat, so I supported the Green) writes the following instructions to his friends:

Continue to show up here at the capitol and shake the foundations of this building with your opposition.

Contact friends and relatives around the state and urge them to contact their Republican representatives. If you
know anyone in Appleton or Neenah (Senator Ellis), the LaCrosse area (Senator Kapanke), the Hudson area
(Senator Harsdorf), the Ripon area (Senator Olsen), Waupun or Beaver Dam (Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald),
Platteville or Dodgeville (Senator Schultz), Sheboygan or Manitowoc (Senator Leibham), the Green Bay area
(Senator Cowles), Fond du Lac or Oshkosh (Senator Hopper), communication from the constituents of these
Senators would be especially helpful.

Protests continue at the state capitol building, as well as major rallies, until the people of our state are heard by
this Governor.

So, the Rep Senators thought to be particularly vulnerable to caving are named, and, wherever you are, if you know people who live in those districts prevail upon them to write or call, maintaining a polite friendly demeanor if possible.

Phelps asks me “How often has a Democratic representative asked constituents to shake the foundations of the Capitol building?” Not a lot in the past few decades, I’d guess.

Oh, and my representative will have to do some really awful stuff in the coming year or so if he wants me to support an opponent again at the next election.

Can anybody in Indiana comment on this? (thanks roac).

With a wary eye on Wisconsin, Republican leaders in several states are toning down the tough talk against public employee unions and, in some cases, abandoning anti-union measures altogether. Indiana’s governor urged GOP lawmakers to give up on a “right to work” bill for fear the backlash could derail the rest of his agenda. In Ohio, senators plan to soften a bill that would have banned all collective bargaining by state workers. And in Michigan, the Republican governor says he’d rather negotiate with public employees than pick a fight.

Hard to know what to say about this:

“The law enforcement officers from across the state that have been working at the Capitol and have been very impressed with how peaceful everyone has been,” said WPPA Executive Director Jim Palmer. “As has been reported in the media, the protesters are cleaning up after themselves and have not caused any problems. The fact of that matter is that Wisconsin’s law enforcement community opposes Governor Walker’s effort to eliminate most union activity in this state, and we implore him to not do anything to increase the risk to officers and the public. The costs of providing security can never outweigh those associated with a conflict.” Palmer also announced that, beginning tonight, the WPPA is formally requesting its members from across the state to come to the Capitol to sleep amongst the throngs of other union supporters.
“Law enforcement officers know the difference between right and wrong, and Governor Walker’s attempt to eliminate the collective voice of Wisconsin’s devoted public employees is wrong,” continued Palmer. “That is why we have stood with our fellow employees each day and why we will be sleeping among them tonight.”

I guess my daughter, now largely absent from the home, will be safe.

The Assembly passed the Bill last night around 1am — although there is now some doubt about the legality of the process, in view of the fact that many Democrats had no opportunity to vote. (TV report here, thanks Joe). The Republicans said that 60 hours of debate was enough — though it is hard to call what happened in the Assembly “debate”, given the complete lack of interest one side had in considering any possible slight flaws in the Bill.

Four Republicans voted against the bill:
Dean Kaufert of Neenah
Lee Nerison of Westby
Richard Spanbauer of Oshkosh
Travis Tranel of Cuba City

Their mailboxes will be full of bile. If you live in one of their districts, please write, thanking them. If you don’t live in any of their districts, it is still worth writing a short, kind, note, thanking them for their courage, and telling them that you understand how hard it must have been to stand up for their principles, but that there’s no point being in politics if you can’t do that. Tranel, in particular, is young, and a freshman: he’s going to have a tough few months is my guess, and friendly words of support from around the country and maybe the world are the least he deserves.

The Dems have been bloody brilliant.

We Are Wisconsin from Finn Ryan on Vimeo.

(via Joe)
And she is Wisconsin:

The Hustisford School Board approved giving preliminary layoff notices to all 34 members of its teachers union, including the wife of state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, superintendent Jeremy Biehl confirmed Thursday.
The board took the action in advance of Gov. Scott Walker’s release of the state budget and the statutory deadline for issuing such notices “to give themselves complete flexibility,” Biehl said. Hustisford administrators had recommended issuing the notices to five staff members.
“It’s not something I take lightly,” said Fitzgerald, whose wife, Lisa, is the district’s only guidance counselor. “It will have an effect on our life.”
Fitzgerald said his wife initially believed she was one of only three staff members to receive a preliminary layoff notice, after the board’s Wednesday action. “I thought maybe she was being targeted by them,” he said.
Even after learning that everyone had received notices and that she was not targeted, Fitzgerald said “it seems odd.”

He should talk to the Governor who is planning to send such notices to thousands of people, most of whom also have relatives.

Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, embodiment of all that was best on the conservative side of the post-war consensus, is dead. Obit here. Because the videos I’ve been posting are bleeding off the main page, here are some links.
Presumably, as they lower the coffin, Benton will fire five rounds rapid.