MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been lured into a conversation about his strategy in the state?s ongoing battle over union rights Wednesday by an online journalist pretending to a billionaire Republican donor.
After rumors a possible split from the University of Wisconsin System may occur broke out last week, UW officials released documents Wednesday night detailing how a public authority university would function and be governed.
As the state Assembly continued its marathon session in to the early morning hours of Thursday, Democrats came to the defense of correctional officers; one institution at a time.
UW-Madison posted two papers Wednesday which shed a little more light on what breaking away from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System might mean.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker would appoint most members of the board that runs the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under a plan spelled out in a document released Wednesday by UW-Madison officials.
UW-Madison students do not pay tuition and place their diploma?s prestige on any other university than Madison. It?s nice that some people place a higher premium on keeping the UW System together, but at the end of the day ? kind of like the United Nations and international law ? our individual school?s autonomy is more important. We cannot sacrifice the quality of UW-Madison. The vast majority of UW-Madison students agree with this premise.
UW-Madison would be governed by a 21-member board of trustees ? 11 appointed by Gov. Scott Walker ? under a proposal likely to be included in Walker?s budget.
John Wiley, the former UW-Madison chancellor, is a physicist by training, and accustomed to his profession?s penchant to undersell its accomplishments to any audience – except other physicists.
Noted: Russell Wilbur Peterson, the eighth of nine children of a Swedish immigrant bartender and barber, was born on Oct. 3, 1916, in Portage, Wis. Unlike his brothers who dropped out of school, he was determined to get an education, and he worked as a dishwasher in the chemistry laboratory of the University of Wisconsin to pay his tuition.
Quoted: UW-Madison professor Cameron Macdonald.
Democracy can be messy. That doesn?t mean it has to be this messy. Governor, Democrats, clean it up. It takes a first step.
A new study by University of Wisconsin researchers said hearing loss in middle-age men is common, but could be addressed by changes in lifestyle.
Last Wednesday morning, I awoke to find a long, detailed e-mail from my mother, now in her seventies, in which she described arriving home from the Wisconsin State Capitol, in Madison, at one in the morning. She had waited, with my sister and hundreds of others, to testify before the State Senate?s Joint Finance Committee and register her opposition to the proposal by Governor Scott Walker, a Republican elected in November, to eliminate most collective-bargaining rights for state employees.
Senior year of high school we once convinced our parents to get us out of school for a day under the pretense that we were sick. Actually we went to Dodger Stadium. But the next day we came down with chicken pox, and that karmic twist pretty much cured us of the urge to prevaricate via an excuse note.
About 10 per cent of middle-aged Americans show signs of a hearing impairment some of which might be preventable, a large new study suggests.
Quoted: “From the day after the election you could argue he has been in overdrive,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has called a special meeting Friday to discuss a plan to split the flagship campus from the rest of the UW System.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin quietly backed the plan suggested by Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s administration. Officials said last week that they expected Walker to include more autonomy for UW-Madison and UWM when he presents his budget for the next two fiscal years later this month.
University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics – which doesn?t receive state money directly – would be barred from collectively bargaining with its roughly 5,000 union employees under Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed budget-repair bill.
The provision surprised health system executives.
“We did not anticipate and certainly did not request elimination of the right to bargain, and we have communicated this to the Governor,” Donna Katen-Bahensky, president and chief executive of the health system, wrote in an e-mail to employees on Friday.
In a televised speech Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker called for civility and declined to back down from his tough stance with public employee unions.
He argued his budget-repair bill is ultimately about the state?s finances and economy – not worker rights. He also warned Democrats boycotting the Senate that they need to return to Wisconsin to prevent thousands of layoffs of state workers.
Less than two months into his first term, Gov. Scott Walker finds himself at the center of a political storm.Calm and unflappable in the wake of daily demonstrations at the state Capitol, Walker has emerged as a new face on the national scene and a new political hope for the national Republican Party. Story also quotes UW-Madison political scientists Charles Franklin.
Quoted: “They?re exercising both symbolic power here as well as the only leverage they?ve got, not unlike the U.S. Senate filibuster,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Dennis Dresang.
Quoted: “It drew national attention and emboldened their supporters and may have brought some donations in to their side,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But in the end they lost the policy dispute.”
Hundreds of UW-Madison professors, lecturers and teaching assistants had a new chant to shout as they made their way down Bascom Hill to State Street Tuesday afternoon: “UW united will never be defeated!”
Former UW-Madison Business School dean Michael Knetter railed Tuesday against partisan politics, saying the rancor and uncertainty endangers the nation?s economic recovery. Knetter said it?s harder than in the past to predict how the economy will recover because of contentious politics and what he calls “policy uncertainty.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the 12 members of Ohio?s Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee convened in a corner room on the second floor of the state senate building in Columbus. No vote or amendment was on the agenda, just a hearing on what is simply called Senate Bill 5. Outside the door, hundreds of protesters pressed into the halls and stairwells of the capitol as thousands more crowded the surrounding streets. They all wanted to testify.
In Wisconsin, today?s Ground Zero for state budget battles, it is not hard to see bad behavior all around. Teachers are playing hooky to protest Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to trim their benefits and clip back the power of their union. Democratic lawmakers are hiding out in Illinois to prevent a GOP majority from working its will. And Walker, a newly elected Republican, has chosen this moment of fiscal crisis to pursue questionable tax cuts and a risky attack on collective bargaining.
Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.
Huge crowds gathered at the Capitol for an eighth day Tuesday to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to cut union benefits and end most public workers? collective bargaining rights as the state Assembly debated the bill and Senate Democrats stayed in exile. Demonstrators crowded into the Capitol rotunda, and thousands more gathered outside. The din inside eased as people watched the Assembly debate on big-screen monitors, but loud boos erupted when Republicans spoke.
The UW Board of Regents will hold a special meeting Friday morning to discuss the possible separation of UW-Madison from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System. Calling for a “public conversation,” UW System leaders told UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin in a letter Tuesday that the effects of splitting off the flagship university would ripple across the state.
Life in the Capitol, while spirited and invigorating, also can take its toll, especially as some of the protesters begin their second week of overnights. The lights never go out, making sleep a challenge for some. The restrooms accommodate only so many at a time. Privacy hardly exists, with strangers in pajamas sprawled along the walls and corridors, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags. As most of the crowd slept, volunteers with the Teaching Assistants? Association, composed of UW-Madison graduate students, sat in a room together working away on laptops, sending calls via Facebook and Twitter to marshal volunteers and help distribute the massive quantities of donated food, water and coffee that have poured in daily.
According to this recent story from the New York Times, court rules are being written that would guarantee free legal representation to homeowners facing foreclosure in New York. Local foreclosure advocates also have warned about too many area residents trying to save their homes without lawyers. Two local support programs, the Foreclosure Answer Clinic, and a voluntary court mediation program, were designed to address that concern. Voluntary lawyers from the State Bar and UW-Madison law students may help with those programs.
The state Department of Regulation and Licensing is reviewing complaints about doctors writing sick notes last weekend to excuse Capitol protesters from work, the agency said Tuesday. “We?re processing these complaints as quickly as possible,” said a statement by Dave Ross, regulation and licensing secretary. The agency is working with the Medical Examining Board on the issue, he said.UW Health is also investigating reports about its doctors, and the Wisconsin Medical Society has criticized the doctors? actions. “These charges are very serious,” a statement by UW Health said. “These UW Health physicians were acting on their own and without the knowledge or approval of UW Health.”
Wisconsin officials are investigating complaints about doctors who handed out medical excuses for pro-labor protesters at the Capitol. Department of Regulation and Licensing secretary Dave Ross says the agency received 500 e-mails alerting the department to the physicians handing out notes. Tuesday?s statement came a day after University of Wisconsin Health, which employs some of the physicians involved, said it was also looking into the matter.
MADISON (WKOW) — Governor Walker has yet to compromise on his budget repair bill that will eliminate collective bargaining rights for most state workers.
Tuesday?s session of the Wisconsin Assembly began at noon, and continued overnight well into Wednesday morning.
The State Assembly kept its debate going late Tuesday night over amendments to Governor Walker?s repair bill.
Gov. Scott Walker is warning if his budget repair bill doesn?t pass soon, state workers could start receiving layoff notices as early as next week.
Wisconsin?s 14 Democratic senators are being threatened with recalls and having their paychecks withheld because they?ve been hiding out of state since Thursday.
For the ninth consecutive day, protesters continued to march at the Wisconsin Capitol, fighting to preserve collective bargaining rights for public workers.
Gov. Scott Walker said failing to pass a bill stripping union rights for Wisconsin public workers would have “dire consequences.”
MADISON, Wis. — If Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators pass a union bill that restricts collective bargaining rights, some labor groups said a statewide worker strike is a very real possibility.
Anyone logging on at the state capitol?s wi-fi connection as a guest could not access defendwisconsin.org for a time Monday. Sachen Chheda, a former capitol tech worker and current Chairman of the Milwaukee County Dems, says the screenshot looked like an intentional blockage used by an older program with which he was familiar.
Things get a little heated at a Senate committee hearing Tuesday afternoon.
The state Assembly opened debate Tuesday around noon on Governor Scott Walker?s budget repair bill.
Governor Scott Walker took the case for his budget repair bill to the state last night.
As protestors settled in for another night sleeping in the Capitol rotunda, members of the Assembly continued work into the early morning hours. The Assembly started its floor session to debate the Governor?s budget repair bill just before noon on Tuesday. For the most part, members remained on the floor through the night as Democrats attacked the measure on several fronts.
The chancellor of Ohio?s recently established university system, Eric Fingerhut, announced his resignation Tuesday, a year before his five-year term was to expire and four months after his political ally, former Governor Ted Strickland, lost his re-election bid.
Between the colorful rallies and counter-rallies, and legislators fleeing their own states, the debate over the right of public employees to unionize has captured national attention in the last two weeks.
Quoted: Speaking of Mr. Beil?s stance then, William Powell Jones, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin, said: ?My sense is his position was, ?We?re in a position of power. We don?t negotiate.? It?s certainly not the kind of thing to make an anti-union public sympathetic to the union movement.?
Among the thousands of government workers who demonstrated against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker over collective bargaining rights were men and women wearing white lab coats and carrying clipboards. Some had stethoscopes around their necks.According to the Wisconsin Republican Party, they were doctors who wrote excuses for the protesters to explain their absence from work.
This is not your parents? state Capitol anymore.
From violinists serenading protesters as they entered the halls of state government to the makeshift information desk that has sprung up to offer everything from media talking points to directions to the nearest electrical outlets, the Capitol and surrounding grounds have become Wisconsin?s three-ring circus of protest.
State Sen. Pam Galloway (R-Wausau) vowed Monday to look into allegations that doctors handed out medical excuses to protesters in Madison over the weekend.
Amidst all the protesting centered on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker?s Budget Reform Bill, a more heinous act of treachery has been stealthily executed in an attempt to damn the University of Wisconsin ? Madison into the obscurity of bottom-tier education quality.
So, lost in the activity at the capital is the important question of what becomes of UW-Madison and the System with the new budget. I?ve heard from sources in the Walker camp that Madison will likely have the Public Authority model that UW-System originally asked for. Apparently, the Governor decided that it would be too much for the entire system to go that route without a test case, which led to Madison?s choice. Seeing it from that perspective, it makes perfect sense to have a trial run, and to do it with the school most able to do it, before committing all students down that path.
A new survey of mostly middle-aged adults reveals that among people aged 45 to 54, one in nine shows signs of hearing impairment.
The authors, led by Scott Nash of the University of Wisconsin, determined someone was hearing impaired if at least one ear had trouble hearing various sounds within the range of human speech.
Quoted: Earlier this month, University of Wisconsin students had their first full snow day in years. Spokeswoman Liz Beyler said the school had a snow day Feb. 2 during which most things were closed due to an expected blizzard.
The idea of large-scale matching grants has been tested in California, where the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation committed $110 million, to be matched by smaller grants, for 100 endowed positions at Berkeley. A model that combines private philanthropy and the government also has been realized; the University of Wisconsin at Madison announced in December that it received a $20 million matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the State of Wisconsin to support the humanities. Both institutions were among the 10 top public research institutions that Birgeneau mentioned during his remarks as potentially benefiting from a larger federal role. And Wisconsin?s flagship is making quiet moves to separate from the rest of the UW system.
For all of the attention we give to student-athletes at the University of Wisconsin, the truth of the matter is we don?t really know them well at all.
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine is investigating the disturbing and disgraceful writing of fake sick notes by some of its doctors to excuse state lawmakers who decided to bail from the capital. It is the right call. But an investigation is not enough. The state Medical Examining Board of the Department of Regulation and Licensing needs to reprimand these doctors and, in some cases, consider handing down suspensions.
Column by Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
