No matter how vocal the opposition, the state?s new Republican leadership rarely blinks when pushing through measures it deems important. Return federal high-speed rail money? Check. Slash public sector unions? rights? Done. Implement a voter ID bill? No problem.
So, when members of the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee inserted language into their version of the state budget that would have been a boon to state telecommunications providers and a blow to decades-old investments made by University of Wisconsin institutions to help deliver and expand Internet access to entities such as schools and libraries, people across Wisconsin reached for the panic button.