Category: State news

Are the University of Wisconsin System and its Madison campus headed for divorce court? Can this marriage be saved? Should it be saved?

These are good questions, but no one can answer them yet because Gov. Scott Walker has yet to make fully public a proposal for such a split.

But we can speak to what we will consider, and it is not a given that what is good for the Madison campus is be good for Wisconsin, the rest of the UW System or the Milwaukee campus. Put another way, how Madison benefits should not necessarily trump the needs of the state, the system, the Milwaukee campus or students.

Gov. Scott Walker said Sunday he supports spinning off not just the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a separate authority, but a number of other campuses as well.

“I?d like to offer that for all the campuses,” the Republican governor said on “Upfront with Mike Gousha” on WISN-TV (Channel 12). “I?d like to see that expanded to give them flexibility all throughout the state.”

Along with others, former Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and current University of Wisconsin Regent Tom Loftus has asked Chancellor Biddy Martin to withdraw her support for the proposal to separate UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.

JANESVILLE ? UW-Madison leaders insist transfer agreements with other universities won?t change if the flagship campus splits from the statewide system, but local educators remain skeptical.

Last Friday the UW Board of Regents held a meeting to discuss the possibility of Madison separating from the UW System.

UW?s Board of Regents met to discuss spinning off the Madison campus from the rest of the system.

UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin defends a plan to allow her campus to no longer operate under the UW-System. The so-called split is part of the New Badger Partnership and Governor Walker?s next two year budget.

Students and faculty at UW-Madison are cautiously optimistic about a plan to separate the Madison campus from the rest of the statewide UW System. The Board of Regents discussed the plan at a special meeting in Madison today.

Ever since massive demonstrations began breaking out at the Capitol last week, police and protesters have maintained a convivial relationship. Now it?s about to get downright cozy. On Friday, the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association called on the governor to keep the Capitol open to overnight campers, and even urged members to join them.

Republicans resorted to a surprise vote at 1:09 a.m. Friday morning to pass the governor?s controversial budget repair bill as Democrats leapt out of their chairs shouting ?Shame! Shame!? at the exiting representatives.

On the Tuesday after Valentine’s Day, the Wisconsin state legislature found itself listening to public testimony that dragged well into the night on Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget repair bill. Having learned that the joint finance committee would hear a list of speakers in its entirety — no matter how many people signed up — the Teaching Assistants Association, a labor union that represents teaching assistants and project assistants at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had recruited thousands to testify that day.

Protesters are not giving up the fight against Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill, with marches and rallies scheduled to continue Friday and Saturday at the State Capitol and on the Capitol Square in Madison. The protests reached a zenith on Thursday, as thousands of people went to 26 rallies and marches in 18 communities across Wisconsin, in what the state AFL-CIO labor organization called the biggest day of demonstrations outside of Madison in the state?s history.

Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill would bust the budget of the state agency required to administer part of it, while creating a strange and difficult standard for unions to meet in order to continue to exist, said Peter Davis, general counsel for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.

Walker?s bill would require the commission?s 20-person staff to conduct votes in up to 2,000 state and local government unions each April, Davis said Thursday.

?We would try, but there?s no way we could do it,? Davis said.

Rep. Steve Nass, a perpetual critic of public higher education in Wisconsin, sent a letter to UW System President Kevin Reilly stating he will oppose Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to separate UW-Madison away from the rest of the system. The Republican from the town of La Grange is chairman of the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee.

Protesters will have to end sleepovers in offices and hearing rooms of the Wisconsin Capitol by Saturday night. Members of the University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants Association, who have taken up third floor office space, say the move is intended to end “democratic occupation” of the Capitol.

After a bitter, 61-hour debate that was the longest in living memory, the sleep-starved state Assembly voted in just seconds early Friday to approve a watershed proposal repealing most union bargaining rights held by public workers.

Just after 1 a.m., Republicans cut off debate on Gov. Scott Walker?s bill and in pell-mell fashion the body voted 51-17 to pass it. In the confusion, nearly one-third of the body – 28 lawmakers including 25 Democrats, two Republicans and the body?s lone independent – did not vote on the bill at all.

Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.

Representatives in the state Assembly have voted to pass a controversial budget repair bill that would strip public sector workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights.

Republicans in the Wisconsin State Assembly abruptly cut off debate and voted Governor Scott Walker?s budget repair bill in before many legislators could figure out what was happening.

The past week has been a fantastic display of the democratic process: It is great to see people caring and exercising their rights. However, this is hardly the first time something like this has happened in Madison.

It was chaos in the state Capitol early Friday morning, as Republicans in the Assembly abruptly cut off debate on the Governor?s budget repair bill and forced a vote on the measure.