Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), chairman of the state Assembly Colleges and Universities committee, sent a letter to UW System President Kevin Reilly Thursday that says he opposes a plan to split UW-Madison from the system.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to split UW-Madison from the UW System is the only one with political traction that would give the state?s flagship campus the freedom it needs to compete with other top research universities.
In the live chat that just concluded on the New Badger Partnership with Biddy Martin, Lori Berquam, Darrell Bazzell and others, many people brought up concern that Governor Walker would be able to appoint 11 of the 21 members of the proposed UW-Madison Board of Trustees. In addition the answer that Vice Chancellor Bazzell gave:
Here?s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn?t Cairo after all. Maybe it?s Baghdad ? specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.
MADISON, Wis. — A group of Democratic Assembly members have presented to a top aide of Gov. Scott Walker an alternative plan that would keep collective bargaining rights in place for public workers. The Democrats met Thursday afternoon with Mike Huebsch, secretary of Walker?s Department of Administration. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor did not meet with the lawmakers.
Madison Police Chief Noble Wray Thursday asked Gov. Scott Walker to explain his “troubling” and “unsettling” statements captured in a secretly recorded phone conversation that he “thought about” planting troublemakers among the thousands of peaceful demonstrators at the Capitol.
Amid confusion regarding the proposed split of UW-Madison from the UW System, a summary of the proposal to be included in Gov. Scott Walker?s budget was posted to the New Badger Partnership website Wednesday.
UW-Madison Anthropology Professor Sharon Hutchinson sent in her letter of retirement to the university Feb. 20 in response to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill.
While we never attended medical school, we know enough about the human condition to say confidently there are better cures for illness than to drive across the state and mill around in the frigid air for hours or days.The doctors who handed out work excuses to protesters in Madison have some explaining to do.
Kaja Rebane, a UW-Madison graduate student in environmental studies, is one of the leaders of the South Central Wisconsin Move to Amend chapter. The group is dedicated to fighting the U.S. Supreme Court?s January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which says corporations have free speech rights just like people do and that money spent on political campaigns counts as speech.
….Rebane is also an active member of the Teaching Assistants Association union and protested at the state Capitol for much of last week against Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill, which would strip public employee unions of almost all their bargaining power as well as increase worker contributions for health and retirement benefits.
The crowds and their demeanor on the Capitol Square these past several days have been an inspiration to those who witnessed them. That was evidenced this week by Madison?s city attorney, Mike May.
….?For those with some history with this fair city, as I have, the demonstrations this week were the largest since the Vietnam War. I?d like somebody to recognize that the issues are as important to the populace as they were during that era.
?Today, like all days, but more so than all days, I?m proud to be a Madisonian, and proud to be a public servant.?
Couldn?t have been more well said.
At least one doctor allegedly involved in writing sick notes for protesters at the Capitol last weekend has received “threats of violence,” the dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “Threats of violence are never appropriate,” Dr. Robert Golden said. A doctor got telephone threats at home, which were reported to local police, said UW Health spokeswoman Lisa Brunette.
The UW-Madison doctors who wrote medical excuses for budget repair protesters without conducting a medical interview or checking patients? vital signs in the privacy of their offices seem irresponsible. These doctors should have their medical licenses reviewed by the proper authorities.
After six consecutive days without arrests at the protests at the Capitol, members of the Teaching Assistants? Association are preparing for a long-term battle against the governor?s bill and the extended occupation of the building in solidarity with union members and University of Wisconsin students.
Jenna Theissen and Jodi Cincotta are fed up with what?s going on 53 miles west of here at the state Capitol in Madison.
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.
In a recent phone conversation with a journalist impersonating a Republican donor, the governor disclosed measures he said he hopes will bring 14 Democratic senators back into the state to make quorum and is unwilling to negotiate on the proposed bill.
Gov. Scott Walker called for the missing senators to return so the budget bill could pass and provide local services more than $1 billion in aid during a press conference Wednesday.
The debt refinancing is the single biggest piece of Gov. Walker?s budget-repair bill, which aims to close a projected shortfall between now and June 30. It?s an idea that should have bipartisan support.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin polling expert Charles Franklin.
There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker?s claim of a “budget shortfall” of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.
St. Paul, Minn. ? Faculty at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus have decided to go forward with a vote this week on whether to unionize, although the results might be rendered meaningless by Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to eliminate their collective bargaining rights.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students didn?t have a normal class day, if they had class at all.
The possibility of UW-Madison breaking off from the UW System could have ripple, if not wave, effects on UW-Whitewater.
A proposal expected to be included in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 budget that could allow UW-Madison to withdraw from the UW System would skirt the group charged with system oversight, Board of Regents member Edmund Manydeeds said.
In recent days, I?ve watched from afar as citizens of Wisconsin have captured the attention of the country with their spirited discussion and debate at the state Capitol. Clearly, the issues are painful and of great significance.
Another possible solution to the impasse over a bill taking away collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has been rejected by the Republican Senate leader.
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.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents wrote a letter to Chancellor Biddy Martin Tuesday in which they declared her proposed split of UW-Madison from the UW System “a radical departure from earlier statements about administrative flexibility and efficiency.”
Other states facing legislation that would threaten state employees? bargaining rights are beginning to mirror Wisconsin?s own mayhem, from unions protesting in Ohio to legislators fleeing in Indiana.
University of Wisconsin faculty joined teaching assistants and undergraduates in marching to the Capitol Tuesday in their first major demonstration of solidarity with protesters continuing to occupy the rotunda.
If you found yourself at the top of Bascom Hill this week, you probably heard a new sound among the usual cacophony of the University of Wisconsin campus: The chants of thousands of people rallying against the budget repair bill at the state Capitol.
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 vote to remove collective bargaining rights from public employees could happen as early as Wednesday night. Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald says he wants to take a vote by the end of the day.
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.
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.
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.
We recognize the rising Wisconsin wave of resistance to corporatization and austerity and call on our fellow Wisconsinites to join it. For more than a century Wisconsin was America?s laboratory of democracy. Big Wisconsin ideas, like barring corporate electioneering, workers? rights protections, and the conservation ethic, have inspired Americans everywhere to push their state governments in a more progressive direction. But Wisconsin is not immune to the forces that often threaten social progress. For every elected official who channels grass-roots energy and calls us to the higher ground, there?s a politician who wants to steer us off the cliff.
For every ?Fighting Bob? La Follette, there?s a ?Tailgunner Joe? McCarthy. Today, Wisconsin?s democratic tradition faces the greatest threat it has ever known.
(Column submitted by Wisconsin Wave, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy and the Liberty Tree Foundation.)
No wonder Gov. Walker was in such a hurry to get his budget repair bill passed. Every day new stuff comes out about it. The labor issues were obvious and got all the attention for a while. But then people started uncovering the fact that the bill would hand the Walker administration sweeping powers to revamp Medicaid with little public and legislative input. Now a third piece of the 144-page bill is making headlines ? a power grab some critics believe could be political payback to the conservative Koch brothers.
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 stalemate continued late into the night Tuesday as the state Assembly attempted to work through dozens of amendments proposed by Democrats ? most of them meant to stall the progress of Gov. Scott Walker?s controversial budget repair bill.
In a day that featured increased police presence at the Capitol, a “fireside chat” by the governor and a number of strategic maneuvers by the state Senate, the responsibility of actually moving Walker?s bill forward fell onto the shoulders of Assembly Republicans.
The expanded lobbying effort by the Koch brothers in Wisconsin raises red flags in particular because of a little discussed provision in Walker?s repair bill that would allow Koch Industries and other private companies to purchase state-owned power plants in no-bid contracts.
“It?s curious that the Kochs have apparently expanded their lobbying presence just as Walker was sworn into office and immediately before a budget was unveiled that would allow the executive branch unilateral power to sell off public utilities in this state in no-bid contracts,” says Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy.
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.
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.
