The first battle is over in Wisconsin, but the war may spill over to the rest of the U.S. | REUTERS Wisconsin fight goes national

The first round is over. Republican Gov. Scott Walker delivered a crushing defeat to government employee unions in their fight over labor rights in Wisconsin.

But the passage of a law stripping away collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers has touched off a much larger political battle that threatens to spread over Wisconsin’s borders and across the 2012 landscape.


Democrats in Wisconsin are vowing to transform virtually every upcoming state and local election there into a referendum on Walker’s administration. Party leaders from Madison to Washington are gearing up for a major fight in the hope of sending an unmistakable signal to other ambitious GOP state executives.

Their efforts to make Walker and his supports pay a high political price for their victory has led Republicans to activate their own campaign machinery. Few expect the conflict will stay contained in Wisconsin.

“What you’re seeing is a reaction from the national Democratic Party to try and hold the line because they realize that if we’re successful in Wisconsin, there will be a national impact,” said Republican State Leadership Committee president Chris Jankowski, whose group supports GOP candidates in state-level campaigns.

Already, the national parties and their House, Senate and gubernatorial campaign committees have sought to capitalize on the Wisconsin struggle through fundraising appeals, press releases and television and online ads.

Leaders in both camps are describing the next phase of the struggle in Wisconsin in dire terms.

Wisconsin state Senate President Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican who shepherded the labor law to passage, touched off a small firestorm when he told Fox News that ending collective bargaining would affect the outcome of the 2012 presidential race.

“If we win this battle and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions,” he said last week, “Obama is going to have a much … more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, accused Walker and Republicans in the state Legislature of seeking out an “ideological war.”

Democrats, Barrett said, would need to harness voters’ outrage — and soon — in order to blunt the impact of new campaign finance rules that are expected to favor Republicans.

“The one-two punch of the Citizens United court case and the evisceration of public-sector unions in Wisconsin really creates a heads-you-win, tails-I-lose situation in terms of funding elections in Wisconsin,” Barrett said.

But, he continued: “As damaging a blow as this has been to labor, I just think the emotions and momentum of that will create a lot of energy.”

The test of that backlash will be a series of state and local elections beginning on April 5. Then, Wisconsin voters will elect a new state Supreme Court justice, who could ultimately rule on legal challenges to the anti-union law.

They’ll also choose a new Milwaukee County executive, filling the job left vacant when Walker was promoted to governor last fall.

The real battle royal, however, is likely to come next summer, when multiple state senators are likely to face recall campaigns. Strategists in both parties say there’s a very real possibility that one or more could be booted from office.

“I think there’s a very good chance that Democrats can take back the Senate,” said Michael Sargeant, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

“This is the first salvo,” Sargeant said. “The struggle and the fight in Wisconsin has mobilized working people and Democrats around the country.”

Sixteen state lawmakers in total are eligible to be recalled — eight Democrats and eight Republicans. Democrats would need to beat three Republican incumbents in order to take control of the chamber.

It remains to be seen how many will actually face recall elections this year. Wisconsin law says that in any given district, organizers have 60 days after announcing a recall effort to gather a number of signatures equal to a quarter of the votes cast there in the last gubernatorial election.

The DLCC is already on the air with an ad blasting Republican state Sen. Luther Olsen for his vote to end public-sector collective bargaining. On the other side of the fight, the RSLC is advertising against Democratic state Sen. Jim Holperin.

Liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for an anticipated recall campaign.

While polling shows Democrats have an edge in the debate over collective bargaining, Republicans believe that Democratic attempts to delay the legislation, which included 14 legislators leaving the state in order to block a vote, cast the minority party in a bad light.

“We’re taking it seriously. Absolutely,” Fitzgerald, the state Senate president, told POLITICO.

He cautioned that while Democratic activists are more visibly fired up, Republican state senators have received plenty of encouraging words from their constituents.

“People started to hear from the quote-unquote ‘silent majority’ out there, saying, ‘Stick to your guns, do what you have to do,’” Fitzgerald said, acknowledging that “any public employee union member that’s been directly affected by it has been even more agitated.”

A survey from the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Policy Research Institute released prior to the state Senate’s vote showed 50 percent of voters believed it was unnecessary to take away workers’ collective bargaining rights, while 43 percent said it was a sensible reform.

The same survey showed Walker’s unfavorable rating now outstrips his favorable rating by 10 points, 53 percent to 43 percent.

Walker will undoubtedly remain at the center of the political storm as recall efforts move forward. Democrats in Wisconsin have even raised the possibility of a recall campaign against the governor, though he won’t be a legally eligible target until he’s been in office for a year.

It remains to be seen whether Democrats will be able to sustain the activist energy they have now for another 10 months and then collect the signatures needed for a recall.

Democrats in Washington say they’ll be watching the state Senate recall fights to see just how viable a Walker recall might be. For Democrats and Republicans, the outcome of those races could also preview how labor disputes unfolding in other states are likely to play out.

Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, predicted confidently of Walker: “He’s going to get recalled. We’re starting the preparations for recalling him …The way he has so petulantly dealt with the public here in Wisconsin has created a fundamental backlash.”

What observers in both parties agree on is that any large-scale fight for public opinion in Wisconsin will be an exercise in trench warfare.

There just aren’t many voters who haven’t made up their minds on Walker and the unions, so any gains will be costly, hard-won — and small.

“I’ve never seen such a polarized situation in Wisconsin politics in my life,” said Barrett, who declined to comment on the possibility of another campaign against Walker.

That polarization, Fitzgerald noted, extends to the halls of the state Legislature, where governing is likely to be a very different affair in the aftermath of the labor debate, and there are still other budget fights to come.

“There are some Republican senators that really, I think, are going to have a hard time welcoming back the Democrat senators with open arms,” he said. “It’s going to be a divided body, no question about that.”