by Larry Gamble
Round one ended on April 6th, 2010 for those who haven’t been paying attention to Wisconsin politics; it started with the passage of the 2009 Doyle Budget. That budget process was one of several catalysts that led to the voter outrage which sparked the Wisconsin Tea Party movement and even the Recall Doyle initiative. The parallel forming and growing of individual Liberty, Tea Party and Patriot types just shows how widespread the frustration spread across the state.
The 2009 budget process left people feeling ignored and helpless to stop Governor Doyle from raising taxes and fees by 3.5 Billion dollars. Ultimately, the people felt betrayed by some of their elected representatives who kowtowed to party lines and lobbyist desires. Once again, the politicians added fuel to the fire of growing resentment by ignoring the calls, emails and faxes from their real constituents. All politics start out local and with the local elections on April 6th that really hit home.
In communities around the state, people flocked to open meetings for these liberty groups. They sought information. They sought answers. Most importantly, these were people who had not been politically active before and they were looking for leadership and direction. They knew the problems but did not know the potential power they possessed.
Led by a coalition of liberty groups, the citizenry rallied against the tax-and-spend incumbents. The people made their voices heard at the ballot box and in local elections around the state many incumbents were voted out. Round one was a victory for the people. Even with this success, the legislature was still in session and certain to pass several onerous bills.
Round two started on January 16th, before round one was over. In a cabbage patch near Racine, 3,500 people gathered outside in 20 degree weather for a Bonfire Tea Party. The citizens proposed legislation which Representative Jim Ott announced he would help co-sponsor to preserve Wisconsinites ability to select and buy their health care from the provider of their choice. While the fight in round one was local, round two was taking the voice of the people to the state house.
In the state house, the conservatives faced insurmountable odds with a Democratic Party majority in the Senate, Assembly and Governor’s office. With Democratic majorities in both houses, it seemed futile for the Republicans and citizens to oppose any increases in taxes, fees, regulations or expansion of government programs. The majority position of the Democrats appeared insurmountable.
The first hurdle conservatives faced was their health care proposal. This proposal intended to amend the Wisconsin state Constitution to prevent the government from mandating citizens enroll in a specific program and guaranteed the citizen’s ability to contract and pay the health care provider of their choice for medical services. Known formally as SJR-62 or the Health Care Freedom Amendment, this was the conservative push back against big government and Constitutional over reaching by the Federal Government. Fans of big government as the great provider for the people called it unpatriotic, uncaring and even mean spirited. Bloggers and pundits ridiculed the amendment.
In the days immediately following the Bonfire Tea Party, conservatives flooded the Legislative Hotline at the state house with calls to their Senators and Representatives. On two occasions, the hotline was overwhelmed and callers received nothing more than a busy signal and eventually a recorded message that the hot line was not operating. The calls directly to the legislator’s offices were just as overwhelming. As a result, SJR-62 defied the odds and made it into committee thus being assigned its bill number.
The Health Care Freedom Amendment made it that far solely because of the strong support demonstrated by concerned citizens. This support demonstrated to the people that they do have a voice and it can be heard. It also triggered a certain amount of confidence that their voice might be heard regarding other bills or issues. The legislative agenda of the Democratic majority had plenty of issues to concern conservatives in the state.
Of the hundreds of bills introduced this session, none were more controversial than the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, the Election Reform Bill and the Regional Transit Bill. These represented an all out shift away from conservative principles and fiscal responsibility and steps further away from the ideals of the founding fathers.
Since March 31st in the State House, the incoming traffic on the phone lines and in the email inboxes maintained a steady, huge volume. People were not swayed by renaming a ludicrous, economic crippling Cap & Trade bill a friendly sounding “Clean Energy Jobs Bill.” Nor were they enthused with an Election Reform bill that did nothing to protect against voter fraud and everything to encourage cheating at the ballot box. The public outrage had nothing to do with Gov. Doyle’s status as a lame duck but everything to do with the legislature proposing horribly bad, overbearing legislation. The combined effects of overly complex legislation, deceptive bill naming and unexplainable long term impacts are what ultimately led to the failure of these bills. The public did not believe what the governor was selling nor did it want the sort of policy changes this sort of legislation provided.
During the many Tea Party events, Liberty Town Hall events and open meetings; groups such as Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty, Sheboygan Tea Party, Ozaukee Patriots, Racine Tea Party, Eau Claire Tea Party, Madison 9/12 and a host of others informed the attendees of the key bill provisions and educated them in the ways to express their opposition to any bad bills. Looking at the membership growth in the many Liberty groups around the state, tens of thousands of people shared the same concerns and they wanted to know how to do something foreign to them… become politically active.
People who sat back for years as spectators to the political process were motivated and acted both as a unified voice in opposition plus as a political force on election day. Not only were they politically active, they were doggedly persistent. When the media riled against them, that determination and persistence paid off. As a result, three of Governor Doyle’s most egregious and over reaching acts of lawmaking failed. Thomas Jefferson would be proud of what happened on April 6th and 22nd of 2010.