So now we have at least one report from local TV in Wisconsin that the state’s Democratic senators have left the state entirely, putting them out of the reach of the state police who have been ordered to round them up so that Republicans have a quorum and can take up Gov. Walker’s union-busting budget bill.
But wait. There’s more.
The Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald, who is ordering the state police to track down the wayward Democratic senators is the son of the head of the state police, Steve Fitzgerald, who in turn was appointed to the top spot by Walker. Steve Fitzgerald is also the father of the state’s speaker of the House, Jeff Fitzgerald.
As for whether the Democratic senators have in fact left the state, the spokesperson for the state Democratic Party tells TPM: “I know the whereabouts of not a single Democratic senator. I do not know what latitude they’re on, or know what longitude they’re on. I assume they’re in this hemisphere, I’ll say that.”
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.