MADISON, WI — The debate is moving forward in Wisconsin on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and its controversial provisions weakening the power of public employee unions — or at least, it’s moving forward in the state Assembly. The state Senate remains effectively shut down.
As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports, the Republican and Democratic leaders in the Assembly have reached a deal to limit debate on the many amendments that Democrats had been offering to the bill — which have been voted down on party-line margins — narrowing the list down to just 38 more, with ten minutes of debate for each.
At that rate, the Assembly could come to a vote later on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the state Senate Democrats remain out of state in Illinois, preventing the three-fifths budget quorum required under the state constitution for a vote on budget matters in the Senate. State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald again issued a “call of the house” — the procedure to search for legislators and bring them to the chamber — and sent law enforcement to their homes.
Fitzgerald told WisPolitics he had heard that some of the 14 Dems were coming home at night, and leaving in the morning for Illinois, and that police might find some “in their pajamas eating cereal.”
However, Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach told WisPolitics that all Democrats are away from home. Furthermore, Dem state Sen. Lena Taylor posted on WisPolitics’s Facebook page: “Silly….we aren’t there why waste their time and taxpayers money.”
