At the moment, we still have the standoff in place in Wisconsin. The real question seems to be whether Republicans can get around the effective block state senate Democrats have put on the union-busting bill by leaving the state. There are rumors floating around Madison that senate Republicans could try to move the bill out of the budget process, thus avoiding the need for 3/5 of the members to achieve a quorum. We’re looking into that possibility this morning.
In a piece generally sympathetic to Walker that ran this morning in Politico, the authors write: “At the same time, Republican state officials said they wouldn’t wait any longer for Democrats who fled the state to stall legislation.” That would seem to imply that the state GOP have a ready workaround available. So whether or not that is the case is critical to figuring out where this is likely to go next.
