Wisconsin 14 Won't be Sanctioned by GOP Senate

By Reuters

15 March 11

epublicans in the Wisconsin state Senate dropped a threat on Tuesday to deny 14 Democratic counterparts the right to vote in the chamber because they fled to Illinois last month.

In an e-mail sent late Monday to his 18 Republican colleagues, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald claimed the 14 Democrats were still technically in contempt and that any votes they made in standing committees would not be counted.

"They are free to attend hearings, listen to testimony, debate legislation, introduce amendments, and cast votes to signal their support/opposition," Fitzgerald wrote, "but those votes will not count, and will not be recorded."

But on Tuesday, Fitzgerald and Senate President Mike Ellis backed off that claim, which the Democrats, who collectively represent about 2.2 million Wisconsin voters, had blasted as "the height of arrogance."

Andrew Wellhouse, a spokesman for Fitzgerald, reiterated the claim that the 14 remain in contempt, and a resolution of the Senate was needed to lift it. But because the Senate is not scheduled to reconvene in full session until early April 5, that will not happen any time soon.

So in the meantime, all the penalties the Republicans slapped on the Democrats in an effort to get them to return to the state, which included $100-a-day fines and a ban on their ability to vote, have been lifted, Wellhouse said.

In late February, the 14 Democrats fled Wisconsin to Illinois to deny their Republican counterparts the quorum they needed to pass the anti-union bill. In response, Senate Republicans held the Democrats in contempt and then used a legislative maneuver to pass the measure without a quorum.

The 14 returned to the state late last week and were greeted as heroes by the estimated crowd of up to 100,000 people who protested the measure in Madison on Saturday.

The protests came after Republican Governor Scott Walker signed into law the measure, which imposes sweeping new limits on collective bargaining for public sector workers and has sparked a national debate over labor relations.

Walker has said the bill, which sharply limits the union rights of public workers and requires them to pay more of their health insurance and pension costs, was needed to help the state close a $3.6 billion budget deficit over two years.

Reporting by Jeff Mayers and James B. Kelleher; writing by James B. Kelleher.