Beseiged teachers, bus drivers and other public employees in Madison already know this, but if you were to hold up a map of Wisconsin in the air you’d see that its outline traces almost perfectly the shape of a fist. A raised fist.
And that was pretty much the mood over the capitol when I arrived there Tuesday morning. Legislative hearings were just beginning on a Republican bill to make the teaching of sex education in Wisconsin public schools illegal.
As expected, the committee chambers were filled to capacity with scheduled witnesses and stern-faced observers. Students due to testify shuffled nervously in their seats. Teachers in the crowded hallway waiting to get in looked grim.
On the steps outside the capitol, and in spite of a chilly autumn breeze, about 60 to 80 pro-union activists raised their voices in song — just as they have about once a week since February, when Tea Party-backed Gov. Scott Walker and the legislature’s Republican majority advanced legislation that would effectively doom public employee unions.
Previously Walker and the Republicans slashed taxes on businesses, which cost the state $67 million in lost revenues — then proposed a budget bill that would cut the salaries of public workers and force them to pay more for health benefits in order to make up the difference and about five times more.
This in a state that, one century ago (under the leadership of then-Gov. Robert M. La Follette Sr.), gave birth to almost all of the progressive reforms and ideals that would later spread across the country — from busting up monopolies, to establishing a progressive income tax, to the “Wisconsin Ideal” of investing heavily in a strong state university and public school system in order to ensure a more prosperous future.
But the men and women who’d gathered on the capitol steps Tuesday didn’t sound as if they’re going to allow all that to disappear without a fight. They say they’re very much looking forward next month to the one-year anniversary of their governor’s election — at which point they can legally begin to circulate petitions to recall him.
In the meantime they’re singing old labor standards like “Roll on, Union” and “Which Side Are You On?” — plus a few with brand new lyrics, like “When Scotty Goes Marching Home Again.”
And they say they’d love you to join in…
“When Scotty goes marching home again/ Hurrah! Hurrah!/ When the recall sends him home again/ Hurrah! Hurrah!/ O the men will cheer and the women will shout/ The children they will dance about/ And we’ll take our state back/ When Scotty goes marching home!”
Travels with Harley 