Signs bill
Walker signs a bill to take away most of the union’s collective bargaining rights. The State Assembly stripped the budget repair bill of its spending language so they were not required to have a quorum of members present since the Democratic senators still refuse to return to the Senate.
What we’re doing here, I think, is progressive. It’s innovative. It’s reform that leads the country, and we’re showing there’s a better way by sharing in that sacrifice with all of us in government.
Democrats and union leaders continue to oppose the Republican bill. Senate minority leader Miller:
Republicans may have achieved a short-term policy goal, but their radical agenda, the war on working families, has been exposed, and the people of Wisconsin and across the country are united against it as never before.
Tells Democrats to return
Democratic senators flee to Illinois so the Senate does not have a quorum to vote on Walker’s budget repair bill saying they need more time to debate and understand the bill. Senate minority leader Miller:
This is a watershed moment unlike any that we have experienced in our political lifetimes. The people have shown that the government has gone too far. . . . We are prepared to do what is necessary to make sure that this bill gets the consideration it needs.
Walker tells the Democrats to return to the state and
do the job they’re paid to do. It’s either a matter of making reductions and making modest requests of our government employees or making massive layoffs at a time when we don’t need anyone else laid off.