Was It Right to Walk to Stop Walker?

Twelve years ago 14 Democratic senators bolted from the Wisconsin capital to deny majority Republicans a quorum. The legislation they were trying to block, or at least slow down, eventually was forced through without them and became Act 10, which pretty much shut down public employee unions in the state.

At the time I supported the walkout for three reasons. First, I thought it was wrong for Gov. Scott Walker to propose a move so sweeping, and one that he had apparently planned all along, and yet said not a word about on the campaign trail. I felt voters should have been able to take this major policy change into account at the election the previous November. Second, Republicans were pushing this big change through in record time — a week or so — without adequate hearings or public input. So, I thought Democrats were right to at least slow it down and force debate in the public square. And third, I was Mayor of Madison at the time, up for reelection a few weeks later, and not supporting the Senate Democrats would have been political suicide. As it turned out, I didn’t take my own political life. The voters did it for me.

But since then I’ve had reason to have second thoughts. For the past four years Republicans in Oregon have used a similar ploy to block a variety of liberal Democratic bills in that legislature. They haven’t actually fled the state and they do attend committee meetings, but they refuse to show up for floor sessions in sufficient numbers to make up a quorum.

It’s a sort of political labor strike. And now, in a reversal of roles, Democrats are poised to break the strike with a new law that will oust all but two of the Republican senators if they continue to not show up for work. They also propose to fine them $325 a day for being absent.

In other states, like Texas, controlled by Republicans, Democrats have tried to stop conservative legislation in the same way. In fact, Ballotpedia lists six notable legislative walkouts in various states in the 12 years since Wisconsin in 2011 compared with just three in the previous 87 years.

If we’re going to be fair, I think we have to admit that the same strategy cannot be good when it’s employed to stop legislation we hate while it’s bad when it blocks causes that we support.

And, of course, Democrats (including this one) were beside themselves when Walker-appointed Natural Resources Board member Fred Prehn refused to step down for a couple of years after his term expired, blocking a Democratic majority from taking its rightful place at that table.

Monkey-wrenching the democratic process in these ways — either by not showing up or refusing to leave — is not okay. Twelve years ago, in the passion of the moment and facing down political reality, I supported it. It’s easy enough now, with nothing at stake, for me to admit it, but events since 2011 lead me to think I was wrong back then. Wisconsin may have started a trend that has come back to haunt us.