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About those Wisconsin Democratic Senators who fled to Illinois for three weeks this February in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stop Wisconsin's new public employee labor law... The 14 Senators have repeatedly insisted that they, themselves, paid their own bills. Despite obtaining a ruling from the Government Accountability Board that their campaign account could be used to subsidize their truancy, they insisted they paid their own way. Yet at a recent national gathering of liberal activists, one prominent national group bragged about raising $200,000 to help keep these Wisconsin Senators out of state. What do those lawmakers have to say...

<p>MADISON, Wis.—A Dane County judge has ruled that a Republican state lawmaker can't have his name added to the ballot for a recall election later this month.</p> <p>Judge Richard Niess ruled against Rep. John Nygren of Marinette on Friday afternoon.</p>

Democrats in the state Senate maintain they did the right thing when they left Wisconsin earlier this year to block the Governor’s collective bargaining changes. The 14 Senators stayed in Illinois for nearly three weeks to prevent a vote on the bill, although Republicans found a way to pass it without them. Even though Wisconsin Act 10 takes effect today, state Senator Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee) says there are no regrets about their decision to leave. He says the action gave the public time to understand more about what the bill was proposing and allowed citizens to make their voices heard....

The Democratic Party and the committee to recall state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) are confirming that state Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) will challenge Darling in a possible recall election. Gillian Morris, a spokeswoman for the party, confirmed that Pasch would run, as the Journal Sentinel reported in Thursday's paper. Separately, Kristopher Rowe, organizer of the recall campaign, emailed the Journal Sentinel announcing Pasch's candidacy and praising her as someone who "believes in voting rights, workers rights and she believes in finding solutions together with her colleagues. "She is hard working and most importantly — she listens to the...

So much for support from the common man. The Indiana Democratic Party’s first quarter campaign finance report was filed last Friday and confirms what everyone already suspected but Democrats denied: their “We Are Indiana” walkout was bought and paid for national unions. Read the report here: Dem Finance Report During the period of the walkout that began on February 22 and ended on March 28, Democrat-backed unions contributed nearly $140,000 to the Indiana Democratic Party. Their goal: stop the legislative session in its tracks, kill anti-union bills, and pay whatever it took to keep Democrats holed up in an Illinois...

Allegedly, the burglars were after the petitions gathered to recall Dave Hansen, who was one of the Wisconsin Democratic senators who fled the state rather than participate in the democratic process. Which - if this was in fact done by Democratic party operatives or sympathizers - would merely demonstrate that Hansen is in fact fairly representative of his party, at that. The good news is that the recall folks say that they still have enough signatures, so it should have no insurmountable effect on the recall process, but you can expect that local Democrats will try to wring as much...

Union members descend on Olympia to protest budget cutsBy John Stang Kitsap Sun Posted April 8, 2011 at 7:03 p.m. OLYMPIA — Worker solidarity. Budget cuts. Tax breaks. Wisconsin. That's what brought an estimated 7,000 people to the steps of the state Capitol on Friday. "The legislators see us outside and see what we represent," said Steve Davidson, a firefighter with Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue and a member of the Kitsap County-based Local 2819 of the International Association of Firefighters. "It makes a difference." "We're standing with all workers across the state and across the nation," said CK firefighter...

Original title: WI GOP rep. questions state DOJ’s ethics after state attorney advises fleeing Dems, shows political support in private e-mail. Wisconsin state Rep. Steve Nass is calling for an investigation of state Assistant Attorney General Thomas Bellavia after he sent an e-mail offering advice to two of the 14 fleeing Democratic senators on how to avoid getting caught by Wisconsin law enforcement. The e-mail also shows where Bellavia’s political support lies. “I am a political supporter of your current efforts regarding the budget repair bill,” Bellavia wrote in a February 27 e-mail to Democratic state Sens. Joe Erpenbach and...

A moral victory, if nothing else. And it really might be nothing else: This guy won reelection three years ago with 67 percent of the vote, so tossing him out in a recall election will be unlikely. But who knows? Without Obama at the top of the ticket for Democrats and with the locals (hopefully) irritated at the fleebaggers’ fleebaggy ways, 51/49 to remove isn’t impossible. At the very least, it’s a shot in the arm for Wisconsin conservatives on the eve of tomorrow’s supreme court election. If they can still make Democrats squirm, they’re not licked yet. Dan Hunt,...

House Dems upset that per-diem was withheld halt session for three hours INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma called it “deja vu all over again” when House Democrats walked off the House floor Thursday morning. Just days after returning from a five-week walkout, House Democrats emptied their seats again. This time it was over concerns about legislative business conducted while they were gone, including $122,000 in fines levied against them. Their absence delayed the beginning of Thursday’s session for more than three hours, but Democrat leader Pat Bauer later told reporters that his members weren’t planning another walkout. House...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana House Democrats who fled the state nearly six weeks ago to protest a Republican agenda they considered an assault on labor unions and public education planned to return to the Statehouse on Monday, ending one of the longest legislative walkouts in recent U.S. history, the House Republican leader said. House Majority Leader Brian Bosma said he had been informed that Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, and fellow Democrats would return from their headquarters-in-exile in Urbana, Ill. Democrats were meeting in Illinois on Monday, and a spokesman for the Democrats said Bauer planned a news conference after...

Democrats' and Union goons' recent attempts to 'undo' the latest lawful legislation in the State of Wisconsin through the threat of recall by petition may be a little too ambitious. Several reasons support my thesis: 1) The required number of petition signatures is unusually high. Wisconsin law requires that 25% of the number of persons that voted in the last election for the office of governor within the electoral district of the office holder sought to be recalled must validly sign the petition for a recall election. Since the November 2010 election was extremely energized through TEA Party activism and...

Everything from taking away computers to denying a year of service in the state retirement system was considered to punish the 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats who fled to Illinois for three weeks to block passage of a bill taking away union bargaining rights, newly released emails show. Members of Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's staff bounced ideas off one another and the Legislature's attorneys for days about how to pressure the Democrats to return and penalize them, according to records released Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Senate Rule 93 says that when the Legislature is in special session, "A notice of a committee meeting is not required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board." That's the rule Republican leaders are citing in their contention that one of the votes leading up to passage of Gov. Scott Walker's controversial anti-union bill was legal. One ironic footnote: The rule was written in 1983 by two of the Democratic senators who left Wisconsin last month to avoid voting on the bill, Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville, and Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison. The two were among 14 senators who fled...

Below, you’ll find a compilation of 20 days worth of the death threats, vandalism, and intimidation practiced by pro-union thugs opposed to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill. Wisconsin is my home state. I lived there until I was 27 years-old in 1993 and most of my family, including my parents still live there. For that reason and because the issue of education and teachers unions has been a passion of mine for going on two decades, I’ve been following this story very, very closely. My original intent was to compile all of this earlier in the week, but...

Eyewitness account: This video was shot minutes after a union advocate destroyed several petitions at a recall Jim Holperin Rally in Merill, WI. The event was moved to the court house grounds because the private location originally slated to host the event was threatened with arson. It should be noted that police were present when the protestor (sic) destroyed these recall petitions, but stated to us that there was nothing they could do about it. The female protestor (sic), who had a young child with her, approached the recall table pretending to be interested in signing the petition, then proceeded...

Democrat wants to eliminate fleeing as option to hold up votesBy Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel Updated: March 15, 2011 1:16 p.m. Madison — A Democratic state senator wants to make it impossible for senators in the future to block legislative action by leaving the state. Sen. Tim Cullen of Janesville was one of the 14 Democrats in the Senate who sought unsuccessfully to block Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair law by driving to Illinois on Feb. 17 and only returning last week. That law drew massive protests by repealing most collective bargaining by public employees in the state. In...

A Democratic state senator wants to make it impossible for senators in the future to block legislative action by leaving the state. … “The main point I want to make is that what we did we had every legal right to do. It was an extraordinary step against an extraordinary bill,” [State Senator Tim] Cullen said. But “the institution of the Senate is not well-served going forward by having this particular avenue available.” Cullen said his proposal for a constitutional amendment would simply eliminate the requirement currently in the state constitution that three-fifths of state senators be present for the...

Wisconsin Democrats still not allowed to vote even after returning to the stateMarch 14th, 2011 7:30 pm ET The Wisconsin Democratic state senators have now returned to the state, but they are still not having their votes counted in committee. Today Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald sent a letter to his members telling them that the Democrats' votes should not be counted since they are still in "contempt." It is the Republicans who passed a resolution officially holding the Democrats in contempt. Fitzgerald's letter can be seen below. "Please note that all 14 Democrat senators are still in contempt of...

Who won the battle of Wisconsin? Republican Gov. Scott Walker got a legislative victory. On the other hand, Democrats, with a wary eye on 2012 and noting the worrying drop in support for President Obama in union-heavy states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, claim to be delighted that Walker has picked this fight. "Republicans have done organized labor a great favor by putting the movement back in (the) labor movement, creating a level of passion and activism for workers' rights that hasn't been seen in generations," crowed Democratic strategist Mike Lux. Maybe so. Though the three-week tantrum by union protesters in...