Starting on Feb. 21, The Daily Cardinal and countless other news outlets throughout the state began receiving an onslaught of e-mails from the governor's press office titled, ""Collective Bargaining is a Fiscal Issue.""
Over the course of the next three weeks, we continued to receive such e-mails with examples attempting to show how public unions' collective bargaining rights threaten our state's financial solvency.
Ironically, such press releases may come back to bite the governor, as his marionettes in the state senate pulled a trick play last night to push through the budget repair bill in committee. The clincher is that this vote was only possible in committee because the Republicans deemed that the collective bargaining provision was not a fiscal issue. Be careful where you walk around here, because the hypocrisy is thick.
So, Sens. Cowles, Darling, Ellis, Fitzgerald, Galloway, Grothman, Harsdorf, Hopper, Kapanke, Kedzie, Lasee, Lazich, Leibham, Moulton, Olsen, Vukmir, Wanggaard and Zipperer, you have dishonored the honest Wisconsinites you claim to represent. You have lied to them. You have openly acknowledged that you are breaking the rules and it is obvious that you frankly don't care.
We commend Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, for standing up to Walker's vote-bots and voting against the bill 18-1 when it was brought quickly and quietly to a vote by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. Maybe if there were more free-thinking Republicans like Sen. Schultz representing us in the state legislature we would not be subject to the robotic ""ayes"" of an unblinking majority.