Lots of good news here today in Wisconsin. The Recall Walker election is on. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is going to run against him again, and parts of the union busting law were recalled by a federal judge today. Polls show Governor Walker is not popular. Wisconsin had the worst jobs record in the country in 2011 courtesy of the Governor Walker economic plan. But – he won’t be alone…four other Republican state Senators will be up for recall in addition to the Lieutenant Governor as well. It’s an opportunity for Wisconsin to push through a clean sweep and send a message that Americans support labor rights.
Tom Barrett – Milwaukee mayor – has decided to run against Governor Walker putting the two in a rematch in the general special election (if Barrett wins the Dem primary):
It took a little while, but Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has finally decided whether or not he will run in the upcoming recall election.
He’s in.
In a Friday afternoon email to supporters, Barrett, who has twice run unsuccessfully for governor, announced that he will be making a third bid for the state’s highest office as part of the recall election of Gov. Scott Walker.
An NBC/Marist poll shows a generic Dem beating Walker but it’s close:
A generic Democrat holds a small lead over Walker — 48 percent to 46 percent — which falls within the poll’s margin of error. Independents are split, with 45 percent favoring Walker and 46 percent going for the Democrat.
Voters are similarly split evenly when it comes to Walker’s job approval numbers: Forty-eight percent approve of the job he is doing while 48 percent disapprove.
And this is all on the heels of a Federal Judge ruling that major parts of Governor Walker’s plan to bust up unions under the auspice of “balancing the budget” were unconstitutional. The judge ruled that the state could still limit collective bargaining rights:
A federal judge in Madison on Friday ruled that portions of Act 10 – which removed most collective bargaining for most public employees – are unconstitutional.
Though critics of the law welcomed the decision as a major victory, backers seemed unconcerned since it preserved a main limit on bargaining, and suggested broader restrictions would pass muster if applied to all state workers.
Seven major public employee unions had challenged the fact that Act 10 dramatically narrowed what could be bargained by general employee unions, an required those unions to recertify every year, by an absolute majority union while denying the same unions voluntary union dues deductions for payrolls.
