Dear Senators,
“This is about whether or not the Democratic party will continue to exist in any meaningful sense.”
That was what Rachel Maddow said on her show on Thursday, February 17, 2011. And we know that to you, she is correct and that is why you all left the state of Wisconsin. It’s not about workers, it’s not about slowing down the process so the opposition can speak. To you, this is about your own survival and the survival of the Democratic party.
Like so many others, I have been watching the events in Madison unfold over the last two weeks, and for the first time in my life, I am angry and embarrassed that I live in Wisconsin. Last November we had an election. An election in which the voters spoke and spoke loudly. An election where President Barack Obama said the Democrats took a shellacking. An election in which the Republicans took majority control in the Assembly, Senate and the Governor’s office. It was a fair election and your side lost. You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.
But instead of respecting the voters in the state of Wisconsin, you have decided you don’t like what the voters did, you don’t respect what the voters did. You have taken our system of democracy and shut it down and you have done so for your own selfish reasons.
In watching the last nine days since you fled the state, I have seen some of you interviewed on television. I have seen Senator Erpenbach quite frequently in fact. The thing that is so fascinating is that while you like granting interviews and holding press conferences under situations you can control, as soon as your location is discovered by ordinary citizens, you cut and run. And why? Because you don’t like facing ordinary citizens like Tea Party members with cell phone cameras. You don’t like answering tough questions. You are cowards, and you are embarrassing all of us in Wisconsin.
Even though your colleagues in the Assembly don’t like how it turned out, they are here doing the job they were elected to do. They offered up amendments, debated and stood up for what they believed in. You need to do the same.
A couple of years ago, when democrats controlled the Assembly and Senate, many of you voted for a budget that included a substantial tax increase. There was not much debate and the Republicans didn’t like it, but they stayed, did their jobs and voted hoping they could come back and fix it after the next election. That is what you need to do now. The problem is, you have no confidence that you will be able to change it after the next election because if this passes, and it becomes optional for union members to pay dues, you know many of them won’t. Dollar amounts drop, less gets contributed to the democratic party and there goes your financial support. You don’t rely on getting reelected by doing a good job, you rely on the unions having your back, and that’s a shame.
You also fear something else. You are afraid Governor Walker may be able to balance the budget, bring some new business to the state, and, God forbid, maybe even some prosperity. You fear that because if it happens, the voters in Wisconsin will be pleased, and all of this current mess will quiet down and fewer people will support your desire to reverse these necessary changes.
The longer this drags on, the more of a mess it becomes. Governor Walker will be forced to start laying people off, our state debt may not get renegotiated, costing us taxpayers several million dollars. But there is one very serious element to this not getting resolved soon.
Whether or not it’s the resolution they want, people need resolution and they aren’t getting it, and that makes them tense. You also have people who are spending time away from their families, and even though they are protesting for something they believe in, they are getting tired. Some are sleeping in conditions that are far less than ideal, and fuses are getting shorter and shorter. It’s a recipe for disaster. And while they believe the 14 of you are hiding out for their sakes, we know that’s not your real purpose.
If it gets so tense that chaos breaks out at the Capitol, that’s on your backs. If there are massive layoffs, that’s on your backs as well. If the state debt can’t be renegotiated in time and it costs us several million dollars, that too is on your backs. This is not what we elected you to do. Senators, you are playing games with our futures and it needs to stop.
As the years pass and we look back at this, how will this be viewed? My son is seven years old, so he’s not old enough to be taking serious history classes. But when he is old enough, what will he be taught about your actions? No one can say for sure, but given the fact the people that will be teaching him are union members, one can only imagine how your cowardly acts will be spun in the classroom. So it will be my job as a parent to make sure he knows the truth. And what will he learn? He will learn that despite having a democracy, fourteen state Senators hijacked the system and made a mockery of how our system works. He will learn that with the fourteen of you, going out and voting meant nothing because you fourteen acted like children and wanted your way. I want better than that for my son. I want better than that for me. I want better than that for the voters in the state I grew up in.
You can still fix this.
Come home. It’s time to end this. It’s time to stop pretending you are heroes doing this for the middle class. It’s time to let us move on with our lives.
It’s time Senators.
Sincerely,
Mike Schwandt
Waupun, WI
No comments:
Post a Comment