Unintimidated

by Scott Walker

  With these changes, we put the unions’ fate in the hands of their own members. It would be up to the union members to decide whether the union could negotiate on their behalf. It would be up to the union members to decide whether they paid union dues or kept the money to offset increased pension and health care contributions. Instead of being antiunion, our reforms were pro-choice and pro-worker.

  Scott Fitzgerald looked it over and said, “I think we can do this.”

  He took the plan back to Ellis, who also signed off. That was critical. With his support, passage of our bill was all but assured. Without him, the bill would never have become law.

  Even with Ellis in our corner, we knew passing Act 10 would take a fight.

  We had no idea how big it would get.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Let’s Bring Them a Plate of Cookies”

  On the Monday night before I introduced the bill, I invited my cabinet to dinner at the Executive Residence. I knew some members of my cabinet were nervous about our plan and needed a “Braveheart” moment before we went into battle.

  After dinner, I reminded them of the stand President Ronald Reagan took against the air traffic controllers during his first year in office. His actions were bigger than just a labor dispute. They set the tone for his entire presidency. Reagan’s show of courage and strength sent a signal that new leadership had arrived in Washington. It sent a message that Ronald Reagan was serious—that he had backbone, that he was going to fulfill his promises, and that he was not going to be pushed around. And that message had an impact far beyond America’s borders. His resolve not only stiffened the spines of members of Congress, it also stiffened the resolve of our allies, it also encouraged democratic reformers behind the Iron Curtain. It helped win the Cold War.

  This, I told them, was our chance to take inspiration from Reagan’s courage—to show that we were serious, that we had backbone, and that we were not going to be pushed around. The battle ahead would be tough, but we would prevail—and our state would be better because of it for generations to come. And if we succeeded, maybe our display of courage might just have an impact beyond Wisconsin’s borders, and encourage fiscal reformers across the country to make tough decisions as well.

  Members of my cabinet were not the only ones who needed encouragement. On Thursday, February 10, the day before we introduced the bill, I met with the assembly and the senate Republican caucuses to brief them on our bill. The assembly Republicans were pumped and ready to go into battle. Some of them had been quietly complaining that we were not being bold enough—so when I shared our plans to reform collective bargaining, they were both relieved and excited.

  The senate was another matter. When I explained the details of our plan, some of the senators looked like their dog had just died. The newly elected senators were as enthusiastic as their assembly colleagues. But some of the senate veterans had the same initial reaction that Mike Ellis had had.

  What ultimately convinced them was the same thing that had convinced Senator Ellis—there simply was no other option. To balance the budget, we had to cut over a billion dollars out of aid to schools and local governments.

  “For those who are saying that’s going too far, I would say put that in context of what the alternatives are. The alternative is for this year alone fifteen hundred layoffs for state employees. In the next biennium, its fifty-five hundred to six thousand layoffs. That’s of state employees. At the local level, you’re probably talking about eight to ten thousand teachers being laid off. None of these choices are very attractive,” I said.

  “It’s not a matter of avoiding a tough decision,” I explained. “It’s a matter of which tough decision you are going to take.”

  “I don’t want to be just like these other governors and these other state legislators where we’re looking at cuts without any relief. Our goal is to have the dollar amount reduced equal to the dollar amount in savings, so there is not a gap between the two,” I said. “The only way we can look our neighbors in the face and tell them we haven’t devastated local governments and local school districts is if we empower those local governments to be able to control their budgets.

  “That means you have to tackle collective bargaining.”

  We laid out our legislative plan, which was mapped out in the minutest detail—from the moment we introduced the bill to the day I was going to sign it. The whole process was supposed to take exactly seven days. The alternative was to include the reforms in our budget, which would require months of debate.

  “The only question is do you want to do it now, where you get a week’s worth of grief, or do you want to have it in a budget . . . with three and a half months’ worth of grief?”

  After meeting with the GOP caucuses, I met that evening with two dozen local officials from the League of Municipalities, the Wisconsin Counties Association, and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. We were not expecting them to lobby for the bill, but we wanted to make sure they understood what we were doing so they would not lobby against it.

  As a former local official, I understood how collective bargaining tied their hands. And I explained that the next day we would be introducing legislation to put power back into their hands so they could run their schools, counties, and municipalities.

  As I walked them through the key elements of the bill, their reaction was enthusiastic. And once the bill was enacted, they used the tools and reforms we enacted to full advantage. Today, if you were to tell the local officials gathered in that room that Act 10 might be overturned or repealed, even most Democrats would tell you that losing Act 10 would be a disaster. That’s because their budgets are built around it.

  But when all hell broke loose in the weeks ahead, only a few brave souls would step forward to publicly support us.

  As I left the capitol that evening for the short ride to the Executive Residence in Maple Bluff, all was quiet.

  That was about to change.

  —

  On the morning of February 11, I invited the Democratic leaders of the state assembly and senate, Representative Peter Barca and Senator Mark Miller, to my office. Despite our differences, we had come together and gotten a lot accomplished on a bipartisan basis in the first weeks of my administration.

  From the outset, I was determined to keep the lines of communication open across the aisle. When I took office, I started a practice of meeting with the Democratic leaders once a week. Barca, Miller, and I sat down every Wednesday morning when the legislature was in session. In addition to that weekly leadership meeting, I also blocked off time on my schedule every Wednesday morning until noon for twenty-minute meetings with any legislator—Democrat or Republican—who wanted to see me. I still do. My door is open to individual members of either party.

  On this particular morning, however, my meeting with the two leading Democrats in the state did not go so well. I invited them into my office and explained that later in the day, I would be announcing our plans to reform collective bargaining.

  As I walked through the details of the legislation we would be introducing, to say a look of shock came over their faces would be an understatement. They were almost frozen. After they took it in, they both proceeded to try to talk me out of it.

  “There will be no protections for public employees. How will we protect them from being taken advantage of?” they asked.

  I pointed to the two staffers they had brought along, who were sitting on chairs behind them, and asked: “Well, what about these two? Do you take advantage of them?”

  They looked at me with puzzled expressions. My point went right over their heads.

  “They are not in a union,” I explained. “They don’t have collective bargaining. They’re ‘at will’ employees. Do you take advantage of them? If you don’t take advantage of your employees without collective bargaining, why would other state workers be taken advantage of without it?”


  I pointed out that Wisconsin has some of the strongest civil service protection laws in the country, a fact that would not change with our reforms. Moreover, most of the more than two million public employees working for the federal government do not collectively bargain—yet no one claims they are being taken advantage of. They are doing quite nicely. Indeed, the average federal worker receives total compensation 16 percent higher than the equivalent private sector worker.1

  It was not our most pleasant meeting, but I felt I owed it to tell the Democratic leaders face-to-face what I was planning to do. I did not realize it at the time, but it would be the last time I would see Senator Miller for a while.

  At ten a.m., with Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and members of my cabinet standing at my side, I announced the provisions of the Budget Repair Bill. I began by saying, “I want to make it abundantly clear as I’ve said time and time again . . . throughout the campaign, in the transition, and in the just over a month I’ve had the honor of serving as the governor of the state of Wisconsin: We have good and decent people who work in state and local government. . . . I have great respect for the men and women who work as public servants at the state and local level here in the state of Wisconsin.

  “I, for one, don’t want to see anybody laid off in the state of Wisconsin. I think the last thing we need are any more people on unemployment.” I said that there would be no more furloughs for state employees as well.

  The state was broke and it was time to pay the bills. I said that “we can no longer kick the can to the future. That’s just unacceptable. We can’t expect our children and grandchildren to pay off the debts of the state and we have to get things under control.”

  It didn’t take long for the first protests to begin.

  That afternoon, I had a previously scheduled editorial board meeting with the Appleton Post-Crescent. The paper had advertised the meeting, which was webcast live, and the news was all over that I was in town.

  As my black SUV pulled up to the paper, we were greeted by a group of about twenty to thirty protesters chanting, “Walker’s budget is bad for kids!” We went upstairs for the meeting, which lasted about an hour. While I spoke with the editors, my staff watched through the window as more and more protesters gathered. A state trooper from Green Bay heard about the protest on the radio and raced down to help us get out safely. He put my communications director, Chris Schrimpf, in the SUV we had arrived in and sent it out the front entrance as a decoy to confuse the protesters. Meanwhile, he took me out of the back of the building, put me in a Dodge Charger, and took off from a different exit.

  Chris told me later that the crowd was infuriated when they saw it was him and not me in the SUV, but the wisdom of our quick exit would later became apparent.

  The next night, Saturday, February 12, Tonette and I hosted a dinner at the Executive Residence to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. (I had been in Dallas to see the Packers win the Super Bowl on the sixth, his actual birthday, so we postponed the celebration by a week.) Tonette and I host a dinner each year on Reagan’s birthday. We serve his favorite foods—macaroni and cheese casserole, and red, white, and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans—and have musicians perform patriotic songs and Irish music. It is a wonderful evening, and serves as a reminder for me each year to be hopeful and optimistic just like Ronald Reagan.

  It happens to be a dual celebration because President Reagan’s birthday is also our wedding anniversary. Tonette jokes that I never forget our wedding anniversary because it is Reagan’s birthday.

  Some friends had stayed over with us, and on the next morning the head of my security detail, Dave Erwin, suggested that if our guests wanted to get out conveniently, they might want to leave by eleven a.m.

  Why? I asked. Dave explained that they had picked up intelligence that there was going to be a significant protest outside the residence. After our experience in Appleton, he figured once the protesters arrived, it might be hard to get out.

  Soon after our guests departed, we watched as hundreds of people gathered outside the house. My youngest son, Alex, turned to me and said, “Dad, why don’t we go out and take them a plate of chocolate chip cookies?” Tonette and I must have looked puzzled, because he reminded us of how years before, when I was county executive, there was a lone protester outside our house. It was freezing cold, so Alex and I had walked out and brought the man a cup of hot chocolate. He was upset, but the gesture diffused the situation.

  I loved my son’s reaction (even if he was half joking), but I said, “Alex, I don’t think these people are going to be really pleased with a plate of chocolate chip cookies.”

  The next Tuesday, February 15, I went to La Crosse for a visit to a manufacturing company. Outside the facility, we were greeted by hundreds of angry protesters, but inside we got an enthusiastic reception from the blue-collar workers. As I recall, they were paying about 25 percent of their health insurance premiums and had to match their employer contributions to their pensions, so they didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the folks outside complaining about having to pay 5.6 percent for their pensions and 12.6 percent for their health care. It was a great event.

  As we prepared to leave, the troopers saw that the protesters had physically blocked the entrance we had used to come onto the property. So they turned the squad car around and headed toward the other exit. We watched in disbelief as the throng of people rushed toward the second exit to block our path. As we tried to pull out, they surrounded the car and began beating on the windows and rocking the vehicle.

  Just as we extricated ourselves from their grip, a truck pulled up and blocked our path, playing a game of chicken with the troopers. They turned the lights and sirens on and warned him to get out of way. Eventually he backed up and we sped off.

  It was a lesson in how much our circumstance had changed in a matter of a few days. We were dealing with people who were so blinded by their anger that they were not in the least bit afraid to storm and shake a police car. We had never seen anything like it in Wisconsin before.

  And that was only the beginning. The protests following us around the state grew bigger and louder—and the protesters got more aggressive with each passing day.

  After the La Crosse incident, Dave Erwin took me aside and explained that we needed to increase security—not just for me but for Tonette and the kids. Dave briefed me about the stream of intelligence he was receiving from the Division of Criminal Investigation. Our whole family was being watched, followed, and tracked, he said.

  Dave was not prone to exaggeration. He is a former marine who had headed former governor Doyle’s security detail. He is the consummate professional.

  “Governor, I’ve been at this awhile, and when the hairs stand up on the back of my neck you have to be concerned,” Dave said.

  “They know where you go to church, they’ve been to your church. They’re following your children and tracking your children. They know where your children go to school, what time they have class, what time they get out of class. They know when they had football practice. They know where your wife works, they know that she was at the grocery store at this time, they know that she went to visit her father at his residence.”

  We talked about some of the additional measures he would take to keep the family safe. Dave increased the size of our detail and assigned troopers to keep an eye on the kids at school. (Both of my sons were attending a public high school at the time and the Wauwatosa police officers really looked out for Matt and Alex too.) He also explained that we could no longer do simple tasks like going to the curb to pick up the mail, which would now have to be screened.

  We soon began to get a steady stream of death threats. Most of these Dave and his team intercepted, and kept from Tonette and me. They were often graphic (one threatened to “gut her like a deer”) but for the most part they amounted to little more than angry venting.<
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  But one afternoon, as I prepared to go out to the conference room for my daily press briefing, Dave came into my office and shut the door. “Sir, I don’t show you most of these, but I thought you ought to see this one.” He handed me a letter addressed to Tonette that had been picked up by a police officer at the Executive Residence in Maple Bluff. It read:

  HI TONETTE,

  Has Wisconsin ever had a governor assassinated? Scotts heading that way. Or maybe one of your sons getting killed would hurt him more. I want him to feel the pain. I already follow them when they went to school in Wauwatosa, so it won’t be too hard to find them in Mad. Town. Big change from that house by [BLANK] Ave. to what you got now. Just let him know that it’s not right to [EXPLETIVE] over all those people. Or maybe I could find one of the Tarantinos [Tonette’s parents] back here.

  Lots of choices for me.

  The letter had a Green Bay postmark, but there were no fingerprints or other indications of who had sent it. Dave explained that it raised red flags because, unlike most of the hate mail and death threats we received, it was very specific. The sender talked about following our kids to school, the street where we lived, and threatened not just me but my children and my in-laws.

  I decided not to share the note with Tonette and the kids right away. Security was already tight around the family. Eventually, long after everything was over, I told her, Matt, and Alex about it.

  According to my staff, the only time they ever saw me angry during the entire fight over Act 10 was after I read that letter. They were right. I didn’t mind threats against me, but I was infuriated that these thugs would try to draw my family into it.

  One of the reasons for Dave’s increased vigilance was the fact that the protests in Madison came just a month after the shooting of U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona.

  In the wake of that tragedy, I was amazed to see how quickly so many on the left jumped at the opportunity to blame conservative political rhetoric for the shooting. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote, “We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. . . . [V]iolent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.”2