Wisconsin recall election: Scott Walker, Republicans ? 1; American democracy ? 0

The Wisconsin recall elections left Scott Walker safe, but showed that American democracy isn't faring as well.?The bitter recall election battle there has brought into sharper relief how our politics are changing structurally and what is being lost.

By Kurt Shillinger / June 6, 2012

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker celebrates his surviving a recall election at his victory party June 5 in Waukesha, Wis. Op-ed contributor Kurt Shillinger says: 'We need more Wisconsins ? not recalls, per se, but spirited public engagement to reclaim the public square for fair and robust debate.'

Morry Gash/AP

Enlarge

Were politics baseball, none of this would matter.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_adtest = "off"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Scott Walker and the Republicans took the series in Wisconsin recall elections yesterday. They gave Democrats and Big Labor a drubbing. The breakfast banter over exit polls and who will win the White House in November ? no more reliable than insisting the Dodgers will take the World Series because they have the best record in the majors today ? would be cream for the morning coffee.

But unlike baseball, politics has consequences, and they run much deeper than how one ballot might tip the next. In one way or another, the Wisconsin experience reflects the wrenching decisions that states under both Republican and Democratic leadership are having to make in the face of ballooning deficits.?

But perhaps because of Wisconsin?s long tradition of civility and compromise in the public arena, the bitter recall battle there has brought into sharper relief how our politics are changing structurally and what is being lost.

Gov. Scott Walker swept into office in the 2010 tea party wave that also put Republicans in control of the US House of Representatives. Refusing federal stimulus funds for high speed rail development despite Wisconsin?s flagging economy, $2.5 billion budget deficit, and swelling unemployment, he promised to create 250,000 new jobs and jump start growth through fiscal reforms.

Mr. Walker?s primary target was labor. Since the adoption of collective bargaining for public employees in 1959, enrollment in Wisconsin?s public unions grew five-fold, from 7 percent to 36 percent, by 2010.

As a candidate, Walker advocated requiring public employees to pay more toward their pensions. But once in office, he backed a bill stripping the right to collective bargaining over pensions and health care from nearly all of the state?s public unions in addition to tying salary adjustments to the rate of inflation. The unions cried foul.

That policy shift and subsequent underhanded Republican tactics in the state Senate to push the bill through launched the movement to depose Walker, his lieutenant, the senate majority leader, and three other Republican senators.

The recall highlighted one structural change and two trends threatening the American form of self-government.

The first change is the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political expenditure by corporations and unions. This year?s election cycle marks the first significant opportunity to gauge the impact of that ruling, and already the change is significant.

It allowed one person ? billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson ? to almost single-handedly finance Newt Gingrich?s presidential ambitions through the super PAC Winning Our Future. It arguably tilted the playing field in Wisconsin, where billionaires Mr. Adelson, David Koch, Amway founder Richard de Vos, and others poured millions into the recall campaign through various conservative and pro-Walker groups, helping the incumbent build a 7 to 1 funding advantage over his rival.

chris herren jay z patsy cline pierre thomas beyonce gives birth portlandia kelly clarkson