Scott Walker's Folly

Politico Arena Topic: Scott Walker's Triumph?

Hubris: “an excess of ambition, pride, etc, ultimately causing the transgressor’s ruin.” The Republican Party, buoyed by the 2010 election that allowed them to take over state governments across the country, have taken direct aim at the Democratic Party’s lifeblood: unions. This is especially the case in the industrial Midwest where Democrats and unions are strong. Let’s make one thing clear: the collective GOP effort to kill collective bargaining rights across the land is about politics, not budgets. It’s about gutting the Democratic Party’s one source of cash that allows them to at least compete with the bags of cash flowing to the GOP from Wall Street. The Republican Party’s political ambition is as naked as Charlie Sheen at a Beverly Hills party.

The GOP is currently winning the battles in the various states. In Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere, Republican-dominated legislatures are ramming through collective bargaining legislation despite howls of protest and sinking poll numbers. The Wisconsin case will likely be challenged in the courts as the Senate proceedings may have violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law. In Ohio, two Republican state senators who would have voted against Senate Bill 5 were removed from committee and replaced with senators who voted for it, ensuring passage, 7-5, and allowing the bill to be passed by the tiniest of margins, 17-16, in the Senate as a whole. It will pass in the House and be signed by Governor Kasich. But the story will not end there. Signatures will be gathered for a veto referendum and the law, before it can be enacted, will be placed on the November ballot for the people of Ohio to decide guaranteeing that this issue will dominate Buckeye politics for the next several months.

Have the Republican governors won the argument? Well, they have temporarily won the political battle. But it may be a Pyrrhic victory. In just a few short weeks, the GOP has managed to do the impossible: wake up a slumbering Democratic base and managed to convert some natural Republican constituencies. In Ohio, police and fire fighters and their unions which supported John Kasich will be all in for Democrats for the foreseeable future. In Wisconsin, a naturally progressive-leaning state, Scott Walker’s poll numbers are tumbling and recall efforts against Republican lawmakers abound. Because of Republican hubris, Wisconsin, Ohio, and many other states which may have tipped Republican in 2012 may go back to President Obama and the Democrats. The President should personally thank Scott Walker and his Republican colleagues for their help.

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