there wasn t really negotiations. clearly nobody saw this coming. you heard from representatives to do this in darkness, i mean, we believe in clean government in wisconsin. we believe if they are good ideas, they should be open and seen by all. the fact it was done in this manner shows there was no desire to bargain in good faith on this issue. rick badger, is there any reason for the democratic senators to continue to state out of the state at this point? well, that is up to the democratic senators, and olive not been in contact with them on these issues. personally, i would hope everyone takes a step back, looks at all of the options legal and as far as the court of public opinion. as i told the senate majority leader three weeks ago, this is a bad idea, and once the public really sees what this is about, there s really no way they can win on the merits. so we re going to go forward and keep fighting.
with the selective release of e-mails, we looked at them, there wasn t really negotiations. clearly nobody saw this coming. you heard from representatives to do this in darkness, i mean, we believe in clean government in wisconsin. we believe if they are good ideas, they should be open and seen by all. the fact it was done in this manner shows there was no desire to bargain in good faith on this issue. rick badger, is there any reason for the democratic senators to continue to state out of the state at this point? well, that is up to the democratic senators, and olive not been in contact with them on these issues. personally, i would hope everyone takes a step back, looks at all of the options legal and as far as the court of public opinion. as i told the senate majority leader three weeks ago, this is a bad idea, and once the public really sees what this is about, there s really no way they can
i really appreciate you joining me in this history making moment where having all the particulars of where we go from here legislatively may not be something anyone has command of. i appreciate you guiding us this far. joining me now, rick badger, executive director of afs smee 40 of wisconsin. thanks for joining me. great to be with you. i wish it was under different circumstances. senator miller s statement says in 30 minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in wisconsin. he also said tonight 18 senate republicans conspired to take government away from the people. where do you go from here? first off, isn t it breathtaking? it is just so incredible. and again, you re talking to a real live wisconsin badger, a product of public schools, product of a public university,
clearly the governor and republican leadership felt that they could never get public support behind this, which is why they went to this kind of a sham of a process, procedure. so we will go forward as senator miller stated. we will continue to fight. i believe now the wisconsin public, whether republican, democrat, independent, union, nonunion, see this for what it really is, taking away people s rights. and i can tell you one thing about wisconsin people. we understand fair play and have an innate sense of fairness. this is not right, this is not fair, and i don t think the wisconsin people are going to put up with this. rick badger, according to the e-mails we saw released yesterday, it looked as if the governor was very, very close to a compromise plan with the democrats. did people in the unions have any indication as today progressed that we were going to be here tonight with this story? well, first off, i don t think we were that close. with the selective release of e-mails,
we believe in clean government in wisconsin. we believe if they are good ideas, they should be open and seen by all. the fact it was done in this manner shows there was no desire to bargain in good faith on this issue. rick badger, is there any reason for the democratic senators to continue to stay out of the state at this point? well, that is up to the democratic senators, and i have not been in contact with them on these issues. personally, i would hope everyone takes a step back, looks at all of the options legal and as far as the court of public opinion. as i told the senate majority leader three weeks ago, this is a bad idea, and once the public really sees what this is about, there s really no way they can win on the merits. so we re going to go forward and keep fighting. rick badger, executive director of council afscme 40, thank you. thank you to represent barca and