million people, combined! i m sorry, that s not the country i live in. i refuse to participate in this. i am going to do my part, whatever i can, to get the word out and get people involved. these protests do matter. in fact, this is one of the few times i can say that in my lifetime, actually going to a demonstration really has made a difference, and people have got to come out of their homes tomorrow in lansing, in madison, in indianapolis, and across the weekend, they are planning a huge rally in madison saturday afternoon. and this is going to continue on in the other states. i have a theory why protests seem to be more effective on this issue than any other issue we observed or participated in demonstrations in the past 20 years, and i think that is because of the political dribbleness of what they are trying to do. it is important to remember they didn t campaign on stripping
suddenly adjourned. after republicans lost public debate on this issue, after democrats in the anti-union stripping protesters won the public debate on this issue, after wisconsin took to the streets and democratic senators held out and won on the substance, and that most important result was nailed down and finalized, republicans tried to find a desperate way to ram it through anyway, after they lost the argument. protesters are reassembling at the capitol now. jon erpenbach, one of the 14 senators who remain outside the state. senator erpenbach, what is your understanding of what the republicans just did tonight? well, obviously what they did is they certainly violated open meeting laws in the state of wisconsin, and what represent barca had in his hands was something from a republican attorney general in the state of wisconsin, so odds are this probably will end up in court. but in the meantime, what they did is they took out everything
session which we are in now. they could call the house, lock us in, they could bring up the whole thing again, reinsert the language all over and make us vote immediately. so again, it comes to an issue of trust with the senate republicans. so no, we are going to sit tight here for awhile. are all 14 sitting tight. is there u nan i am tee on this? yes, this is. thanks for helping us sort this out. i imagine we will be in touch in coming days. all right. we ll talk to you soon. thank you. this is obviously a huge night in the course of this wisconsin story. and the wisconsin story was and is and will continue to be a major national story with implications for every state in the union. you want some evidence? karl rove, remember him? karl rove and his undisclosed billionaire club funders have entered the fray on the wisconsin story as of today. filmmaker michael moore was in madison this past weekend. he is here in the studio with me tonight. please stay tuned. a mini-wheats!
not legally exist. democrats say they are contacting the state s attorney general to try to block tonight s actions. shouts of protesters could be heard outside that dark conference room as they suddenly convened, suddenly voted and suddenly adjourned. after republicans lost public debate on this issue, after democrats in the anti-union stripping protesters won the public debate on this issue, after wisconsin took to the streets and democratic senators held out and won on the substance, and that most important result was nailed down and finalized, republicans tried to find a desperate way to ram it through anyway, after they lost the argument. protesters are reassembling at the capitol now. jon erpenbach, one of the 14 senators who remain outside the state. senator erpenbach, what is your understanding of what the republicans just did tonight? well, obviously what they did is they certainly violated open meeting laws in the state of
republicans needed at least one senate to show up to the senate in order to meet that numerical threshold. democrats fled the state so the quorum could not be reached, so the bill could not be voted on. then tonight with no warning, republicans announced that they took everything budget related out of what they were calling the budget bill, leaving only the union stripping provisions. republicans, of course, had insisted that union stripping was a fiscal issue, but tonight in order to try to pull this rabbit out of a hat, they decided it wasn t a fiscal issue any more, and therefore they no longer needed that pesky quorum, and with no warning, convened a conference committee, democrats say in violation of the state s open meeting law. the last minute conference committee passed that union stripping bill. here is what this looked like. this is absolutely nuts. watch this. i have consulted with the legislative counsel, the legislative reference bureau, and the legislative fiscal bureau