What I Saw Today

By: Mike Tate

Today, I went to our Capitol and saw something more magnificent than the gilded bronze or the carved marble there. I saw average Wisconsinites standing up. I saw the rebirth of a movement. Nurses from Burnett County. Snowplow drivers from Shawano. Ironworkers from Waukesha. Firefighters from Madison. Union and non-union alike, from big cities like Milwaukee and Appleton, and small cities like Siren and Belmont.

All of them unified with one voice against Scott Walker's big-government power grab that's going on right now that threatens not merely public employees, not only members of the union movement that have made Wisconsin great, but every single person in this state.

Today and tomorrow, individuals and groups from all around the state are converging on the Capitol in an awakening that has rarely been seen in our state as Walker's overreach is being ramrodded through a lockstep Legislature.

Walker has shown political cowardice by using a budget bill to make radical policy, in this case ending seven decades of collective bargaining by public employees and using a divisive campaign against the nurses and lunch ladies, teachers and corrections guards that are our friends and neighbors.

I believe that what I saw today is just the beginning of a movement that will help stop Scott Walker's extreme and partisan efforts to roll back protections for the middle class and to stunt Wisconsin's modern economy.

What I saw today gave me great hope, and it should give you great hope, too.