The document outlines the actions and consequences of the 2011-2012 Wisconsin legislative session led by Republicans, highlighting severe cuts to public education and job losses while prioritizing special interests. It portrays a polarized political environment under Governor Walker, where the middle class and vulnerable populations faced significant challenges due to proposed policies. Democrats introduced alternative proposals aimed at job creation, education funding, and ethical governance but were largely ignored by the Republican majority.

1. Wisconsin Divided
The story of the 2011-2012
session by Assembly Democrats

2. Assembly Democrats:
Fighting for working families

3. OUR STORY
• The goal is a narrative story that conveys
message.
– Why we fought…
– Who we fought for…and against.
– Stories include villains, heroes and causes
– How we did it – giving the credit to the people

4. FOCUS: People of Wisconsin
After a year of unprecedented abuses, the fight is not Dems v.
Repubs or any ‘typical’ partisan battle.
It is people who support Walker’s extreme, divisive policies versus
everyone else who does not and wants to return to Wisconsin
values and priorities.
It was an abnormal, atypical year of conflict.
Stakes have never been this high.
(*Do not use “we” when talking about GOP legislative measures.)

5. What they did: in few words
This session Republicans hurt the middle
class and Wisconsin with:
• No focus on jobs.
• Severe cuts to public education.
• Ethics abuses, power grabs,
shutting out the public & constant
legal battles.

6. 3 KEYS expanded
• Republicans chose to focus on an agenda of divisive
social issues instead of focusing on job creation.
• Republicans undermined our public education by setting
up two education systems in WI. The public education
system was hurt by taking $1.6 billion. Meanwhile the
private voucher schools were given an increase in
taxpayer money to nearly $300 million and were given a
pass on accountability.
• Wisconsin traditions and values were trampled. It was a
year of Republican secrecy oaths, legal battles, open
meetings violations, rule breaking and a mounting John
Doe investigation tainting the highest levels of WI
government.

7. BOTTOM LINE
Results of year:
• Republicans rammed through extreme, divisive
legislation that benefited their wealthy special
interest allies and hurt Wisconsin’s backbone:
our middle class.
• Rather than being bipartisan and working
together, Legislative GOP rubberstamped the
extreme Walker agenda every step of the way.
• Wisconsin is divided and polarized as it has
never been before under Gov. Walker and
Republican leadership.

8. OUR STORY BY THE ISSUE
Republicans turned our state in the
wrong direction:
Crowded classrooms, job losses, rising tuition, families losing health
care, ethics scandals, court battles, criminal probe of top Walker
aides, among the biggest cuts to public schools and colleges in the
country, raising taxes on seniors and struggling families.

9. JOBS
• Wisconsin is #1 in job loss. WI lost more jobs under
Gov. Walker than any other state in the country – by a
long shot. (Bur. Labor Statistics, 21,000 lost in 2011. Every month the country was gaining jobs.)
• Two special sessions that were supposed to be
focused on jobs were roundly decried by editorial boards
as a failure. (See quotations)
• Around five dozen jobs bills died as session gaveled
closed.
• Walker campaigned on a vow to create 250,000 jobs.
Having now lost jobs, he replaced his talk of creating
jobs with vague talk of an “improved business climate.”

10. EDUCATION
Republicans brought Wisconsin some of the biggest cuts to
education of any state. Shortsighted and bad for
Wisconsin’s future, security & economic development.
• Public K-12 schools: Funding reduced by $1.6 billion,
while increasing funding for taxpayer funded voucher
schools by tens of millions to $300 million and giving
them a pass on accountability.
• UW System: Third greatest cuts to higher education in
the country, totaling $315 million.
• Technical colleges: Funding at the epicenters of job
training was cut by $71 million, or nearly 30% in budget.

11. K-12 Public Schools
• Reduced funding for public schools by $1.6
billion while upping taxpayer money for private
voucher schools to nearly $300 million.
• While calling budget “reforms” – the actual
impact is deteriorating conditions in public
schools (much worse 2nd year of budget):
– increasing student-to-teacher ratio (73% districts have lost teachers- DPI audit)
– 2,312 positions cut for the 2011-12 school year after Act 10 took
effect (This is a 50% increase in staff loses…DPI audit, 4/18/12)
– increased class sizes (59% of districts – DPI WASDA survey)
– fewer courses
– less experienced teachers (record high retirements)
– fewer classroom resources
• Demonizing and demoralizing teachers.

12. Higher Education
• UW System
– Cut by $250 million in the budget
– Forced a second cut (lapse) of $65.7 million,
disproportionately higher than any other state agency.
• Technical colleges
– Cut $71 million (30%) from funding during an
economic downturn where job training is vital
– MATC bill altering the board was a power grab that
hurt urban education and local control.

13. ETHICS ISSUES
This session featured the worst abuses of power and ethics violations
of any session in recent memory according to veteran legislators.
•Walker replaced 40 civil service employees w/ his political cronies
•Passed blatantly partisan and illegal redistricting to stay in power
•They took secrecy oaths to hide redistricting plans from the public.
•Reduced legislative oversight and put unelected bureaucrats in charge
of state healthcare decisions.
•Violated open meetings laws and countless legislative rules.
•Shut public out & put ridiculous restrictions on Capitol visits
•John Doe case corruption charges circling ever closer to governor.
•Court battles dominated with redistricting, union busting, voter
suppression and other rammed-through laws being tied up in
expensive lawsuits
•A Supreme Ct justice took free legal services as a gift from lawyers
and ruled on their cases – ignoring calls for recusal.

14. BUDGET & FINANCES
• BIG SPENDERS: Republican budget INCREASED spending by
$1.1 billion.
• SPECIAL INTEREST GIVEAWAYS: $2.36 billion to wealthy special
interests and corporate tax breaks over the next 10 years.
• DISHONESTY: On one hand Gov. Walker claimed the budget was
balanced, then certified to the federal government that the budget
wasn’t balanced in attempt to kick 64,000 people off health care.
• DEBT: Walker’s budget kicks the debt can down the road by
delaying $528 million in payments to future budgets – costing an
additional $149.2 million in interest. (LFB)
• RAISED TAXES: By nearly $70 million on seniors and the working
poor by cutting the Homestead and Earned Income Tax Credit.

15. BROKEN PROMISES
• GOP promised no fund raids but raided $411 million in the budget
and continued raids in the session including taking from money
meant for citizens harmed by the foreclosure crisis.
• GOP promised no tax hikes, but raised taxes on the most vulnerable
seniors and families through the Homestead and Earned Income tax
credits.
• GOP hiked fees (hunting licenses, etc.) by $111 million in budget.
• Walker campaigned on budgeting by the more stringent GAAP
standards, by which his budget is $3 billion in the red, but he calls it
balanced anyway. And he has yet to repair another $326.4 million
new budget deficit for the biennium found this February.
• Turned away $1.3 billion in federal funds, much of which would have
created infrastructure jobs & expanded rural broadband access.

16. HEALTH CARE
Wisconsin used to lead the nation in health care quality and access.
Republicans chose to take health care away from families and increase
costs for others.
– GOP put a Walker appointee in charge of making sweeping changes to
our state’s vital health programs with little-to-no public input or
oversight.
– They approved a Walker plan to kick 64,000 people – including 29,000
children – off their health care. The Obama administration said no, after
legislative Democrats sent a letter urging rejection of Walker’s plan.
– Republicans approved Walker’s harmful enrollment cap on Family Care
that violated federal rules and forced seniors and people with disabilities
onto waiting lists and only lifted the cap after forced to by the Obama
administration.
– They proposed ending SeniorCare (stopped by a Democratic-led
petition drive that got 14,000 signatures) in its current form and
approved a harmful cap on Family Care that the federal government
forced them to reverse.
– They used the final days of session to push forward an extreme war on
women’s health that repealed comprehensive sex education, restricted
private insurance coverage for women’s health services and interfered
with the relationship between a woman and her doctor.

17. MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES
Gov. Walker and legislative Republicans balanced the budget on the
backs of middle-class workers.
•The middle class priorities – education, healthcare, job training, public safety and local services –
were attacked. The governor’s agenda is only working for a privileged few.
•Republicans talked about shared sacrifice – then told middle-class workers to pay more for their
health care and pensions while giving away $2.36 billion to large corporations and Republican special
interests.
•Democrats introduced two separate packages of jobs legislation designed to put people back to work
quickly, give our workers much-needed training and connect skilled workers with potential employers.
They were ignored.
•Democrats fought to restore the taxes Republicans raised on low-income working families and
seniors through the Earned Income Tax Credit and Homestead Tax Credit.
•Democrats sought to protect programs that allow dislocated workers to find new opportunities and to
eliminate a Republican-implemented waiting period for displaced workers to receive unemployment
benefits.

18. AGRICULTURE
Republicans’ do-nothing session on jobs was also a do-nothing session on agriculture,
which is a critical, $59 billion-a-year industry in Wisconsin. Investing in our farmers and
promoting the agriculture industry creates jobs and grows our state’s economy.
•Democrats voted to promote Wisconsin jobs and agriculture by giving preference to locally grown
foods purchased by the state. (Assembly Bill 22)
•Democrats also voted to provide a tax credit for investing in crop farming and pushed for allowing
farmers to reclaim damages for defunct farm equipment.
•Republicans raided the Purchase of Agriculture Conservation Easements fund.
•Republicans raided the Wisconsin Working Lands Initiative Fund (SB 396) and used that funding for
the Wisconsin Premises ID program. Both good programs, but other funding was available.
•Republicans failed to fund the Wisconsin Farm to School initiative in the budget and failed to fund the
Wisconsin Buy Local program.

19. CONSUMER PROTECTION
During special sessions that were supposed to be devoted to job creation, Gov.
Walker and Republicans instead pushed bills that could harm consumers by
removing corporate accountability.
•Assembly Republicans rejected a Democratic amendment that opposed using
$25 million of Wisconsin’s share of a national mortgage settlement toward
closing Walker’s state budget deficit. Raiding funds meant to help homeowners
across Wisconsin is the wrong thing to do for our struggling families.
•Democrats also fought additional rollbacks, including: Republican measures
that protect negligent doctors from lawsuits, hurt seniors in nursing homes,
protect corporations from paying damages for injuring people or selling faulty
products and allowing landlords to discriminate against tenants.

20. ENVIRONMENT
This session has been an unprecedented attack on Wisconsin’s
drinking water, lakes, wetlands, health protections, and our legacy of
bipartisan conservation progress.
REPUBLICANS:
•Sent clean energy jobs to Canada and train construction jobs to Illinois and other states.
•Stalled bipartisan rules on wind energy that would have created jobs, thus killing WI projects.
•Voted to allow developers to destroy wetlands without looking at proper environmental
determinations
•Cut $234 million from Wisconsin’s Stewardship program that protects critical habitat and parkland.
•Refused to support a bipartisan mining bill that would have created jobs AND protected our natural
resources.
•Democrats introduced a budget amendment that would have:
– Restored the Focus on Energy program to create jobs, save energy and money
– Made improvements to the Clean Water Fund
– Fully funded local recycling assistance

21. LOCAL COMMUNITIES
To make up for their bad budgeting, Republicans passed the buck to
local communities, forcing them to cut vital services like police and fire
protection, public health nurses and snowplowing.
•The Republican budget cut local road maintenance and
slashed local transit aids by $49 million.
•Republicans rushed redistricting, not allowing local
governments to draw their own boundaries first. This
proved very costly & detrimental to local governments.
•Republicans’ voter ID law is extreme, costly and overly
burdensome to local governments. (Total cost estimate for
Voter ID this biennium: $17 million in expenses and
revenue reductions.)

22. DIVERSITY
Not only did the Republicans wage war on women, they also went out of their way to
attack people of color.
• Photo ID for voting law – disproportionately keeps people of color from
voting in elections
• Redistricting – The GOP’s historic power grab in an effort to secure their
majority included an illegal redistricting map that attempted to split the
Latino community.
• Earned Income Tax Credit – Republicans raised taxes on struggling
working families.
• Racial Profiling – Republicans further marginalized communities of color
by repealing a law that required the collection of traffic stop data.
• Transitional Jobs Program – Communities of color have been hard hit by
our economy. Republicans chose to the successful program in 2013.

23. SENIORS
Republican’s focus on divisiveness rather than job creation was evident
through their attacks on seniors, including:
• Photo ID for voting law – Disproportionately hit seniors who do not
have drivers licenses but want to exercise their right to vote.
• Homestead Tax Credit – This allows many seniors to remain in
their homes. By blocking Democratic efforts to index the Homestead
Tax Credit to inflation, Republicans ensured this popular program’s
value will reduce by 28% over the next five years.
• SeniorCare – Walker’s budget proposal would have eliminated
SeniorCare as we know it by pushing thousands of seniors into
Medicare Part D. A Democratic petition drive collected 14,000
signatures & forced a budget change that saved SeniorCare.

24. PUBLIC SAFETY
Choices made by Wisconsin Republicans put the safety of our families
and communities at risk
• Their budget slashes roughly $76 million in shared revenue, which
funds the local police, fire, and emergency medical services we
depend on everyday.
– Also cuts many programs that have helped to promote safe
communities, keep kids out of trouble, and deter criminal activity
• Republicans repeatedly failed to support criminal background
checks on teachers in taxpayer-funded voucher schools.
• Republicans voted against restoring $778,200 in funding for sexual
assault victims services that they cut in the budget - this despite
repeated public statements claiming they would fix the problem.
• Passed a dangerous proposal that allows people to carry loaded,
concealed weapons in most public places without requiring training.
(GOP Attorney General recommended minimum 4 hours of
training.)

25. WAR ON WOMEN
We have witnessed an unprecedented, ideologically driven war on women,
including the GOP using the final days of session to push an extreme social
agenda allowing government to make women’s health decisions
• They repealed Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which
allowed victims of discrimination access to state courts to seek less-
costly redress
• Eliminated comprehensive sex education, allowing abstinence-only
classes.
• Restricted private insurance coverage for women’s health services
• Made unprecedented cuts targeting women’s access to breast and
cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and health care access
• Democrats fought to protect Wisconsin’s successful family planning
program that ensures women have access to critical health
services.

26. VETERANS
This was declared “The Year of the Veteran,” yet Republicans did little for
veterans
• Protecting the Veterans Trust Fund – Despite a pledge not to raid
funds, GOP voted against a Democratic amendment to protect the
Veterans Trust Fund from budget raids. (AA40 to ASA1 to AB-40)
• Power grab – Republicans voted to give Gov. Walker direct control
over programs for veterans instead of letting veterans continue to
have a voice in programs impacting them. (AB-96)
• Hiring disabled veterans – One helpful bill we voted for gives
businesses a tax credit for hiring disabled veterans (2011 Act 212)
• Photo ID for voting law –Republicans refused to pass a bill that
would have allowed their veteran ID cards to be used for voter
identification. (AB-724)

27. LABOR
Wisconsin’s 100th legislative session was scarred by Republican’s attacks on
workers.
• Reversed 50 Years of Workers’ Rights – Centerpiece of Walker’s tenure
was “dropping the bomb” on working families by taking away collective
bargaining rights from public employees.
– Walker refused to negotiate with workers and arrogantly ignored 100,000 people
who came to his Capitol door to try to convince him to do so
– Rather than talking to anyone who disagrees with him in Wisconsin, Walker
spends his time flying around the country, bragging about killing workers’ rights
and raising unprecedented amounts of campaign cash.
• Child Labor Laws – Rather than improving the labor environment for adult
workers, Republicans even rolled back child labor laws.
• Unemployment – After paying into unemployment for their entire
lives, Wisconsinites now have a waiting period before receiving
needed unemployment benefits when they lose their job.

28. Instead of a “laser-like focus on jobs”
Republicans instead:
• Allowed guns to be carried in the Capitol with no
training requirement
• Rigged elections to benefit Republicans
• Undermined wind energy business in WI
• Removed local control over landlord ordinances
• Rolled back consumer protections
• Dismantled Healthy Youth Act
• Passed floating toilet legislation

29. What we did
JOBS:
• Jan. 3, 2011 Democrats introduced 10 jobs bills to put
unemployed people back to work quickly.
– A few examples: encourage early stage investment in
businesses, increase access to capital for small business,
expand a grant program to train in manufacturing.
• Nov. 1, 2011 Dems announced a package of nine job-
training bills to connect workers with skills needed for
available jobs.
SCHOOLS:
• School funding plan – Save Our Schools - offered in
various forms that would have allocated more to 85% of
districts (and held the rest even) while lowering property
taxes. (It eliminated voucher-school expansions.)

30. What we did (cont.)
ETHICS PACKAGE focusing on eliminating CORRUPTION, CRONYISM & WASTE
– Introduced a package of measures to:
• Eliminate 39 new crony positions
• Ending unlimited fundraising during recall petition period
• Commonsense recusal standards for judges
• Mandate state legislature obey Open Meetings Law
•Hosted more than 124 hours of a public hearing with 18,000 registrants on the budget
repair bill after Republicans shut it down & tried to close the building.
•Moved our desks outside to meet with constituents after they were locked out of the
Capitol
•Fought the attack on workers’ rights for 62 hours on the floor to give people time to learn
what Republicans were trying to ram through without public scrutiny.
•Hosted public hearings all across the state when Republicans dodged public opinion on
topics from the budget, to health care cuts to the mining bill.
•Collected more than 14,000 signatures in a successful petition drive to save SeniorCare
after Walker announced cuts. Immediately after these petitions were delivered to the
Speaker’s Office, he changed course and announced the legislature would undo Walker’s
cuts.

31. QUOTATIONS
Here is what editorial boards and other observers had to
say about this session:
•“The original reason more than 900,000 Wisconsinites
signed petitions to get him out of office was his signature
on a bill that stripped most public employees of their
collective bargaining rights. But, every few weeks, Mr.
Walker provides new grounds for becoming the third
American governor to be removed by his own electorate.”
(New York Times editorial on Walker signing anti-equal pay bill, 4/11/12)

32. Quotations on Jobs Session
•This session hasn't been a total washout …but day-in and day-out there have been more
skirmishes over social and procedural measures than any real action to generate
economic progress. (Beloit Daily News, 5/5/11)
• Calling a special session for jobs makes for a great political talking point, but the reality
is we haven’t seen one bill designed to make a real impact on the economy. …to spend
the entire session addressing nonexistent problems is a failure to uphold the
responsibility of an elected official. (Badger Herald, 11/2/11)

33. BUDGET QUOTES
“No legislator who voted for this budget should remain in office. Nor
should any legislator who voted for this budget claim to respect the
rights of all women.” (The Capital Times, 6/17/11)
“The bottom line is evident to anyone who cares to pay attention not to
the spin but to the budget figures: Walker is manufacturing a fiscal
“crisis” in order to achieve political goals…Walker is not addressing a
fiscal crisis. He is not serving Wisconsin. He is serving his own interest
and those of the lobbyists who represent his campaign contributors.”
(The Capital Times, 2/16/11)
“Though Walker has always called his proposal a "budget-repair'' bill, it
is clear that the motivation behind it is more about union-busting than
budget-balancing.” (Minneapolis Star Tribune, 3/10/11)

34. OPENNESS QUOTE
“It seems ridiculous that we’re having a discussion about government openness in
an age when taxpayer involvement should be welcomed instead of blocked. But this
is Wisconsin in 2011. When a stranglehold becomes the new handshake in
Madison, you really can’t take anything for granted.” (La Crosse Tribune, 7/12/11)
MINING QUOTE
“There is no question that the Assembly bill…to make it easier to permit such a
mine is a travesty of legislation that will significantly weaken environmental
protections and reduce citizen participation in the permitting process. It's almost as if
children had replaced Republican legislators and had dared each other to see just
how outrageous they could make this bill.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial,
12/17/11)

35. REDISTRICTING QUOTES:
“By designing state redistricting maps that seem to be aimed at keeping Republicans in
power, GOP legislators led by Jeff Fitzgerald in the state Assembly and his brother
Scott Fitzgerald in the Senate, have just made the best argument for reforming the way
Wisconsin draws lines for congressional, legislative and other districts. The need to turn
over this process to an independent panel couldn't be clearer. Those in power should
not be allowed to choose their own districts and, thus, their own voters.” --Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, 7/12/11
“If they start messing with our lines ... it's ridiculous. We set the building blocks, we
created our wards, our districts, and we've done a great job.” --Appleton City Clerk Cindi
Hesse. AND “I suspect the state will get its way, but it's a shame. They are purely
doing it for political purposes.” --Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris.
(Both quotes on Republicans jumping the line on redistricting in the Appleton
Post Crescent, 7/13/11)
“What could have—indeed should have—been accomplished publicly instead took
place in private, in an all but shameful attempt to hide the redistricting process from
public scrutiny.” --Federal judges’ written opinion, 2/16/12

36. SCOTT WALKER
“His lying is notorious….If I lived in Wisconsin, I would be uncomfortable with this
man, whom I find more Nixonian than even Richard Nixon himself (the
authoritarian leader with whom I was, and am, so very familiar).”
--Column by former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, April 6, 2012

37. Examples of wasteful GOP spending
• Eliminating taxes on junk mail
• Huge raises for dubious Walker appointees
• GOP legal bills: Fighting countless legal battles
over redistricting after the court ordered
Republicans to work with others. They refused &
instead spent more on high-paid lawyers.
• Instead of focusing on WI and doing the job we
pay him to do, Walker travels the country,
promoting his national profile, raising record
millions in campaign cash and courting
conservative talk shows.

38. CONCLUSION
• The Walker Agenda only works for a
privileged few Republican friends & allies.
• Republicans have our state moving in the
wrong direction.
• It’s NOT working.