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by NW Spotlight
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker has defeated Democrat Tom Barrett in the recall election. Walker defeated Barrett in the original 2010 gubernatorial race as well. Gov. Scott Walker has become the first U.S. governor to successfully fend off a recall.
Republican Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch has also won the recall election, over Democrat Mahlon Mitchell.
There was polling [2] leading up to the election that indicated that Walker would win, including one released by the Marquette Law School that showed Gov. Scott Walker up 7 percentage points.
Wisconsin Dems ignored the will of the voters – multiple times
Back in February 2011, fourteen petulant Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers ran away to a Best Western hotel in Rockford, Ill. They fled across state lines in an attempt to illegitimately block Gov. Walker’s bill to give state workers choice in joining unions – by cutting collective bargaining rights.
When Gov. Walker was able to pass his reforms over the games of the Democrats and the ugly and violent protests [3] of the unions, the Democrats and the unions moved as quickly as they could to again run roughshod over the will of the voters – this time by collecting enough signatures to force a recall vote.
The desperation of the public employee unions is understandable. Although public employee unions support [4] choice for pregnant women, they definitely DON’T support choice when it comes to union membership! And choice has been devastating [5] to the Wisconsin public employee unions. AFSCME has lost more than 34,000 members in Wisconsin – they’re now down to 28,745 from a height of 62,818 in March 2011.
Maybe this time the Democrats and the unions will get it through their heads that the voters of Wisconsin intended to elect serious leaders who have serious solutions for Wisconsin’s problems.