Troopers Hunt for Wisconsin Senators

Wisconsin Republican lawmakers dispatched state troopers to the homes of absent Democratic senators in search of a quorum Thursday but came up empty as the state's legislative standoff continued. Meanwhile, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Assembly has passed a bill early Friday that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights, according to the Associated Press. That sets up a potential showdown in the Senate, though it's unclear whether enough lawmakers can be found to reach a quorum.
Assembly Democrats had sent Republican Gov. Scott Walker an alternative to his budget proposal that includes economizing measures of his bill but strips provisions that would eliminate most collective-bargaining rights of the state's 170,000 public workers. Assembly Republicans quickly rejected it.
Republican Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald, in an interview, called the Democratic proposal "showmanship" and predicted passage of the bill in the Assembly would prod Senate Democrats to return to the capital of Madison.
"It will certainly put some pressure on the Democrats to come back and go to work," he said.
Union-solidarity rallies continued to spread around the country Thursday, including to states such as Pennsylvania, where unions don't currently face an immediate threat to their own bargaining rights.
New rallies were also staged in Ohio, where Republicans have introduced a bill that would eliminate collective-bargaining rights for most of the state's 400,000 public-sector workers. In Indiana, meanwhile, a deputy attorney general was fired Wednesday for making comments on Twitter suggesting Wisconsin law-enforcement officials should "use live ammunition" to remove protesters from the capitol.
In Wisconsin, local Democrats continued to criticize Mr. Walker for saying, during a prank phone call in which he believed he was speaking to billionaire David Koch, that he had "thought about" sending troublemakers to disrupt protests at the state capitol. In a news conference Wednesday, Mr. Walker said the idea wasn't his and that he had dismissed it.
Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Mr. Walker, said the governor had no further comment on the phone call.
Unions tried to capitalize on the embarrassment by rolling out a 30-second TV commercial paid for by the Wisconsin state AFL-CIO that includes a clip from the call in which Mr. Walker says that each day "we crank up a little more pressure" on lawmakers.
Union supporters rallied in about 17 Wisconsin cities in late afternoon and evening after teachers and others got off work. Over the past week, teachers had been criticized for skipping work to protest.
On Wednesday, GOP lawmakers in the Ohio Senate, where the collective-bargaining bill was introduced, said they would scale back proposed restrictions on bargaining to let workers continue to haggle over wages.
Unions in Ohio tried to maintain pressure on Republicans Thursday.
Todd Reinhart, a 42-year-old high-school custodian who said he earns $13.74 an hour, stood with more than 500 other union members and supporters at a regional airport in Youngstown, Ohio. Republican Gov. John Kasich was meeting with local business officials at a luncheon there inside a hangar. Mr. Kasich supports cutting bargaining rights for teachers and other public workers to "pull Ohio out of the economic abyss," said his spokesman, Rob Nichols.
"We just don't feel that it's right that he's picking on the middle class of Ohio," Mr. Reinhart said.
In Pittsburgh, several hundred people carrying signs like "Labor Solidarity Has No Borders" packed the lobby of the United Steelworkers building at a noon rally. "We need to stand strong and follow the example of our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin," shouted Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.