Scott Walker's real legacy.

AuthorKettl, Donald F.
PositionPolitical issues surrounding public-sector unions

WHAT DID THE WISCONSIN GOVERNOR'S UNION BUSTING ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISH FOR THE "HARDWORKING TAXPAYERS" OF HIS STATE? AND WHAT DO HIS ACTIONS TELL US ABOUT HOW HE MIGHT GOVERN AS PRESIDENT?

This past February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker rolled up his sleeves, clipped on a lavalier microphone, and without the aid of a teleprompter gave the speech of his life. He emerged from that early GOP cattle call as a frontrunner for his party's nomination for president. Numerous polls this spring placed him several points ahead of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the preferred candidate of the Republican establishment, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Those same polls showed him with an even more substantial lead over movement conservative favorites such as Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Huckabee. In late April, the Koch brothers hinted that Walker would be the likely recipient of the nearly $900 million they plan to spend on the 2016 election cycle.

The source of Walker's appeal--his singular calling card, in fact--is not hard to identify. In 2011, the governor signed legislation stripping most of Wisconsin's public-sector unions of their rights to collective bargaining and to require dues from members, essentially busting those unions. He went on to survive a bitter 2012 recall effort backed by national unions and to win reelection in 2014 in a state Barack Obama won in 2012. He then signed "right to work" legislation that massively undercut the state's dwindling private-sector unions, too. In his twenty-minute CPAC speech, Walker referred to his battles with labor six times directly and as many times indirectly. It is the core of his message.

It is hard to exaggerate the attractiveness of that message to Republican voters. Back in the day, progressive Republicans like Wisconsin's own Senator and Governor Robert La Follette championed the labor movement, but today's GOP is overwhelmingly hostile to unions. Only 44 percent of moderate-to-liberal Republicans, and 23 percent of conservative Republicans, have a favorable view of labor unions, according to the Pew Research Center. By contrast, 70 percent of moderate-to-conservative Democrats and 80 percent of liberal Democrats rate unions favorably. Union support is one of the biggest wedge issues.

In his CPAC speech and subsequent ones, Walker likened his clash with Wisconsin's public-sector unions to Ronald Reagan's 1981 firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, thus presenting himself as a rightful heir of the party's patron saint. He extended that connection to foreign policy. A few days after his CPAC speech, Walker told a Palm Beach Club for Growth audience that Reagan's firing of the controllers was "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" because "it sent a message around the world [that] we weren't to be messed with." Walker's similar toughness under fire with the unions, in other words, makes him ready to be commander in chief. "If I can take on 100,000 protesters," he told the crowd at CPAC, "I can do the same across the world." The mainstream press treated such comparisons as bumbling efforts to cover the fact that, as a governor and former county executive, he has scant foreign policy experience. But conservative audiences loved the show of resolution. Walker wants tough strength to be his calling card; his campaign book is called, not coincidentally, Unintimidated.

What GOP primary voters most want is a candidate who will not compromise on conservative principles but can still win a general election. That's where Walker's triumph over public-sector unions really helps him. He not only stood up to big labor, he points out, but politically lived to tell the tale, winning a recall election in 2012 and reelection to a second term in 2014. "We did it without compromising," he told CPAC:

We took on the powerful special interests in Washington and we returned the power hack to the hand of the hardworking taxpayers. They didn't like that. They tried to recall me. They made me their number one target. But in the end we showed them we can fight and win for the hardworking taxpayer. It's obviously too early to know who will ultimately become the GOP nominee. The field of candidates is crowded. The debates are months away, and Walker has real vulnerabilities. His flip-flops on key issues like immigration have already hurt him among some conservatives. His poll ratings in his home state have fallen and his national poll numbers weakened in the late spring. His claim to special status as a conservative who can win in a blue state is also questionable. Two of his three statewide electoral victories occurred during off-year elections (2010 and 2014), when GOP voters typically predominate, and his 2012 recall victory was colored by the fact that voters were being asked to overturn the previous year's election results over a policy dispute, which, according to exit polls, many of them thought was inherently unjust.

But let's presume he does become the nominee. Walker's triumph over the unions could continue to be a useful tool for him, not only in firing up the GOP base but also in reaching out to independents, 47 percent of whom take a dim view of unions, according to the same Pew poll, and even to persuadable Democrats. The 2016 elections will be a battle over the role of government in failing to spur a too-weak economy and boost stagnant incomes. The Democratic nominee will likely present herself (or, less likely, himself) as a champion of the middle class who will wrest control of government away from the big banks and other powerful corporate interests and use it to benefit average Americans. Walker will be armed with an equivalent reform narrative. The problem with government, he can say, is not just that it is too big, holds back private-sector growth, and robs us of our freedoms--the standard Republican view, which he tirelessly proclaims--but that it has been captured by its own employees, who run it for their own benefit, not the public's. Just as he took on the unions in Wisconsin, he can say, so will he take on the bureaucrats in Washington, returning power back to "the hardworking taxpayers."

So it's worth looking carefully at Walker's arguments for why he busted the state's public employee unions. To what extent were those unions the obstacle to getting the state's fiscal house in order--a key argument Walker made during the 2011 standoff? To what degree do state and local government employee unions drive government's costs up and push its performance down?

Even more important is the question of how Walker's experiences and management choices at the state level might translate at the federal level. Is a governor whose greatest accomplishment is the crushing of state and local government unions the right person to lead the government in Washington?

The marble rotunda of the Wisconsin state capitol...

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