Tim Cullen & Dale Schultz are currently on a \"Bipartisan\" road tour.
REEDSBURG — Greenwood’s Cafe in downtown Reedsburg this week hosted an unusual example of retail politicking, as Sen. Tim Cullen pressed the flesh and listened intently to constituents who couldn’t possibly vote for him.
The Janesville Democrat had come to the local landmark, nearly 100 miles from his district, as a part of a daylong barnstorming tour of the region with Sen. Dale Schultz, a Republican.
Peace, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, is only achievable through understanding. And Cullen’s goal Wednesday was to understand the challenges facing people in that part of the state, and by extension, the challenges facing Schultz.
Early next month, Schultz will travel to Janesville to return the favor. It is all part of plan to prove to someone, somewhere, that bipartisanship is not dead in Wisconsin.
Unfortunately the Tim Cullen act is starting to wear seriously thin.
“The lines between the parties are now drawn so sharply that it’s almost impossible for Democrats and Republicans to work together on anything,” Cullen said. “Dale and I are trying to show that it doesn’t have to be that way; that there is room for cooperation.”
News Flash for Mr. Cullen and Mr. Schulz, the place to show that you can act in a bipartisan manner is NOT at Greenwood’s cafe! The place to show bipartisanship, is in Madison at the State Capitol. Clay Barbour breaks down some numbers:
In February, in the midst of the heated debate over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining bill, all 14 Senate Democrats left the state to deny Republicans the 20-member quorum needed to pass the measure. For three weeks they conducted a long-distance filibuster as Republican senators faced the wrath of the thousands of protesters who filled the Capitol.
Before the protest, Democrats and Republicans voted in favor of several jobs-related bills introduced by the governor. After the protest, members of both parties stayed on their sides of the fence.
For example, Assembly Democrats have offered 376 amendments to Republican bills this session. Only one of them passed: an amendment that allowed families to participate in Milwaukee’s school voucher program, even if their income exceeded a cap.
Democrats also introduced 49 of their own bills, of which 42 have yet to even be heard in committee. None has passed the Assembly.In the previous session, when Democrats controlled both houses and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle was in office, 107 Assembly Republican bills were heard in committee, and 50 were passed by the Assembly.
“Bipartisanship isn’t just when we do what the Republicans want,” said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha. “This session, they have acted like we have nothing to offer.”
So when Senator Cullen and Senator Schulz want to truly start acting in a bipartisan manor, during the actual debate of bills then I will be interested in what they have to say. When things like this , this, or this stop then we will know that the republicans are serious about bipartisanship. Until then all they will get from me is a big yawn and much indifference.
Before the protest, Democrats and Republicans voted in favor of several jobs-related bills introduced by the governor. After the protest, members of both parties stayed on their sides of the fence.
Yeah, and what else happened in that interval? How can one write a 750-word article on this subject, without two of them being collective bargaining? I haven’t trusted Barbour’s judgement since this.
Not only are the lines drawn in Madison, they are present in Washington D.C. The inability of the Republican legislators to govern respectfully and with fairness is something we all need to keep in mind in the fall of 2012.
He included a quote from Scott Fitzgerald that was so ridculous I wont repeat it.
Sentimental, false equivalence hogwash. Summarized perfectly by a statistic in the very article:
Just one of many pieces of evidence. One party is controlled by it’s fringe. The other is not. And it’s not even close.
Total false equivalence BS. It didn’t stop Schultz from voting for this absurd budget, did it? It didn’t stop him from voting for Fitzgerald as Majority Leader, now did it? Actions speak louder than symbolic gestures. If Schultz hates it so much, he should go Independent and leave the GOP caucus in his Dem-leaning district. He’d be safe if he did…..but he doesn’t. Cullen’s act is also beyond lame and squishy, and shows an Obama-esque lack of understand about the type of thugs he’s dealing with.
Foran example of how the GOPs roll, I recall Dems specifically saying in March that they needed to exempt transit from the collective bargaining because it would lose federal funds, and Robin Vos went on and on saying it wasn’t necessary and that he was “99 percent sure” it wouldn’t put funding in jeopardy, and all GOPs voted it down. So what did the GOP do in June when it got its Supreme Court ruling? Exempted transit employees from the collective bargaining prohibitions because they realized the funding was in jeopardy.
That’s how petty and lame today’s Wisconsin GOP is. They couldn’t even go along with a Dem amendment that they later approved themselves because it would have been a Dem idea. CHILDISH AND LAME.