Solidarity Singers and the Governor of Wisconsin

The Solidarity Sing Along started March 11, 2011 and has continued every weekday since. Most days they sing in the rotunda of the state capitol…but they sing outside if there is another scheduled event in the Rotunda and they have often sung outside the Capitol on Fridays. As most readers of this blog know, the Walker Administration has essentially outlawed the Solidarity Singers by requiring a permit for any gathering or protest involving 21 or more participants.

And starting this past Wednesday, supposedly emboldened by the recent court ruling nullifying some of the freedom of assembly rules within the Capitol but allowing the permit process to stand, the Capitol Police along with their comrades at the State Patrol have been arresting about two dozen singers a day.

Now the Wisconsin Department of Administration has stated in the press that they will certainly grant a permit to the Solidarity Singers if they would only apply. But of course they feel that they can’t apply for a permit because they are protecting their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. So we find ourselves at a simple Catch 22 situation.

It would be interesting to see if the DOA would actually issue a permit if the Solidarity Singers actually applied…or is the DOA saying they would anticipating that the Singers would never willingly apply. Or would it become an issue of who would wear down first, the Singers or the DOA, if the Singers applied for a permit each and every weekday. Political tedium at its finest.

But the lack of a permit now gets more interesting. On Monday July 29th, a group identifying itself as the Walker Solidarity Singers has been granted a permit to hold an event in the Capitol Rotunda…so under their policy the Solidarity Singers will hold their event outside. So is this a one time event or will the Walker SS pull a permit for every weekday and try to lock out the original Singers from their traditional spot in the rotunda. This may get more interesting as time passes.

Now, I have one very curious unanswered question. Why would Governor Walker decide to enforce his arbitrary obstructionist rules now? The singers were essentially invisible outside of Madison…I doubt 98% of the residents in Wisconsin were even aware that the Singers were singing in the Capitol each weekday…and they probably would have remained a relative footnote in the anti-governor Walker protests… and that 98% would probably have remained oblivious…except now the governor decided to put on a show with these arrests.

But instead of leaving well enough alone, the governor decides to hit the hornets nest with a stick, and now the Singers and the restrictions in the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda start to become front page local news…and starts to hit the national and international news. Good idea before the governor’s convention? Good idea for a reputed presidential candidate? Pulling out his best Mayor Daley routine on his fellow citizens will play well with the media? Will it play well outside his hardcore base? And if you are going to clamp down your police aren’t smart enough to avoid the eighty year old grandmothers? the handicapped? the beflagged aged veterans? retired clergy? Man oh man that don’t look good in the videos…at least pick on the young able bodied who ‘look’ like ‘socialist revolutionaries’…unless maybe there aren’t any?

Hey, Governor Walker, if you’d have left well enough alone, nothing would have happened except a few voices raised in song in OUR house each weekday lunch hour.

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23 thoughts on “Solidarity Singers and the Governor of Wisconsin

  1. Maybe if you guys just got over it and left well enough alone, maybe you wouldn’t have to be arrested. Get a job, get a life and leave the Governor and every other hard working Wisconsinite alone. The unions will die off very soon and you just need to accept that, plus, Walker is going to be Governor for a long time, so I suggest either learn your place on the totem of society or you just find somewhere to live and be a nuisance to someone else. You don’t have any support, you never will have any support, so in lamense terms. SIT DOPWN, BE QUIET, AND BACK OFF!

    1. David, the whole “get a job” meme you conservatives are so fond of throwing out there is tired, and I’d encourage you to find a new talking point. The fact is, many of the Solidarity Singers have jobs, and they choose to spend their lunch hours at the Capitol exercising their Constitutionally-protected rights to free speech.

      And for the record, if you’re going to come here and try to lecture others and act high and mighty, at least learn some basic spelling and grammar, because it’s hard to take you seriously.

    2. David, you missed the salient point of this blog…if Governor Walker had simply left well enough alone, the Solidarity Singers would have eventually just drifted away…instead in another fine example of pique and his thin skin he had to push his weight around and make headlines…

    3. David,

      Your filthy hate exemplifies the very Anti-American spirit that is weakening this nation from within, the very corrosive attitude antithetical to everything that “We the People” conveys. Your betrayal of your fellow citizens indicates a misplaced trust in a sadistic, tyrannical governor whose alliances are not with hard working people, nor struggling workers, nor are they with the unemployed, the homeless, or any of the other classifications that people fall into other than “hard working.” Walker is a puppet for anti-democratic, anti-republican interests.

      If you have the audacity to cut your own puppet strings you’ll find that unions represent one solution for the democratization of an economy usurped by a tyrannical elite. This is precisely the reason Walker and his Republican stooges seek to delimit union participation and unions themselves.

      A few points on your “hard working” platitude – what exactly is your thresh hold for determining “hard” working? Americans already work harder, longer, and for less compensation, with less free time to pursue individual pursuits, and with less flexibility and decision-making capabilities in the work place than most advanced nations of the world. How “hard working” do Americans have to be to earn your respect? And for whom must these workers labor so intensively? Just who is most entitled to the fruits of any “hard” worker’s labor? How much do you truly value “hard working” people?

      Further, why do the Solidarity Singers enrage you so? Is the genuine civic-minded democratic spirit they represent so fearful? How is it that the Solidarity Singers infringed upon your life or anyone else’s when they exercised their rights in their own house – the state house? You seem to think that you have a right to silence your fellow citizens. Is that correct? Or have I misinterpreted your “Sit down..be quiet” rant? I’m awfully curious to know how you came upon this belief – that you may dictate to others when and what they may say and do. You are aware that such a position runs counter to the very definitions of rights and liberties? That you express your dictatorial whim isn’t as troublesome as you believing you have some sort of dictatorial right to marginalize and banish others. Even if you kept your atrocious beliefs to yourself, they would still be fundamentally Anti-American atrocities. Perhaps freedom, rights, and liberties aren’t really concepts you can stomach? After all, to stomach them, you must tolerate, respect, and cherish them in others – that’s what the American ideal is about.

      I would recommend you follow your own advice and learn your place on the totem of society – this state and this nation are a democratic republic. Perhaps it is you who should take responsibility for your own happiness and seek out a less civic-minded, less- democratic society in which to abide? Perhaps you should leave democracy-minded citizens well enough alone and relocate farther South where your Anti-Americanism would be well-received?

    4. Having to be arrested is pretty funny. Read the constitution jackass.

      Asked those being protested for a permit is pretty lame.

      WI state constitution: article 1 section 4: the right of the people to peaceably assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.”

  2. There are a number reasons the Solidarity Sing Along doesn’t seek a permit.

    One reason is that the person/group holding the permit is responsible and liable for the behavior of those who attend. As we’ve seen over the past couple of days, many different people with many different behaviors attend the Sing Along, including people who don’t support what we’re doing. The administration has said that they never actually assess damages on any permit holder, but this administration hasn’t exactly shown itself to be very trustworthy (when the admin first unveiled its new rules in December 2011, the DOA spokesperson said it was “laughable” that anyone would think they’d be arrested for violating the administrative code – we’re not laughing now).

    A second practical concern is over who would get the permit. Solidarity Sing Along is a leaderless activity.

    The Solidarity Sing Along uses the Rotunda when no other group has reserved the space. That practice has worked well for nearly two and a half years.

    The most significant concern, however, is the issue of whether one should have to ask the government’s permission to protest the government. On this issue, the courts agree with Solidarity Sing Along. The Capitol Police have been issuing citations for ten months now. Every single one has been dismissed.

    The Rotunda is designated as a public forum, a place where free speech receives special protection. The Rotunda is designed to facilitate free speech. There are “diamonds” in the marble of the ground floor of the Rotunda to show where to stand if you want your voice to be best heard. In DC, people gather in the Mall; in Madison, people gather at the Capitol Rotunda.

    1. (I should add the disclaimer that I am a semiregular participant in the Solidarity Sing Along, but I do not speak for anyone else but myself.)

    1. Not sure they are covering up issues with the Gogebic mine activities…but I have wondered what they need to distract attention from right now. I can’t imagine the other governors dropping by for a visit will be impressed.

  3. I’ll be attending the SSA outside and I will pop on inside the Capitol and listen to Blaska’s group sing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. I will be curious to see if they plan to carry out their red heart balloon scheme. Evidently, they think it will be quite funny to all pop a red heart balloon at the same time. I guess it’s true when the say “small minds are amused.” Part of me feels sorry for the group inside who don’t seem to understand that they do not need a permit to exercise their 1st Amendment rights.

  4. Putting aside for the moment the very legitimate issue of whether the permit requirement impermissibly restricts speech protected by the First Amendment — which of course it does — consider its practical ramifications. The Solidarity Sing Along is NOT an organized group; it has no leaders. Rather, it is an activity, which after nearly two and a half years has become a tradition: people know that if they come to the Capitol at noon hoping to sing a few songs, there will be others there doing the same. There is no one who has the authority to request a permit on behalf of an entity that does not exist.

    When I attend the Sing Along, I do so as an individual. I’m not a “Solidarity Singer” — there is no such thing. I am a person exercising my First Amendment rights by participating in peaceful a noon hour sing-along that does not disrupt state business. Do my rights evaporate if 20 other people want to do the same thing? Does the DOA think that by requiring me to get a permit it can make me personally and financially responsible for the actions of an unknown number of other people who happen to be at the Capitol at the same time, and whom I do not know? Is not that expectation an undue burden on me and an illegitimate restriction of my rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech? If it is, a citation for “no permit” cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.

    The only problem with the sing along is that Scott Walker does not want to hear from people who disagree with his repressive agenda for Wisconsin.

  5. First, technically they aren’t arresting people for lack of permits…but for unlawful assembly…which is a splitting of legal hairs but…!

    The fact that there is a facebook page where singers can check on the when and wherefores of the solidarity singing (which today said lets sing outside cause Blaska has a permit for the rotunda)…a place to download the song book…general group agreements about when to sing inside and sing outside (like today)…the fact that it even has a name (particluarly with the word solidarity in it)…all points to a certain organization…not an entity that does not exist.

    And doesn’t exercising the right of freedom of assembly ultimatelty result in a group? And not every group requires a leadership hierarchy.

  6. Ed, the citations are given for “no permit” — not for “unlawful assembly” — though the Capitol Police have in the past few days declared an “unlawful assembly.” I think they know that the assembly doesn’t meet their own definition of unlawful assembly so aren’t citing people for that because they can’t make it stick. They are just trying to intimidate people with the announcement.

    Also — exercising the right of freedom of assembly results in a gathering — not an organized group with a leader who can request a permit on behalf of the group.

  7. And doesn’t exercising the right of freedom of assembly ultimately result in a group? exercising the right of freedom of assembly results in a gathering — not an organized group

    um…although I suggested the visable and apparent organization (webpage, songbook, etc) exhibited an organized group…I didn’t use that adjective in the freedom of assembly item…but it certainly falls within the defintion of a group:

    dictionary.com
    group
    [groop]noun
    1. any collection or assemblage of persons or things; cluster; aggregation: a group of protesters; a remarkable group of paintings.
    2. a number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way.

  8. someone tell the “king”
    the capitol is our house
    and in our house
    WE SING

  9. What a wasted trip to our great state capital… RUINED by you damn out of tune hippies… If you don’t like Walker, oh friggin well!!! the MAJORITY of the state does agree with him, hence his position in office… Do something PRODUCTIVE to try and change things… What the fuck does singing accomplish? Its ANNOYING to the people that work there and especially the people who just want to visit. I’m glad you people are getting cuffed and fined. Maybe something will register in your heads that your wasting your time and money. You are a joke to them, you have no power over them by singing. And since you people are are being stubborn about your stupidity, Walker and the gov are doing what any red blooded American would do, they are making money off it. You think Walker is just going to say “I quit, the singing is just too much”?
    Don’t like how Walker is running the state? Then move!!!
    Whats our state motto? FORWARD… And we are moving forward without your wasteful and useless unions… So go protest something that has actual meaning. Really pisses me off that MY tax dollars is paying for police to deal with you people. If I have to pay for hippie control, I’ll personally throw in a few extra bucks so the capital police can buy tear gas and rubber bullets.

      1. Duane,
        Go back to school? Really? For what? I have a DEGREE in the field I work in… And how is a history book relavent?
        You’re the kind of asshole I hate. Ignorant and completely off the subject. You have no basis for an arguement, so you try to insult me? Yeah, true sign of stupidity.
        How about YOU go to school and brush up on politics. And screw your irrelevant history books on this matter. How about you pay attention to current events? History has shown that people in power make examples out of people like YOU!!! And my point is proven with each arrest n fine handed out.
        Do what an INTELLIGENT person would do, make phone calls n complain, write letters, sign petitions… singing will not accomplish anything!!
        Governments are changed with either a pen or a gun!!!

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