AFL-CIO Pulling Funds From Obama Campaign

WashingtonWhispers

The AFL-CIO has told Washington Whispers it will redeploy funds away from political candidates smack dab in the middle of election season, the latest sign that the largest federation of unions in the country could be becoming increasingly disillusioned with President Obama.

The federation says the shift has been in the works for months, and had nothing to do with the president’s failure to show in Wisconsin last week, where labor unions led a failed recall election of Governor Scott Walker.

“We wanted to start investing our funds in our own infrastructure and advocacy,” AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told Whispers. “There will be less contributions to candidates,” including President Obama.

While there were “a lot of different opinions” about whether Obama should have gone to Wisconsin, according to Goldstein, “this is not a slight at the president.”

The AFL-CIO has been at odds with the president before Wisconsin on issues such as the public health insurance option and renewing the Bush tax cuts.

The shift in funding is significant due to the federation’s role in past presidential campaigns, where the AFL-CIO built up a massive political structure in the months leading up the election, including extensive “Get Out The Vote” efforts, as well as financial contributions.

This time around, Goldstein says, the federation wants to build a more long-lasting structure, giving “different kinds of support to different candidates.”

And that may mean more politically independent candidates.

In a May speech at the National Press Club, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threatened to reduce support for the Democratic party and launch “an independent labor movement” if Democrats didn’t more fully support the union agenda.

“We will change the way we spend, the way we do things and the way we function that creates power for workers,” Trumka said, according to the Associated Press.

AFL-CIO donated $1.2 million to Democrats in 2008, and $900,000 in 2010, according to the Christian Post. It is unclear how much will be donated in 2012.

In April, the Huffington Post reported that Workers’ Voice, the super PAC arm of the AFL-CIO, was also changing its funding structure.

In an “unprecedented” move for organized labor, Workers’ Voice gave control of its $4.1 million in funds over to both union and non-union members who participate in campaign activities, including phone banking or canvassing.

On its website, Workers’ Voice promises: “Make phone calls, knock on doors… and you’ll earn the ability to direct dollars towards… your local or federal candidate of choice.”

Come fall, that choice may or may not be Obama.

Update, 1:55 p.m.:

Goldstein clarifies that in the new deployment of funds, “Some candidates will get more, some less, some the same — but overall we’ll be focused more on spending resources to build our own structure [that] works for working people instead of others’ own structures.”

The end is near for public-sector unions

Boston.com

In retrospect, there were two conspicuous giveaways that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was headed for victory in last week’s recall election.

One was that the Democrats’ campaign against him wound up focusing on just about everything but Walker’s law limiting collective bargaining rights for government workers. Sixteen months ago, the Capitol building in Madison was besieged by rioting protesters hell-bent on blocking the changes by any means necessary. Union members and their supporters, incandescent with rage, likened Walker to Adolf Hitler and cheered as Democratic lawmakers fled the state in a bid to force the legislature to a standstill. Once the bill passed, unions and Democrats vowed revenge, and amassed a million signatures on recall petitions.

But the more voters saw of the law’s effects, the more they liked it. Dozens of school districts reported millions in savings, most without resorting to layoffs. Property taxes fell. A $3.6 billion state budget deficit turned into a $154 million projected surplus. Walker’s measures proved a tonic for the economy, and support for restoring the status quo ante faded — even among Wisconsin Democrats. Long before Election Day, Democratic challenger Tom Barrett had all but dropped the issue of public-sector collective bargaining from his campaign to replace Walker.

The second harbinger was the plunge in public-employee union membership. The most important of Walker’s reforms, the change Big Labor had fought most bitterly, was ending the automatic withholding of union dues. That made union membership a matter of choice, not compulsion — and tens of thousands of government workers chose to toss their union cards. More than one-third of the Wisconsin members of the American Federation of Teachers quit, reported The Wall Street Journal. At the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the state’s largest unions, the hemorrhaging was worse: AFSCME’s Wisconsin rolls shrank by more than 34,000 over the past year, a 55 percent nose-dive.

Did government workers tear up their union cards solely because the union had lost its right to bargain collectively on their behalf? That’s doubtful: Even under the new law, unions still negotiate over salaries. More likely, public-sector employees ditched their unions for the same reasons so many employees in the private sector — which is now less than 7 percent unionized — have done so: Many never wanted to join a union in the first place. Others were repelled by the authoritarian, belligerent, and left-wing political culture that entrenched unionism so often embodies.

Even before the votes in Wisconsin were cast, remarked Michael Barone last week, Democrats and public-employee unions “had already lost the battle of ideas over the issue that sparked the recall.” Their tantrums and slanders didn’t just fail to intimidate Walker and Wisconsin lawmakers from reining in public-sector collective bargaining. They also gave the public a good hard look at what government unionism is apt to descend to. The past 16 months amounted to an extended seminar on the danger of combining collective bargaining with government jobs. Voters watched — and learned.

There was a time when even pro-labor Democrats like Franklin D. Roosevelt would have regarded it as obvious that collective bargaining was incompatible with public employment. Even the legendary AFL-CIO leader George Meany once took it for granted that there could be no “right” to bargain collectively with the government.

When unions bargain with management in the private sector, both sides are contending for a share of the private profits that labor helps produce — and both sides are constrained by the pressures of market discipline. Managers can’t ignore the company’s bottom line. Unions know that if they demand too much, they may cost the company its competitive edge.

But when labor and management bargain in the public sector, they are divvying up public funds, not private profits. Government bureaucrats don’t have to worry about losing business to their competitors; state agencies can’t relocate to another part of the country. There is little incentive to hold down wages and benefits, since the taxpayers who will be picking up the tab have no seat at the table. On the other hand, government managers have a powerful motivation to yield to government unions: Union members vote.

In 1959, when Wisconsin became the first state to enact a public-sector collective-bargaining law, it wasn’t widely understood what the distorted incentives of government unionism would lead to. Five decades later, the wreckage is all around us. The privileges that come with government work — hefty automatic pay raises, Cadillac pension plans, iron-clad job security, ultra-deluxe health insurance policies — have in many cases grown outlandish and staggeringly unaffordable. What Keith Geiger, the former head of the National Education Association, once referred to as “ our sledgehammer, the collective bargaining process,” has wreaked havoc on state and municipal budgets nationwide.

Now, at long last, the pendulum has reversed. The 50-year mistake of public-sector unions is being corrected. Walker’s victory is a heartening reminder that in a democracy, even the most entrenched bad ideas can sometimes be unentrenched. On, Wisconsin!

The Main Message From Madison: The Jig Is Up

InvestorsDaily

By far the most amusing and telling result of the thumping the corrupt public-employee unions and out-of-state far-left zealots suffered in Wisconsin is the whining and hand-wringing now being exhibited by a growing collection of liberal pundits, politicians and ultra-wealthy activists who are uniformly saying this is a “major wake-up call for the left, Democrats and unions.”

No, it’s not. It’s a loud and clear pronouncement that big government and big-government giveaways to people who want something for nothing is over. Look at the actual results. Listen to the actual people of Wisconsin.

Many were flat-out offended and angered that the far-left flooded into their state to attempt to overturn the voice of the people. These voters, like the majority of the American people, are tired of being fooled or even fooling themselves. They look at the life-destroying economic collapses in Greece, Spain, Italy, Illinois, New York and California and now know exactly the cause and who is willingly spreading the disease.

The voters of Wisconsin know that the Democrat Party is for the most part owned and operated by corrupt public-employee unions that want to suck every last dollar out of their pockets to fund bankrupt pensions and health care plans for themselves and their members.

The voters of Wisconsin have realized that these unions and the politicians who support them are literally stealing from them and endangering the economic future of their children.

The false “major wake-up call” the far-left pundits, union officials and politicians want to shout is that rather than the corrupt and budget-destroying policies of the unions being at fault, were it not for the money of “evil” conservatives and corporations, all would be well in liberal utopia.

Said an official from the American Federation of Teachers: “It’s pretty clear that the voices of ordinary citizens are at permanent risk of being drowned out by uninhibited corporate spending.” Laughingly wrong.

The voices of “ordinary citizens” just spoke. And guess what? These far-left pundits, politicians, wealthy liberal activists and union leaders know that. They know the jig is up and that the American people have finally caught on to their outright thievery.

Just as they have caught on to the dangers of the nanny state, especially in the hands of inexperienced “community organizers.” It does not take much to read between the lines to realize that a number of Democrats with real-world experience see the wheels flying off the big-government wagon and its operators being exposed as the real problem of the moment.

As Ed Rendell, former Democrat governor and head of the Democratic National Committee, just said with regard to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, “I think she would have come in with a lot more executive experience. I think the president was hurt by being a legislator only.”

OK, let’s be honest. Obama was not even a legislator, and Rendell knows that. During his barely two years in the Senate, Obama was running full time for president. During his time in the legislature in Illinois, he was voting “present.” Hardly a profile in courage.

Former President Bill Clinton keeps making comments that sure seem to validate the real-world experience of Mitt Romney. Then, when the liberal media become aghast at this affront to their Messiah Barack Obama, they have Clinton on to “correct” the record. Except, he keeps doubling down on his at least modest praise of Romney.

To paraphrase Col. Jessup from “A Few Good Men,” the far-left “can’t handle the truth” — that being there’s no magical wake-up call for them. The hypercorrosive effects of big government and something-for-nothing policies of Obama and his supporters have finally been exposed for all to see.

Americans are now choosing self-responsibility and fiscal sanity over the suicidal power grabs of the public-employee unions and their political protectors. Not only will these corrupt public-employee unions continue to take a pounding across the country but come November, Obama will too.

That is the real “wake-up call” the far-left most fears.

“The Reality is, he won”

NewsBusters

Want some cheese with that whine, Ms. Wasserman?

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made ludicrous accusations against Republicans before and the media have failed to admonish her, but CNN’s Piers Morgan stomped on her argument on Wednesday night that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s policies were “extremist.”

“If you keep calling him an extremist but you accept that he won, what does that say about the people of Wisconsin? Are they all just a bunch of mad extremists?” Morgan challenged Schultz. [Audio here.]

Schultz laughably tried to spin from Gov. Walker’s victory in a recall election by noting that the state senate will probably be controlled by the Democrats – even though more seats are up for election this November and the legislature is not scheduled to convene before then.

And Morgan challenged her other claim that Walker was punished with an expensive recall election for his “extremist” policies. “You could argue, of course, that Scott Walker’s probably thrilled that he had to go through it now because it’s made him a national superstar,” Morgan told her.

A transcript of the segment, which aired on June 6 on Piers Morgan Tonight at 9:37 p.m. EDT, is as follows:

[9:37]

PIERS MORGAN: So I don’t know if you were listening to Donald Rumsfeld there, but he concluded that the only possible reason President Obama didn’t go down to Wisconsin to try and win this thing is because he knew he’d lose. Your thoughts?

Rep. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-Fla.), DNC chair: Well, I wouldn’t — it’s not really surprising that the Secretary would say something like that. The President deployed his entire machinery, grassroots machinery on the ground in Wisconsin, 40 offices, more than a million and a half dollars, our key neighborhood team leaders and volunteers. And we put an unprecedented effort of grassroots into this recall.

We came up short, but at the same – of the ultimate goal, which was to make sure that Governor Walker couldn’t adopt his extremist policies and continue to hurt middle class and working families. But we did apparently succeed in flipping the state Senate. The state Senate is likely now to be controlled by the Democrats.

And so we’re going to be able to stop Governor Walker from being able to really continue to pursue those extremist policies. So ultimately we were at least in part successful. And we’re – what we demonstrated, Piers, was that Democrats are not going to just lay down and allow the middle class and working families and workers to get run over when an extremist governor has run amuck like Scott Walker does –

MORGAN: You keep calling him this great extremist who everyone apparently, is terrified of and everything else, but the reality is he won. And he won pretty convincingly. So the only people laying down, it would seem to everybody else, are the Democrats on this. So how are you claiming some kind of weird victory out of all this?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well there’s nothing weird about flipping the state senate. Last year, there were recalls of state senators that were put on the ballot and there were recalls last night. And as a result of those victories, the state Senate has gone from being Republican to very likely being Democrat now. And really I’m certainly not going to call it a victory. Like I said, we lost the actual recall of the governor, but –

MORGAN: Let me just jump in there. I mean, that is my point. If you keep calling him an extremist but you accept that he won, what does that say about the people of Wisconsin? Are they all just a bunch of mad extremists?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No. What it says is that voters look at a recall very differently than they look at a straight-up election. And if you look at the exit polling, about 70 percent of the voters that cast ballots yesterday were uncomfortable in some way with the actual recall of a governor.

So while they didn’t like his policies, they didn’t think that they were comfortable with a recall. At the end of the day, I think if you asked any Republican governor in the country if they would trade places with Scott Walker for the last year, and if they would, if they had it to do it over again, take the same steps that Scott Walker did and had to go through a full recall and raising $31 million –

(Crosstalk)

MORGAN: You could argue, of course, that Scott Walker’s probably thrilled that he had to go through it now because it’s made him a national superstar. It’s revved up his party. He’s the hero of the hour. So I would imagine he’s thinking, bring on the recalls. Let’s move on to something else –

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, I can’t imagine that he would be saying that. And that more would – most governors in the country would trade places with him having to raise 31 million dollars, and really having to spend the last year defending policies that were –

MORGAN: We will agree to disagree. I suspect Scott Walker’s chuffed to bits tonight.

Romney goes for a Walker

WashingtonPost

Well before the Wisconsin recall transfixed the political scene, Mitt Romney had accumulated a raft of proposals designed to minimize the power of organized labor.

His Web site lists a number of these:

● Appoint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) experienced individuals with respect for the rule of law;

● Amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to explicitly protect the right of business owners to allocate their capital as they see fit;

● Reverse executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the playing field toward organized labor;

● Amend the NLRA to guarantee the secret ballot in every union-certification election;

● Amend the NLRA to guarantee that all pre-election campaigns last at least one month;

● Support states in pursuing right-to-work laws; and

● Prohibit the use for political purposes of funds automatically deducted from worker paychecks.

Romney has also proposed cutting the federal workforce and repealing the Davis-Bacon Act, the New Deal-era statute that requires government contractors to pay prevailing union-wage rates. This jacks up the cost of projects, which can force small contractors out of the bidding.

In this, however, Romney should be careful of overreach. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) took on public employee unions, not private-sector unions, and he did so in order to directly benefit the taxpayers and improve government efficiency. If Romney is perceived as going after “working stiffs,” he will fall prey to the “rich-guy ogre” stereotype.

He, therefore, would be wise to keep his proposals in perspective. First, focus on the inequities and inherent conflicts of interest regarding public employee unions — by, for example, prohibiting elected officials and their designees from collective bargaining with those who have given campaign donations (or by making such agreements subject to confirmation by a supermajority of the state legislature).

Second, don’t appoint business flunkies to the NLRB just because President Obama put his stooges in. There are attorneys and non-lawyers (such as professional labor arbitrators) who are perceived as balanced and unbiased. The focus should be on finding qualified board members with integrity. And finally, return the Labor Department to its original charter, which is to provide a level playing field where employees can choose to organize or not to organize.

The real pitch for Romney is that he’s not in the pocket of Big Labor and can therefore make the tough decision on the side of the taxpayers, not on the side of a narrow special-interest group. That message will resonate in many parts of the country.

How Scott Walker Helped Unions and Democrats Tonight

NationalReview

I wonder if the Unions will suddenly “find” 200,000 ballots by dead people…

Believe it or not, by winning his recall election -  by a 57 percent to 42 percent margin at this hour – Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has done his foes – the Wisconsin Democratic Party, the public sector unions, the progressives and angry leftists – a favor.

He has liberated them from the soothing illusion that they are popular, and that the public agrees with them.

How do you think the leadership of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011? How do you think they greeted the sudden realization that two-thirds of the members, given the option of leaving and cease paying union dues, headed for the exits?

The leadership of the unions have done a terrible job – and have spent years convinced that the membership loved them, and that the public thought well of them as well. That may have been true at some point, but it is no longer the case, and no amount of spin can change that. Better for these organizations to confront the hard truth, and work to earn back that trust of members and the public at large, then to insist that all is well and ignore the problems.

Tonight Scott Walker and his GOP allies did a favor the Obama campaign, too. They assured them that their classification of Wisconsin as a swing state was accurate, and that in the “dry run that we need of our massive, significant, dynamic grassroots presidential campaign” that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz promised, the Wisconsin Democrats failed miserably. At this hour, Walker is winning by roughly a 200,000 vote margin.

Nothing like the Dems ratting out the neighbors

“We’re sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and does not vote.”

Incredibly creepy mail today from the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund:

I obscured names and addresses, but be assured, this was a list of real names and addresses of people who live near me, with the information about whether they voted in the last 2 elections. This is an effort to shame and pressure people about voting, and it is truly despicable. Your vote is private, you have a right not to vote, and anyone who tries to shame and an harass you about it is violating your privacy, and the assumption that I will become active in shaming and pressuring my neighbors is repugnant.

Not voting is a valid choice. If you don’t have a preference in the election, don’t vote. If you think no one deserves your vote, don’t vote.

This may be the most disgusting thing I have ever received in the mail.

What happens when a state no longer forces workers into a union?

HotAir

Popquiz, hotshots*: You have public-employee unions that force public-sector employees to pay dues and make the state act as their bagman.  The state refuses to collect dues and changes the law to make dues and union membership entirely voluntary.  What do people do?

That’s easy … they quit paying the dues:

Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership—by more than half for the second-biggest union—since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers—fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed Afscme’s figures. A spokesman for Afscme declined to comment.

Much of that decline came from Afscme Council 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.

A provision of the Walker law that eliminated automatic dues collection hurt union membership. When a public-sector contract expires the state now stops collecting dues from the affected workers’ paychecks unless they say they want the dues taken out, said Peter Davis, general counsel of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.

In many cases, Afscme dropped members from its rolls after it failed to get them to affirm they want dues collected, said a labor official familiar with Afscme’s figures.

That’s the reason that the PEUs hit the panic button in February 2011.  They knew that the law would severely cut into their membership once the state refused to force dues payments as a condition of employment.  This also undermines the credibility of union leaders who claim to speak for public-sector workers, as it shows a significant number of them don’t support the union at all, especially in the literal sense now.

Want to know what else happens when the state lets workers choose for themselves?  Presidents find other things to do than campaign in the state.  Byron York reports that Barack Obama will keep Tom Barrett and Wisconsin Democrats at arm’s length this week, wanting to avoid being connected with the upcoming results of the recall election:

Last year, when angry protesters filled the streets of Madison, Wis., denouncing Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to curtail some union collective bargaining powers, President Obama was eager to associate himself with the union cause. “Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” Obama told a Milwaukee TV reporter in February 2011.

Now, it’s just days until voters decide whether to recall Walker — an effort started, maintained and financed by the unions. If the polls are correct, Walker, who is being challenged by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seems headed toward keeping his job. And now, the president is not only no longer talking about Wisconsin, he’s actually seeking to distance himself from next week’s likely Democratic defeat. …

The latest poll on the recall battle shows why Obama is staying away. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to appear with a loser. Perhaps just as importantly, there is no advantage for Obama to risk his own popularity by making a high-profile visit to oppose policies that are finding increasing favor with voters.

In other words, it’s pretty much a win all the way around.  Too bad our own state legislature didn’t put the right-to-work amendment on the November ballot this year, or we might have frightened Obama off from his Twin Cities visit this morning.

* – Apologies to the late Dennis Hopper.

On wrong side of issues, Obama avoids Wisc.

WashingtonExaminer

Last year, when angry protesters filled the streets of Madison, Wis., denouncing Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to curtail some union collective bargaining powers, President Obama was eager to associate himself with the union cause. “Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions,” Obama told a Milwaukee TV reporter in February 2011.

Now, it’s just days until voters decide whether to recall Walker — an effort started, maintained and financed by the unions. If the polls are correct, Walker, who is being challenged by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seems headed toward keeping his job. And now, the president is not only no longer talking about Wisconsin, he’s actually seeking to distance himself from next week’s likely Democratic defeat.

“This is a gubernatorial race with a guy who was recalled and a challenger trying to get him out of office,” top Obama campaign official Stephanie Cutter said Wednesday on MSNBC. “It has nothing to do with President Obama at the top of the ticket, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with Mitt Romney at the top of the Republican ticket.”

Barrett would have loved a presidential visit to help shore up his faltering campaign. But even though Obama’s re-election effort depends heavily on union money and muscle, the president said no. Instead, former President Clinton will visit Milwaukee on Friday to offer last-minute support.

The latest poll on the recall battle shows why Obama is staying away. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to appear with a loser. Perhaps just as importantly, there is no advantage for Obama to risk his own popularity by making a high-profile visit to oppose policies that are finding increasing favor with voters.

The new poll, from Marquette University Law School, shows Walker leading Barrett 52 percent to 45 percent. Beyond the horse race, the Marquette pollsters also asked about specific elements of Walker’s reforms. It turns out some of the key elements of those policies — reforms Obama strongly opposed — are now winning the day.

First, Marquette asked voters about “requiring public employees to contribute to their own pensions and pay more for health insurance.” That wins overwhelming public approval, 75 percent to 22 percent.

Next the pollsters asked about “limiting collective bargaining for most public employees.” The public favored that, too, 55 percent to 41 percent.

Those are two key elements of the proposal that set off such ugly protests last year. Now, they’re winners.

Marquette also asked about “cutting spending by reducing state aid to public schools,” which voters disapproved of by 67 percent to 29 percent. But Walker has made a compelling argument that the reforms have freed up money for schools to use on education rather than, say, paying for overpriced union-mandated health coverage contracts.

The poll shows that voters believe Walker, by a 50 percent to 43 percent margin, would be better at creating jobs in Wisconsin. They also think Walker is more likely to balance the budget and make taxes fair for everyone.

Finally, a bottom-line question: “Thinking about all the changes in state government over the past year, do you think Wisconsin is better off in the long run because of these changes or worse off in the long run?” Fifty-four percent said their state better off, while 42 percent said worse off.

Those are winning issues for Walker and Republicans. And Barack Obama is on the wrong side of all of them.

At the same time, the Marquette pollsters found something quite different in the presidential race. Likely voters in Wisconsin favor the president over Mitt Romney, 51 percent to 43 percent, and Obama has a 55 percent favorable rating, to Romney’s 40 percent.

Some might question how voters could favor both Scott Walker and Barack Obama, but that’s the way it is, at least right now. “I think the numbers are probably right,” says Charlie Sykes, a popular conservative radio host in Wisconsin, “which suggests that 1) Walker is doing awfully well, 2) Tom Barrett is a remarkably bad candidate, and 3) Wisconsin remains purple, leaning blue.”

All of which shows why Obama is staying away. He is relatively popular in Wisconsin, but a visit to the state would just highlight the fact that he took the wrong side in the most passionate political battle in decades. Why show up and associate himself with policies voters no longer believe will work?

Barrett Can’t Back Up Claims

FreeBeacon

Tom Barrett, the Democratic gubernatorial challenger to GOP incumbent Scott Walker, has hammered Walker for cutting public education funding, but was unable to identify any particular Wisconsin schools that have been harmed by Walker’s policies.

The Weekly Standard reports:

TWS: Which school districts have been hurt in particular, in your view, by Walker’s policies and his reforms? Are there any that stand out in your mind?

BARRETT: Well, I support the restoration of collective bargaining rights. And that’s what this is all about—whether you support workers’ rights. And I support workers’ rights.

TWS: But are there any school districts in particular, though, that have been hurt by Act 10?

BARRETT: I have talked to prison guards, I can tell you that, who are concerned about their own public safety because of the changes in the law, and I’m very concerned about that as well

TWS: But no school districts—

BARRETT: We can do an analysis and get back to you on that.

According to a study released by the MacIver Institute, the school districts exempted from Walker’s collective bargaining reforms comprise 13 percent of Wisconsin public education staff, but accounted for 43 percent of public school teacher layoffs statewide, indicating that Walker’s policies, where they have been implemented, have saved teachers’ jobs.

This is not Barrett’s first failed attempt to substantiate charges leveled against Walker: Yesterday, the Weekly Standard reported that Barrett “was unable to name a single policy he’d pursue as governor in the next six months to create jobs.”