I think the point has been made

NPR had an interview with WI State Sen. Jon Erpenbach today. In short, Erpenbach stated that he and his colleagues fled the state when they realized that the bill was going to pass, to paraphrase, "faster than any light-rail project in Wisconsin ever would", and that more time was needed for the public to learn what was in the bill and discuss it.

Without stating my own personal opinion on the bill, I nonetheless think that the public has had all the time it needs to digest things. At this point it isn't in the name of transparency and honest government that the 14 Democratic Senators continue to hide out in IL, it's because doing so effectively kills, for the time-being, a bill they disapprove of, but lack the votes to stop.

They're going to have to come back at some point. They can't hide out there forever. As one politician famously said, "elections have consequences" and "[Republicans] won".

Democracies are built on the concept of loyal opposition, meaning that even though a minority disapproves of an action by the majority, it nonetheless does not resort to extra-legal measures to prevent that measure from passing. Much has been made about the timing between democratic uprisings in the middle east and the protests in Madison.

While a simplistic common link, protest, exists, the events in the middle east and Madison are vastly different. The middle east has long been typified by military dictatorships and coup d'etats. Heck, of the three countries that have undergone revolution, Tunisia is the only one with a leader not there as a result of a military coup, and although Zine El Abadine Ben Ali rose to the Presidency legally, he nonetheless came out of the military and long overstayed his welcome. In these countries, a group (the military) did not like where things were going and took over; they are now inching towards democracy.

Although not a coup, the actions of the Democratic Senators are nonetheless of a similar spirit - powerless to control government, they'll shut it down to prevent something they don't like. Imagine how nuts the media would have gone last year if the Republicans in the House of Representatives had done this to Nancy Pelosi with the healthcare legislation.

So finally to my point: the Democrats have made their point. We've all had a chance to look at the bill. Constituents have contacted their state representatives and told them their opinions. It has passed in the Assembly (51-17, with 4 Republicans voting against) and at this point would probably receive unanimous Republican support in the Senate. Scott Walker has said he will not compromise with the Democrats and the unions, and from what I've read about his experiences as Milwaukee County Supervisor I better understand why. At this point, someone has to blink or the state government will be shutdown and people will lose their jobs. The Republicans won the last election so... .

Ok, one last note. At the national level, Republicans shut down the government from Nov 1995- Jan 1996. They were perceived as petty, uncooperative and unprincipled. They lost big in the next election and it is widely blamed on their government shutdown. Is it worth it for Democrats to risk it?