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T he next morning, a pair of Democratic lawmakers strode through the first floor of the Capitol’s east wing. It was 9:30 a.m. on Friday, February 11, and Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, and their chiefs of sta¤ were headed to see the governor. They had been hearing rumors that week that Walker’s budgetrepair bill would hit unions hard. The day before, Barca had run into some union oªcials in the statehouse and found them deeply depressed. This meeting with Walker was the second scheduled for that week—another sign something was up. The previous evening, news had broken about Walker’s plans, and the two Democrats had been stunned by the details. The minority leaders were going to get an early briefing about the plan from Walker himself before the bill was made public later that morning. The Democratic leaders had been thrown together by the crisis. Barca said later that it was as if the two men had gone to bed the night of the November 2010 election as cousins and awakened as brothers. Barca, the younger of the two at fifty-five, nevertheless had had a longer career in politics. With a short stature and a giant plastic cup of diet soda or water with him at all times, the Kenosha County native at the time looked and acted more like an actuary than the firebrand he would soon prove to be in debates. He had served in the Assembly once before, from 1985 to 1993, when he was elected to Congress in a special election. When he lost his re-election two years later, President Bill Clinton appointed Barca to the U.S. Small Business Administration , where he served as the administrator of the Midwest region and the national ombudsman. He returned to elected oªce by winning a seat back in 6  Laboratory of Democracy 61 the Assembly in 2008 and emerged as minority leader for the Democrats after the disastrous election of 2010. Born in Boston but raised almost entirely in the Madison area, Miller had just turned sixty-eight and had silver hair and a grandfather’s demeanor. Miller, who now lived in the Madison suburb of Monona, was a former fighter pilot in the Wisconsin Air National Guard. He retired after three decades of service in planes like the F-102 fighter interceptor and the A-10 Thunderbolt, but he had a self-e¤acing manner and none of a pilot’s supposed swagger. In civilian life, Miller had been an executive in a property management company who had been responsible for as many as ninety people. It had been a surprise to some that the soft-spoken senator had been chosen by his colleagues as the minority leader after the 2010 elections, but Miller did have a political pedigree. He had served on the Dane County Board for four years before being elected to the Assembly and then the Senate. He benefited from having a stepmother who had been a giant in liberal politics in Madison, the former state representative and antiwar activist Midge Miller. Mark Miller’s diªdent, straight-arrow persona didn’t lend itself to tough negotiations, but it did help him come across as less Machiavellian than his predecessor, Russ Decker, whose political maneuvering was legendary. Miller and Barca walked past the police guard and intern outside Walker’s oªce and into the large main room in the governor’s suite. To either side were leather couches and chairs, and beyond that secretaries, schedulers, and young aides at fine, wooden desks. The walls were adorned with filigrees and wooden wainscoting, and two massive square columns clad in wood bore up the ceiling. To the right, an elegant staircase descended to the lieutenant governor ’s oªce. On the other side of the large room was the door leading to the governor’s private oªce. It too was richly appointed, with a beautiful wooden armoire, lights in wall sconces, a small desk, a great wooden table, and a plaque declaring “Wisconsin is open for business.” The governor greeted them, and they sat down at the table. Walker first apologized for the lawmakers learning about the bill from the media before he could tell them. Explaining the plan, he touted the cost savings to be gained for taxpayers by curtailing collective bargaining, saying aggressive action was needed to close the state’s budget deficits...

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