Walker’s statements at press conference were not limited to staffing the state prisons

By Robert Kraig
Executive director, Citizen Action of Wisconsin

In the wake of Scott Walker’s remarks concerning the National Guard at his February 11th budget repair bill press conference, some have tried to revise the Governor’s statements, limiting them to staffing the prisons should prison guards take any work actions. These revisionists have claimed that Walker did not make any veiled and highly inflammatory threat or suggestion that he was considering the use the National Guard to respond to protests against his effort to undermine the fundamental rights of public employees. One example of such revisionism appears in an editorial in today’s Wisconsin State Journal. http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/opinion/editorial/article_ 35864f88-3965-11e0-8a17-001cc4c03286.html

Analysis of Walker’s actual remarks at the February 11th press conference tells a very different story. At the press conference itself, Walker made extremely broad statements, which can be fairly construed as thinly veiled threats to use the National Guard against workers exercising their constitutional right to protest government actions they believe are unjust. This is especially true in the context of a labor dispute, where the potential use of the National Guard has tremendous symbolic potency grounded in a tragic history. In the entire press conference, Walker did not once mention using the National Guard to staff prisons, and used broad and sweeping language when referring to what they could be called to do.

At the press conference, Walker’s remarks on the National Guard came up in the context of reporters’ questions about what public employees might do to protest his budget repair bill for all practical purposes eliminates most public employee collective bargaining rights. Walker responded that there were those who may try to “blow this up” and that there were labor leaders who would seek to “incite” the public workers. It was within this context of implied agitation and unrest that he answered questions about possible use of the National Guard. He said he had spoken to the National Guard, and that although they were not called up at this time, “they were fully prepared to handle whatever may occur” and that he thought it prudent to “plan for the worst.”

Walker also referred to himself as the “commander and chief” of the state and said further that the National Guard would “respond to whatever the Governor may call for.” He concluded by assuring the people of Wisconsin that he was “fully prepared for whatever may happen.” (Walker Press Conference to Unveil Budget Repair Bill, 2-11-11, http://www.wiseye.org/Programming/VideoArchive/ArchiveList.aspx?cv=39)

“A review of the actual record of Walker’s press conference makes it abundantly clear that he invoked the use of the National Guard in the context of labor protests against his actions. Not only did he not limit the use of the National Guard to staffing state prisons, he never even mentioned using them for that purpose, said Robert Kraig, Executive Director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. “Within the context of the tragic history of labor relations, invoking the National Guard before a potential labor dispute has powerful symbolic significance. It is completely inappropriate for a Governor to make statements that would tend to coerce and intimidate people who wish to exercise their constitutional rights. ‘Facts are stubborn things,’ John Adams once said. Trying to revise history cannot change the disgraceful facts of this case.”

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