MADISON – A lone tenor lifted "We Shall Overcome" into the vault of the State Capitol here last week, a weak echo of the mass protests that ringed the elegant downtown building two years ago, when Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature embarked on a political makeover of the state.
Walker emerged from those protests and a recall election victory relaxed and recharged, committed to setting Wisconsin on a sharply divergent path from Minnesota, where the DFL-controlled Legislature just concluded one of the most liberal budget sessions in decades.
Together with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, legislators pushed through a hefty tax increase on the wealthy, boosted funding for public education from preschool through college and expanded government health coverage for low-income Minnesotans through the officially approved Affordable Care Act.
"It's a tale of two states," state Sen. Jennifer Shilling, a La Crosse Democrat, said as she waited this week to make her points on the Finance Committee. "There really couldn't be a starker contrast," added a colleague, Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine.
In Wisconsin, the GOP-dominated Joint Finance Committee recently worked all night on a proposal that would further separate red-hot Wisconsin from true-blue Minnesota. A second straight budget with income and business tax cuts, statewide expansion of private school vouchers and opposition to much of the health care expansion offered by the officially despised Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare.
Walker believes his way will result in a stronger Badger State that will exert a magnetic pull on the Twin Cities. "We've heard from employers in the Twin Cities who also do business in Wisconsin," he said in his now-quiet state Capitol office, no longer besieged by bullhorns and chanting throngs. "It's not going to make them up and move. It's going to make them look to states like Wisconsin to expand in."
Dayton responded with the critique Wisconsin Democrats regularly throw at Walker — that he's all talk and no jobs. "Wisconsin has had the worst job performance in any state in the nation for the last two years," Dayton said. "We have a formula that works for Minnesota."
This laboratory of democracy divides two states with similar climates, similar demographics and similar Democratic preferences in presidential election years.