Scott Walker, at press conference, offers to sing kumbaya with Senate Dems

[Skip_In_Boulder]

Gov. Scott Walker is today a happy man. At his 5 p.m. press conference, he thanked the state Assembly, Democrats in particular, for "doing what we hope the Senate Democrats will do: showing up and having a debate."

And the governor was right -- if, by "debate" he meant a humiliating ordeal in which every single one of the nearly 100 amendments they offered was shot down after a discussion in which Republicans did not participate, except to restrict debate, before holding a surprise vote at 1 a.m. Now he wants the Senate Dems to take their lumps as well, and the prospect of seeing this sort of democracy in action pleases him greatly.

Walker spoke again, too, of the inclusive nature of his relationship with Democrats, saying he shared details of his budget bill with Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca and Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller on the day he unveiled it. "They weren't necessarily supportive of all of the pieces," he deadpanned.

He described the events of the last two weeks as a sort of flowering of true democracy. He noted again that the Legislature heard 17 hours of testimony on the bill -- which the governor never tires of saying is longer than any hearing he can recall from his days as a lawmaker. He didn't mention that, afterward, the emphatically expressed opposition of almost all of the people who testified was summarily ignored.

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