A letter sent by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to the Wisconsin capitol during that state’s bitter 2011 fight over public sector pensions is supplying both his Democratic primary opponent and potential Republican opponent in the general election with campaign ammunition as the June 5 recall election approaches.
Under Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reform, police, firemen, and other first responders would have been exempt from the budget reforms Walker proposed in 2011. At the time, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association supported Walker’s exemption.
"While the collective bargaining changes offered today by Governor Walker in his budget adjustment bill will impact many devoted public servants, the WPPA applauds him for exempting Wisconsin’s public safety workforce and recognizing the critical services that they provide," the WPPA said in a statement.
However, Barrett sent a letter to the Wisconsin State Finance Committee asking them to include firemen and police officers in the reforms. Barrett wrote it was "only fair" to apply the proposed policy to all public employees.
"If we are going to ask our employees to shoulder the impact of the state’s budget deficit, it is only fair to apply it to all of them," Barrett wrote. "You should not give the Milwaukee police and fire unions a special exception to the changes in the bill, forcing all other employees to bear the burden of the cuts."
"You're going to hear a lot of this if Barrett goes through," Christian Schneider, a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, said in an interview with the Free Beacon.
The letter opens Barrett to attacks from both sides: Walker can use the instance to paint himself as a friend of first responders while his primary opponent Kathleen Falk can use it to bolster her progressive credentials, Schneider noted.
"Over the last year, I was out there side-by-side with this whole army of citizens," Falk said. "Unlike Tom, who sent a letter to the Legislature to include police and fire ... that's why they've chosen me as the best one to go to battle against Scott Walker."
Falk has the backing of many of Wisconsin’s most powerful unions, and has raised more than a $1 million since January. But Barrett has hauled in three-quarters of that total in a matter of weeks: Since entering the race March 30, the Barrett campaign has raised $750,000.
Falk’s fiery style has captured much of the hardcore left in Wisconsin, according to observers. She is a former environmental litigator and current chief executive of Dane County, one of the most liberal areas in the state.
"Tom Barrett suffers from a growing credibility gap as the coalition of radical progressives and hard-core labor leaders who started the recall effort watch him consistently fall short of being a true believer on liberal issues," Brian Simka of Media Trackers, a Wisconsin conservative watchdog group, told the Free Beacon.
"It's not that Tom Barrett is a conservative, it is that he is a do-nothing radical whose lackadaisical style lost to Walker in 2010 and sets Democrats up to lose the recall election," he said.
The latest PPP poll shows Falk trailing Barrett 38 percent to 24 percent. Unions have promised another big television ad campaign for Falk, but Schneider said the ads probably will not target Barrett.
"The unions feel obligated to spend on her behalf, but they're not going to hurt Barrett in the process," Schneider said. "They won’t lay a glove on him."
Barrett faces labor favorite Kathleen Falk in the May 8 Democratic primary to decide who will face Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
A mid-April PPP poll shows Walker beating Barrett 50 to 45 percent in a general matchup.
"Walker took on Barrett for governor in 2010 and beat him by five points," Schneider said. "You could very well see Walker do that again. That would be poetic: two years after all this, to beat Barrett again by the same margin."
The Milwaukee Police Association and the Milwaukee Professional Firefighters Association, neither of which are connected to larger state unions, endorsed Walker in the upcoming recall election, citing Walker’s "unwavering commitment to first responders."