“Walker Survives Wisconsin Recall Vote,” read the tepid headline
in Wednesday’s New York Times. Governor Scott Walker,
however, did much more than survive. He defeated his rival, Tom
Barrett, convincingly. His lieutenant governor did the same in her
recall election. Significantly, this election marks the beginning
of the end for dominance of state, county and city budgets by
public employee unions.
Lost in the Wisconsin coverage is the fact that Tuesday’s
election brought overwhelming votes elsewhere in favor of reducing
overly-generous public employee pensions. In California, voters in
two large cities decided enough was enough. San Jose voters passed
Measure B by 71-to-29 percent. In San Diego, they endorsed
Proposition B by 67-to-33 percent. In recent years both cities had
been forced to cut back on libraries, recreation centers, fire and
police services in the face of galloping pension liabilities. San
Diego saw its annual contribution to pensions go from $43 million
in 1999 to $231 this year, soaking up 20 percent of the city’s
budget. In San Jose it went from $73 million in 2001 to $245
million this year — equal to 27 percent of the budget.
These events offer the necessary will to elected officials
across the nation to pass reforms that will bring public employee
pensions and health care contributions into line with private
ones.
The process has already begun. In California, signatures have
been gathered for a voter initiative, “Stop Special Interests,” on
the November ballot that, if passed, would break the umbilical cord
between the state treasury and union treasuries. In California,
among others, the state deducts union dues from public employee
paychecks and sends these directly to the unions, thus saving them
the need to persuade public employees to sign up to let the union
bosses use their money in elections. This is the umbilical cord and
the California unions have used it to become the most powerful
special interest in Sacramento, having great influence over the
Democrat-controlled state legislature.
What happens when the umbilical cord is broken? It happened in
Wisconsin last year as part of Governor Walker’s reform
legislation. Dues stopped flowing from the state treasury to the
unions. They had to sell their services to the workers.
Result: dues paying is down to 28 percent of the Wisconsin
public work force.
Across the country, voter discontent has been building against
overly-generous public employee benefits. Declining revenues in the
recession sharpened public focus, along with the realization that,
in many cases, these benefits had become far greater than they are
in the private sector. In short, it began to look as if the
taxpayers were working for their own employees.
What will the public employee unions do? Reeling from this loss,
it is unlikely they will try another vengeance move such as the
Walker recall. They also face a daunting task if many legislatures,
county boards, and city councils propose reform measures,
especially ones on the ballot for voters who are in no mood to
continue “business as usual.”
