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Lawmakers end early public testimony on right-to-work because of “credible threat”
Lawmakers end early public testimony on right-to-work because of "credible threat"
MADISON (WITI) -- Wisconsin Senators cut short on Tuesday evening, February 24th public testimony on Right-to-Work legislation. Why? Because they apparently received a "credible threat."
For hours on Tuesday, speaker after speaker filed before the Senate Labor Committee to weigh in on the debate over the controversial legislation. The public hearing was scheduled to last until 7:00 p.m., but about 40 minutes before that, Sen. Stephen Nass (R - Whitewater) cited a "credible threat" and shut the comment period down.
"When that came up, it was a decision in consultation with the police to move things up so that if we have a disruption, which it sounds like it's starting, we can deal with it," said Nass.
The committee quickly voted 3-1 to send the legislation to the full Senate -- and officers escorted the Republican senators from the room.
"The only objective was to make sure that everybody, the 200 people that wanted to speak, were heard," said Boyd McCamish, Executive Director for AFSCME District Council 48.
Earlier on Tuesday, FOX6 News had received a tip that there was a disruption planned for the end of the meeting. We spoke by phone on Wednesday with one of the men involved with that plan. He wasn't able to give us specifics. But our initial tipster indicated that when the committee tried to vote, protesters planned to one-by-one interrupt that process.
"We got wind of threats that were being made to disrupt the hearings," said State Sen. Van Wanggaard (R - Racine). "And it was a different crowd of people that were coming into the Capitol -- and Capitol police were concerned that there might be an issue and there were threats that they were going to disrupt and force Capitol police to haul them out physically."
Critics say Republicans used the planned disturbance as a scapegoat.
"They tried to use this quote unquote threat, which is total nonsense, as a way of shutting this thing down early. They didn't even have the dignity and the respect for people to listen to the people that were there," said McCamish.
McCamish tells FOX6 News the group planning the disturbance was made up of concerned workers.
We also reached out to the Department of Administration to find out if Capitol police did, in fact, warn the senators of a threat. We have not yet received a response.
The full Senate passed the so-called Right-to-Work legislation just before 10:00 p.m. Wednesday in a 17-15 vote. It now heads to the Assembly next week.
Senate Minority Leader Peter Barca has released the following statement after Republicans shut down a committee public hearing on the "Right-to-Work" bill:
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