Where to Stand on Tuesday?

Well, the last day of May. Seems like the month got away from us just a little bit. More on that later.

There's an election in Wisconsin next Tuesday. Have you heard? (Joking, if you live in this state and you don't know about it, please come out now from your hole in the ground.) It's all a pretty big deal. For the first time in Wisconsin history, we are attempting to recall a Governor (Walker would be the third successful attempt at recalling a Governor in U.S. history, should he lose next week). And it's a hair-splittingly close race - I heard on the radio yesterday that current polls show 49% supporting Scott Walker and 49% percent his opponent Tom Barrett, with the mysterious 2% lurking out there somewhere, still up for grabs in these remaining days.

I'll admit I've been disappointed with the decisions our Governor has made since he took office in 2011. Walker almost immediately proposed a Wisconsin "budget repair bill", which undermined public sector employees, stripping them of collective bargaining rights as well as downgrading retirement, health care and sick leave. Teachers and other public employees are the apparent cause of our state's budget crisis, meanwhile state billionaire Diane Hendricks paid zero, as in 0, dollars for her 2010 state income taxes. Here are some other scary things that have happened under Scott Walker:

• The impact of Walker's proposed budget in Dane County (where we live) is covered in full here. Most troubling to me...$24.4 million cut to Dane county schools for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, and an estimated loss of $3, 537 in take home pay for the 65,793 public sector employees (perhaps not an amount to flinch over for Diane Hendricks, but that is groceries and rent and more for the social service aids making just over minimum wage who I work with in my group for adults with developmental delays each week).
• The gap between job growth in the U.S. as a whole and in Wisconsin is 33,800 jobs. Now, Walker is contending that job growth has increased under his leadership, but his metrics and sources are questionable at best.
• Reports show that the budget cuts to education have hit high poverty districts the hardest, where reductions in employee compensation have also hit the hardest. As a result, the budget is increasing the funding gap for poor and minority students. (What's the big deal, children born into poverty don't deserve to learn anyway, right?)
• Walker's repair bill threatens healthcare for 65,000 Wisconsinites, half of them children. In addition, the budget will cause a 42.5% cut to the state's Sexual Assault Victim Services program (and I just spent an entire morning at a grim training on child sexual abuse, so don't even get me going more on this one).

To date, Walker has spent 29.5 million dollars on his recall campaign, with outside groups comprising 21.5 million of that total sum. Barrett can't even hold a candle to this large sum (nor, do I believe, does he desire to). In general, it's a shame that any money needs to be spent on a recall campaign, not to mention the amount of time and energy that Walker is spending campaigning when he should be being the Governor. Walker, the GOP's newest hero, doesn't seem to mind.

My greatest fear is not that Scott Walker will be re-elected. I have to be realistic - at this point, chances are quite good that it just might happen. My greatest fear is that he won't have the humility to admit that perhaps it is time to listen to 1,000,000 people who signed to have a recall election (nearly double the amount of 540,208 signatures required in order to force the recall), or to those who vote against him in the recall election. Not that he has to placate (there are, of course, a million+ people who voted him into office to begin with, they matter too). But I fear, if he does win, he'll be further emboldened by victory and won't even consider opposing ideas as he governs. A few weeks ago at church the pastor gave a sermon on wisdom, and he noted that one of the most crucial qualities in a wise person is the ability to hear feedback from others, and then to respond to that feedback with humility. It seems to me that this historic recall election is a pretty strong indication of feedback from others.  Regardless of how this election pans out, I hope he would be humbled, and I hope he'll listen a little more closely to the voices of all Wisconsinites.

But on a personal front, I am scared. For the schools we hope to send our girls to. For the social workers who support the clients I work with. For the kids who need healthcare and didn't have a choice about the wealth or lack of resources in the family they were born into. For the future of this great state that I call home.

And so for the above reasons and more, you will not find me standing with Scott Walker come Tuesday.