Wisconsin Democrats Keep on the Move

By DOUGLAS BELKIN And KRIS MAHER

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker addresses the anti-union bill protests at a press conference. Video courtesy of Fox News.

MADISON, Wis.—State Democratic senators, holed up in out-of-state hotels, gave no timetable for a return to the capital, putting on hold a fiscal bill that would limit collective-bargaining rights for most state workers.

"When we go back is ultimately up to the governor's willingness to sit down and talk about this and come up with some sort of resolution," said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who fled with 13 colleagues on Thursday to deprive Republicans of the needed quorum to pass the measure. He spoke by phone from a Chicago hotel, where he planned to stay Friday night.

Pro-union demonstrators plan another day of protests at Wisconsin's state capital. They're protesting Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal calling for unionized public employees to pay more for pensions and health insurance.

But Republicans, surrounded by thousands of raucous protesters singing and chanting on the Capitol grounds, offered little hope of compromise.

"The protesters have every right to have their voices heard, but I'm not going to be intimidated into thinking I should ignore the voices of the five-and-a-half million taxpayers," said Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

Mr. Walker also bristled at comments by President Barack Obama that his bill "seems like more of an assault" on unions. "When your budget is fixed, you can stick your nose in ours," Mr. Walker said. "But in the meantime, let us fix our budget the way we said we were going to."

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Associated Press

Teacher Nicole North Hester, right, applauds as union iron workers pass the Capitol in Madison, Wis., on Friday.

Mr. Walker, elected last fall as part of a sweep that also gave the GOP control of both houses of the legislature, last week proposed a "budget repair" bill to address a deficit of $137 million in the current budget and a projected shortfall of $3.6 billion in the next two years.

The measure would limit collective-bargaining rights for most workers—except police, firefighters and others involved in public safety—and require state employees, who currently pay little or nothing toward their pensions, to contribute 5.8% of their pay to pensions, and pay at least 12.6% of health-care premiums, up from an average of 6%.

In exchange, Mr. Walker has pledged no layoffs or furloughs for the state's 170,000 public employees. He has said 5,500 state jobs and 5,000 local jobs would be saved under his plan, which would save $30 million in the current budget and $300 million in the two-year budget that begins July 1.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, attacked those budget numbers in a speech on the steps of the Capitol Friday, telling the crowd the budget deficit was "a bogus crisis manufactured by Walker himself."

Mr. Trumka said the state had a surplus when Mr. Walker took office until he "gave away tax breaks to the rich and his CEO buddies" so he could come back to you and "play the part of the brave fiscal soldier willing to make the hard choices."

But Robert Lang, director of Wisconsin's Legislative Fiscal Bureau, a nonpartisan agency, painted a different picture of the budget in an interview.

A memo Mr. Lang issued Jan. 31 has been used by the governor's critics to show the state had no deficit until the legislature passed tax cuts. But Mr. Lang said that a gross balance of $121.4 million as of Jan. 31 didn't account for $258 million in pending costs, for things including medical assistance for the poor and corrections facilities.

Neil King explains why the union fight taking place in Wisconsin is turning into a battle between Republican governors and President Obama and the Democratic national machine.

"If you're going to fund those, then you've got a negative balance," Mr. Lang said. He said the state could have dealt with those costs differently, by cutting expenses elsewhere, for instance.

Mr. Walker and the Republican legislature passed tax cuts that total $117 million, but that cost is not accounted for until the two-year budget beginning July 1, contributing to the projected shortfall of $3.6 billion. The rest of the shortfall in those years comes mostly from expectations of revenue falling short of funding requests from state agencies, Mr. Lang said.

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Wisconsin Rep. Joe Parisi (D, Madison), center, cheers on the crowd on Friday.

Union officials promised to use the protest here as a jumping-off point for rallies next week in about a dozen states where lawmakers are proposing to cut union pay and benefits, or curb collective-bargaining rights.

The states include Ohio, where lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature are considering eliminating bargaining rights for most of the state's 400,000 public workers, as well as Michigan, Washington, Oregon and California.

On the other side, American Majority, a group allied with the tea-party movement, has set up an "I Stand with Scott Walker Rally" Facebook page for a rally here Saturday.

With no end to the standoff in sight, Gov. Walker said that if the Democratic senators do not return, he'd consider cutting the funding that pays for their staff.

"If they're not here, it begs the question whether or not they need to have staff," he said. "They're not performing their functions."

Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com and Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com