Politics & Government

Pro-Walker Rally Brings Thousands for Speeches by Tonette Walker, Tommy Thompson

Also in the news, Ron Kind breaks ranks with Democrats and Ron Johnson speaks out against Obama's oil pipeline veto.

As the effort to recall Goc. Scott Walker gains momentum, Republican leaders—including former Gov. Tommy Thompson, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald and Walker’s wife, Tonette—rallied thousands of Walker supporters in Wauwatosa on Saturday.

"The other side has had a voice for over a year, but it's now time for us to speak up," Tonette Walker said at the three-hour long Hart Park rally, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The rally was organized by party activists who used Facebook to discuss plans.

"We are Wisconsin. We are Republicans. We are taking our state back," said former Gov.Thompson said. "The only thing better than Scott Walker winning the first time is Scott Walker winning the second time. We are going to show them once and for all that we are for real and we are not going back."

About 100 protesters marched on a nearby sidewalk and chanted, “Jobs not cuts for the 99 percent.”

"We are going to win," the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Don Collins of the United Steelworkers union as saying. "They said we wouldn't get 541,000 signatures, and we laughed."

Rep. Dean Knudson (R-District 30)

  • River Falls attorney Diane Odeen told the Star Tribune that she started campaigning early for Knudson’s house seat because “these are such interesting times in Wisconsin.” "I think Wisconsin needs someone to stand up for its values, and I think that's not happening in Madison right now," Odeen said.


Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R-District 10)

  • In , Harsdorf wrote against the special interest-funded “never-ending election cycle.” She noted that administering a recall election for Gov. Scott Walker would cost the state $9 million.
  • Harsdorf’s bill, S.B. 396, which would allow the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to pay contracted administrators of the livestock premises registration program, has been introduced and assigned to the committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Higher Education.


Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI)

Find out what's happening in Hudsonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  • Kind broke ranks with his fellow Democrats, voting in the Ways and Means committee for a bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act's Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, a long-term care insurance benefit.


Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)

  • Johnson spoke out against President Obama after he rejected a permit to build a Canada-Texas oil pipeline. Johnson said Obama’s loyalties lie with “extreme environmentalists.”


Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)

Find out what's happening in Hudsonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

  • Kohl sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to maintain funding levels for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. “January and February in Wisconsin are often filled with snow, ice and cold. It is a miserable time of year for fixed-income senior citizens and low-income workers without the funds to provide their families with heat,” Kohl said. “This federal funding gives low income households the ability to pay their hearing bills and stay warm during the cold and bitter winters.”
  • Tammy Baldwin, the only Democrat running for Kohl’s senate seat, said she has raised $1.8 million.
  • Eric Hovde, a Republican businessman who is considering running for Kohl’s seat, spoke at Saturday’s pro-Walker rally.
  • Kohl was a cosponsor of the Protect IP Act, one of the two bills that inspired Tuesday’s “Internet blackout.”


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