Crowd at State Budget Hearing in Milwaukee, largely unheard

By Tom Tolan

Journal Sentinel (4/11/11)

Sorry, folks, I left you hanging on what was happening at the State Fair Park Budget hearing.

            So Rep. Robin Vos (R-Burlington), citing the Wisconsin Conversation Congress meeting he had to attend in Union Grove -- the meetings are going on tonight all over the state -- ended the hearing around 6:30 p.m., and the Republican members of the Joint Finance Committee walked off the podium.

The crowd was chanting "Let us speak!" and "Shame!" -- reprising the Democratic legislative chants in Madison when the state budget-repair bill was passed last month.

            Democrats on the committee -- and some Democratic legislators who'd come to watch -- hung around longer to talk to the crowd, but by then the microphones were not connected, so they couldn't really take  testimony. At least that's how Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) described the scene.

            I had to ask her because I was in the other room, listening to Vos and Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) give a post-mortem on the hearing.

            Vos repeated that although not everybody who wanted to talk got to do so, there were other ways for them to get their views before the committee -- by submitting written testimony or emailing it to budgetcomment@legis.wi.gov.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/119665319.html