Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s bill, which includes taking away public employees’ bargaining rights, is unconstitutional because it would interfer with local autonomy.

The nation’s governors are meeting right now in Washington, D.C., for their annual conference. Well, not all of them. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is a no-show, preferring to make the rounds on the weekend television interview programs to explain away why he wants to take away the freedom of public employees to bargain for good middle-class jobs.

In a letter to The Marietta (Ohio) Times, Willa O’Neill, assembly president of AFSCME Local 11, points out that Gov. John Kasich’s plan to eliminate the right of public servants to bargain for a decent life will hurt communities.

If Wisconsin voters could vote over today they’d support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a 52-45 margin, according to new poll to be released tomorrow.

This from AFL-CIO Political Communications Director Eddie Vale who’s on the ground in Madison, Wis.

As we speak, Gov. Scott Walker & the Senate R’s are literally having the windows of the capital welded shut to keep people from passing food into the building to the people inside.

Our attorneys are collecting affidavits from the people who witnessed this, along with people who have been illegally denied access to a public, government, building.

 We will be filing for a TRO [temporary restraining order] to open the Capitol.

It is a sad for democracy when Governor Walker and his R Senate allies are locking the people of Wisconsin out of their own state capitol.

This is a crosspost from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.

On a snowy Wisconsin Saturday over 100,000 union members, working families, community members, faith leaders, activist groups and concerned citizens gathered in Madison to tell Gov. Walker to stop the attacks on the middle class and kill the bill.

This is a ground report from Wiscsonsin by Harvey J. Kaye, crossposted from New Deal 2.0. Kaye is the Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. A member of the National Writers Union/UAW, he is currently writing The Four Freedoms and the Promise of America. Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HarveyJKaye.

Tom Morello was among top-name musicians who trekked to Wisconsin in recent days to perform for the thousands of citizens protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to take away from public employees their freedom to bargain for good middle-class jobs. In an article out today in Rolling Stone, Morello describes the experience–and what made him pack up and travel through winter storms to Wisconsin even though he was taking a break to be home with his newborn. In short, Morello says he knew he had to go because:

The battle to preserve workers’ rights in Wisconsin is a watershed moment in US history. Wisconsin is Class War Ground Zero for the new millennium and a crucible for people’s rights in the United States.

The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is setting the record straight and exposing the falsehoods behind  the extremist rhetoric about public employees from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his ilk.

Earlier today we reported that Republican Wisconsin state Assembly members pulled an unexpected trick play and quick-snapped a vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) bill to eliminate the right of public employees to bargain for middle-class jobs. After the middle-of-the-night vote, the Republican legislators lit out of the chamber faster than a burglar with a German Shepherd on his tail.