Wisconsin Democrats Not Exactly Returning Today

By aaroncynic in News on Mar 7, 2011 6:20PM

AP Photo/Andy Manis

Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller appeared to suggest to the Wall Street Journal that the 14 Wisconsin State Democrats would be returning soon. In an interview with the Journal yesterday, Miller’s spokesman Chris Schrimpf said that the Wisconsin Democrats were looking “forward to the Senate Democrats returning as soon as possible.” This morning, however, Talking Points Memo reports while the AWOL legislators would like to return, they haven’t exactly begun to pack and head home.

Senator Chris Larson released a statement saying that Miller’s comments in the Journal were taken out of context and that “Dems will return when collective bargaining is off the table.” He did say however, that it could be soon, since support for fighting Walker’s union busting bill has been strong and formal recall campaigns have been launched against 16 Senators. Some Democrats are however, showing signs of wanting to return sooner rather than later. Senator Jon Erpenbach told WisPolitics “at some point we have to say we've done all we can.”