'Capitol Chaos' Doesn't Begin to Describe Editor's Trek to Madison

Editor's note: Veteran journalist and Wauwatosa Patch Editor Jim Price was one of three Patch journalists in Madison on Thursday, when the Assembly gave final approval to the budget repair bill. Here's a first-person account of the experience.

Late Wednesday, I got an instant message from my boss, Mark Maley, who is in charge of all the Patch sites in the north and near west parts of the Milwaukee metro area.

“Do you want to go to Madison tomorrow?”

“Of course,” I answered.

Any self-respecting journalist would want to be in the Capitol for what probably would prove to be the wildest, most contentious and most decisive day so far in the high drama that has gripped the place for the past three weeks.

On Wednesday, the Senate, minus its 14 Democratic members, had passed a stripped-down version of the budget repair bill that no longer required a super-majority for adoption. The Assembly had just as quickly brought the new version out of a hastily convened conference committee and announced it would take up the measure for a vote at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Bills that come out of conference committee can be debated but cannot be amended. The clock appeared to have run out on Democratic attempts to stall the Republican-led effort to severely limit the collective bargaining rights of most public workers.

And so, at 7:45 a.m. Thursday, two other Patch reporters climbed into my car with me and we started for Madison.

Carl Engelking, the editor of Menomonee Falls Patch, had also been with me March 1 when we made the same trip to cover Gov. Scott Walker’s budget address. So we were old Capitol hands.

Sarah Worthman, editor of Fox Point-Bayside Patch, was a newbie – so she had to buy coffee for the trip.

Halfway to Madison, Sarah got a call from Port Washington-Saukville Patch editor Lyssa Beyer. Lyssa had reached Republican Sen. Glenn Grothman by phone. He said he and likely most senators would not be in the Capitol that day. They had been told that it might be a dangerous place.

When we arrived, it was eerily like the week before. Quiet.

The protesters, after weeks of this routine, seem to have developed a sense of when it is productive to start their day. It would be a waste of energy to march and chant before the media is in place and legislators have taken their places in the statehouse.

So the Capitol day really doesn’t begin in earnest until about 10 a.m. We were well ahead of that and looking forward to having close to an hour to get settled in and set up for a long day.

It didn’t work out that way.

I dropped Carl and Sarah at the Capitol Square and went to park the car. When I returned to the Square, the first thing I overheard from a protester was this:

“We want as many people as possible to come and block the tunnel! They’re going to come in through the tunnel!”

I knew of the tunnel that leads from the Risser Building under the Square and into the subfloor of the Capitol. And I could guess that “they” were Republican members of the Assembly. So I assumed that the majority party members were electing to avoid the crowds, and the crowds had gotten wind and planned a confrontation.

I made a mental note to check back on this shortly, but I wanted to get my press credentials, get into the Capitol myself as quickly as possible, and relocate my colleagues.

As I walked across the Square, a young man, apparently seeing my press card, grabbed me and said, “Did you know that Madison Police Chief Noble Wray was turned away from the Capitol? The Madison police chief was not allowed to enter the Capitol.”

This was a surprise, but a greater one was coming. In the growing, churning crowd, I nearly bumped into Carl and Sarah – and they were walking away from the building.

“Jim,” Carl said. “Come on.”

“Where are you going?”

“Following him,” he said, pointing at a back in front of another man.

“Who’s he?”

“Dan Knodl, my representative,” said Carl. “He wasn’t allowed into the Capitol. He’s going to the tunnel.”

The Capitol building was under a total lockdown. Nobody was getting in through the entrances on the Square. Not police chiefs. Not the press. Not even the legislators themselves.

We tagged after Knodl to the Risser Building, where shoulder-to-shoulder police officers guarded the door.

Knodl, who is not just any representative but is the assistant majority leader, showed his credentials and introduced his staff and a couple of other Republican Assembly members who, we had collected along the way.

“And them?” said the top cop, indicating us.

“The press,” Knodl said.

“Do they have an appointment with you?”

Thinking quickly, Carl piped up:

“Yeah, we have an appointment.” Then he looked at Knodl. “Don’t we?”

Knodl paused, smiled. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

We entered the Risser Building lobby, where we were immediately confronted with another round of security, a checkpoint where credentials were being taken again.

While we waited a moment, a surreal moment occurred. To my left, a slightly familiar older woman was being questioned closely about her business in the Capitol that day.

“I’m Peggy Rosenzweig,” she said. “I have business at the library of the Supreme Court.”

The cop, perhaps unaware that Rosenzweig is a former senator and member of the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents, and an acknowledged elder stateswoman of Wisconsin politics, continued to question her credentials.

Meanwhile, Knodl was again introducing his entourage. This time, he simply declared us to be part of his staff. The police took the line despite our clearly displayed press badges.

As we shunted off to the elevators, Rosenzweig was still arguing her case.

In “the belly of the beast,” as we quickly came to call it, an armed escort met us, led by an officer of the Department of Criminal Investigation from Eau Claire. Two more, and then two more officers joined our group, flanking and trailing us.

Through the concrete tunnel we went, passing a rank of black duffel bags a hundred feet long stacked along the wall.

At the end of the tunnel, in the subfloor of the Capitol, we approached a stairway. To our left was another, dimly lit. Peering in we saw that it was packed from top to bottom with State Patrol officers in full riot gear.

Once inside, the Rotunda, the central scene of weeks of protests, was strangely empty. But the roar of a crowd inside was echoing through the hallowed circumference of the marbled center of Wisconsin governance.

Knodl led us upstairs, and as he is an officer of the Assembly, his office is conveniently close to its chambers. There it became clear what had happened.

The 400 or so protesters who had refused to leave the building the night before had left the Rotunda to block entrance to the Assembly chambers, and were doing so fairly effectively. So effectively that for the first time since the protests began, people were now being forcibly removed.

Carl would later witness some of this in action. A man he described as “heavy, like maybe 260 pounds,” was being escorted away when, in a classic non-violent protest maneuver, he simply collapsed, limp, to the floor. The police, rather than drag him out, just left him there.

Knodl took us into his office and introduced us, then offered Carl an interview. I decided to go downstairs to the office of Democratic Rep. Sandy Pasch of Whitefish Bay.

My day of official reporting had only then begun, and yet I felt the urge to write a story. Later would come the strange and suddenly curtailed debate on the Assembly bill as it passed so fast that half the veteran Capitol press corps would miss it.

In between would be hours more of bizarre events that would take chapters to describe. But just getting into the Capitol had been grist to begin.

I booted up my laptop. I didn’t even have to pause to think of how to begin. The first clause flew off my fingertips:

“Pandemonium reigned Thursday at the Wisconsin State Capitol….”