The life of cowards on the lam.
nypost.com
Dems hiding in plain 'spite'
Wis. runaways' Ill. motel found
By JENNIFER FERMINO, Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:27 AM, February 24, 2011
Posted: 2:13 AM, February 24, 2011
HARVARD, Ill. -- Wisconsin state Sen. Dave Hansen, the assistant minority leader, thought he was staying at a secret location in Harvard, Ill., just south of the Wisconsin border.
That was until a group of picture-taking party activists from the Northern Illinois Tea Party showed up at the Heritage Inn and Suites off of Route 14.
Hansen, officially outed, looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding tractor trailer.
Hansen and several other Democratic refugees were forced to find another location.
"We're not about to give in yet," Hansen later said.
Others have found that exile can be expensive.
Wisconsin Sen. Jon Erpenbach -- one of the other 14 Wisconsin Democrats who fled the state to block a union-busting budget bill -- managed to find a Chicago hotel room on Priceline.com for $99, a fiscally responsible deal by any political standard.
But $28 for a room service hamburger was a little outside his budget.
"I'll probably be moving again tonight," Erpenbach said by phone, careful not to reveal his location. "I'm paying for it myself. I'm very much a paycheck-to-paycheck single dad. This is a financial hardship."
And it doesn't help that Republicans are cooking up a plot to hold their paychecks hostage.
Under the plan detailed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, legislators who miss two consecutive sessions will have their direct deposits stopped.
"You still get a check," Walker said. "But the check has to be personally picked up."
But the checks won't be sitting in a basket in some random government office. They'll be locked "in their desk on the floor of the state Senate," Walker said.
Life on the lam has its other hardships. There are the threats on office answering machines and stalkers from the local Tea Party.
At least one senator described a lifestyle that seems like a scene from "The Fugitive."
There are clandestine meetings with family and staff, cash transactions to avoid credit card detection.
"I'd like to be back home with my kids, with my constituents," said Erpenbach, whose next challenge is finding a Laundromat that isn't being staked out by sign-waving protesters. "We strongly believe that we are doing the right thing."
The lawmakers fled the state to avoid voting on a Republican-sponsored bill that would curb collective bargaining by public workers.
Their run for the border galvanized local Tea Party activists, who, along with the national media, have been in hot pursuit ever since.
As long as the Democrats stay away, the 19 Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate can't muster the crucial 20th vote they need to pass the controversial legislation.
jennifer.fermino@nypost.com |
