Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Last week I wrote up a post titled Scott Walker: A Fiscally Responsible Governor or a Politician Who Is Playing Favorites?. Judging from the number of comments left at that post, it appears that people are very interested in what’s been going on in the state of Wisconsin. I think many people may believe that as Wisconsin goes—so goes the nation…and probably the life expectancy of labor unions and collective bargaining.
What got a lot of press attention was the story of the prank phone call that Governor Walker received from gonzo journalist Ian Murphy. Murphy pretended to be billionaire industrialist David Koch. He talked to Walker for twenty minutes. Murphy reportedly told the Associated Press he made the prank phone call in order to show how candid Walker would be in a conversation with Koch at a time when Democrats claim the governor was refusing to return their calls.
The prank phone call appears to show a cozy relationship between Walker and Koch, a top campaign donor who may have a financial interest in fighting unions. Union workers protesting in Wisconsin have already made monetary concessions to help with Wisconsin’s budget shortfall. One has to wonder what is really behind the governor’s demand that public employee unions be stripped of their right to bargain collectively. Is it all part of an agenda to “take unions out at the knees”—a strategy suggested by Scott Hagerstrom at the annual conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC)? Hagerstrom is the Executive Director of Michigan’s chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP).
In a Mother Jones article, Andy Kroll writes: Walker’s plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers’ playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions.
And who is Americans for Prosperity? Felicia Sonmez has written that AFP is really two groups—both of which were founded by David Koch in 2004: Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)4 and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, is a 501(c)3.
Somnez says that both groups are considered “not-for-profit” organizations under the Internal Revenue Service code—and that they do not have to disclose the identity of their donors or the contributions made by those donors. She added that David Koch is believed to be one of the group’s top donors.
In a New Yorker article titled Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama, Jane Mayer wrote about Peggy Venable, the Texas State Director of AFP: She (Peggy Venable) explained that the role of Americans for Prosperity was to help “educate” Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them “next-step training” after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channelled “more effectively.” And she noted that Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of the Kochs, “They’re certainly our people. David’s the chairman of our board. I’ve certainly met with them, and I’m very appreciative of what they do.”
In August 2009, ThinkProgress said that it had obtained an exclusive memo from a Tea Party group that is supported by Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.
From Think Progress: “The memo outlined various ways for Tea Party activists to intimidate Democratic lawmakers and disrupt their town hall meetings on health reform. ThinkProgress published half a dozen articles exposing the role of Koch-funded groups like “Patients United” in encouraging opposition to health reform. For instance, in Virginia, a Koch-funded operative Ben Marchi assisted a birther who followed Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) around, yelling at him at town hall meetings.”
That’s all I’ve got for now, folks. Talk amongst yourselves. I need a break!
**********
Sources
Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama. (New Yorker)
Who is “Americans for Prosperity”? (Washington Post)
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Funded by the Koch Bros. (Mother Jones)
Why did Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker take a call from ‘David Koch’? (Christian Science Monitor)
Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute (New York Times)
On prank call, Wis. governor discusses strategy (Yahoo)
Koch Front Group Americans For Prosperity: ‘Take The Unions Out At The Knees’ (Think Progress)
Union Busting: The Real Call from the Koch Brothers (Huffington Post)
Charles And David Koch Exposed For Insidious Role In Crafting The Modern Right (Think Progress)
For Further Reading
Koch-Powered Tea Party Pushes Climate Denial Bill In New Hampshire (Think Progress)
Commentary: Koch brothers and the union-busting Kansas House (The Kansas City Star)
Stamford,
Rick Scott is another guy we should have on the radar. The author is correct that Florida is in for some tough sledding the next four years.
Sarthmore,
I hope he isn’t running again. At least not for President.
Fulfilling Father’s Campaign To Segregate Public Schools, Koch Groups End Successful Integration Program In NC
By Lee Fang (1/12/2011)
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/12/koch-segregation/
Excerpt:
Today in the Washington Post, reporter Stephanie McCrummen detailed how a right-wing campaign in the Wake County area of North Carolina has taken over the school board with a pledge to end a very successful socio-economic integration plan. The integration plan, which created thriving schools in poor African-American parts of the school district along with achieving diversity in schools located in wealthy white enclaves, was a model for the nation. However, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Tea Party group founded and funded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, worked with local right-wing financier (and AFP board member) Art Pope to fundamentally change Wake County’s school board:
In their quest to end the diversity policy, the frustrated parents have found some influential partners, among them retail magnate and Republican operative Art Pope. Following his guidance, the GOP fielded the victorious bloc of school board candidates who railed against “forced busing.” The nation’s largest tea party organizers, Americans for Prosperity – on whose national board Pope sits – cast the old school board members as arrogant “leftists.” Two libertarian think tanks, which Pope funds almost exclusively, have deployed experts on TV and radio.
Aww, how cute. Rick Scott’s defending his pal,
Scott Walker. With lies, of course:
“Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s amazing reality distortion field
Taxes are too high, says the governor, and public sector union workers are getting too good a deal. He’s wrong
By Andrew Leonard
AP
Gov. Rick ScottMost Republican governors, leery of the strong negative reaction in Wisconsin to Scott Walker’s provocative attack on public sector union collective bargaining rights, have steered away from enthusiastically endorsing him.
But not Florida’s Rick Scott! In a preview of an interview to be televised this weekend on “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” published by Bloomberg, the governor, fresh off his high-profile cancellation of a high-speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando, effusively backed Walker’s union-busting initiative.
He said Florida would be better off if public employees couldn’t form unions and that it’s unfair to taxpayers that state workers don’t contribute to their pensions.
“Our state workers don’t pay for anything into their pension plan. And we can’t afford that — it’s not fair to taxpayers,” Scott said. “If you didn’t have collective bargaining, would it be better for the state? Absolutely.”
Now seems like a good time to outsource some rage to David Cay Johnston, the former New York Times reporter and tax expert. On Thursday, Johnston lambasted “deeply flawed coverage” of Walker’s pension fund rhetoric for fundamentally misrepresenting the truth about public sector worker pensions. According to Johnston, “out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.”
How can that be? Because the “contributions” consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages — as pensions when they retire — rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.
Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply “contribute more” to Wisconsin’s retirement system (or as the argument goes, “pay their fair share” of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin’ s private sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced audits of corporations in Wisconsin.
The labor agreements show that the pension plan money is part of the total negotiated compensation. The key phrase, in those agreements I read (emphasis added), is: “The Employer shall contribute on behalf of the employee.” This shows that this is just divvying up the total compensation package, so much for cash wages, so much for paid vacations, so much for retirement, etc.
The entire column is very much worth reading.
But Scott’s misrepresentation of what’s really going on with public sector workers is hardly the only whopper in his interview. He also went after President Obama:
Scott, 58, in Washington for a weekend meeting of the National Governors Association, criticized President Barack Obama’s performance, saying he hasn’t shifted toward the center since the November elections cost Democrats control of the House and shrank their Senate majority.
“What’s changed?” Scott said. “We still have ridiculously high taxes. We’re walking into a $1.6 trillion deficit.”
It’s hard to know where to start.. One of Obama’s biggest legislative “achievements” since the November election was a tax cut deal with Republicans that lowered taxes. Federal taxes now account for only 14.8 percent of GDP, the lowest mark since the presidency of Harry Truman.
Florida is going to have a lot of fun with Rick Scott as its governor for the next four years.
Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More: Andrew Leonard
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/02/25/rick_scott_joins_the_scott_walker_fan_club&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%2520Newsletter%2520%2528Not%2520Premium%2529_7_30_110
rafflaw I wonder if is running again.
Swarthmore,
Nice Link! Did Ralph just figure that out?? I liked his articl, but he is a little bit late getting to the party.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/26-3 Ralph Nader says the republicans in Wisconsin “mean business”.
Elaine,
I am guessing Koch’s carbon load is much worse than the rest of us.
Exclusive: Tea Party Billionaire David Koch Denies Climate Change, Shrugs Off His Carbon Pollution
By Lee Fang (1/7/2011)
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/07/koch-interview-global-warming/
Koch Industries — the largest private corporation in America — thrives on emitting carbon pollution and other forms of pollution for free. Much of Koch Industries’ $120 billion-a-year revenues are derived from burning fossil fuels: oil refineries and pipelines, chemical plants, fertilizer plants, manufacturing factories, and the shipping of coal. Moreover, Koch Industries owns Georgia Pacific, one of the largest timber companies, so Koch also contributes to global warming by decreasing the world’s carbon sink capacity. The National Academy of Sciences, the US Global Change Research Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have all come to the same conclusion: “that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use and the loss of carbon-sink capacity in heavily timbered forests are increasing temperatures and making oceans more acidic.” Corporate documents revealed by ThinkProgress show that Koch Industries explicitly targeted laws to reduce carbon emissions as a threat to Koch’s bottom line.
To boost their profits, Koch is the largest funder of climate change denying organizations and media outlets in the world. For example, Koch bankrolls denier groups like the CATO Institute, Fraser Institute, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, the Manhattan Institute, the Marshall Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the State Policy Network, and dozens of others. Not only have Koch fronts instructed Tea Party groups to kill national legislation to address climate change, but Koch groups have been instrumental in pushing climate change-believers out of the Republican Party. As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has detailed, the vast majority of new Republicans in Congress are “climate zombies.” Koch Industries is so fervently anti-climate science that it recently filed a lawsuit claiming that a belief in global warming damages its reputation.
Koch’s active role in Republican politics and multifaceted propaganda campaigns are almost always tied to Koch Industries’ business interests. Koch’s assistance to then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) resulted in special legislation to exempt Koch from prosecution regarding an oil spill, and Koch’s efforts to elect President Bush were rewarded with a virtual pardon of charges related to Koch’s release of carcinogenic chemicals in Texas. Koch groups also worked to derail international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, and Koch-funded groups helped spread the myth that hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit somehow disputed the scientific consensus on climate change.
Of course, Koch’s current war on climate science is not new. As we first reported, Koch’s current campaign to distort the public’s understanding of global warming is a continuation of its campaign in 1990 to spread skepticism about acid rain. However, Koch’s hidden role in the climate denying machine is beginning to unravel.
Elaine,
The news on the Koch’s just gets worse each day!
Swarthmore Mom,
Durbin was at the pro-union rally in Chicago. It was in the local papers here.
Exclusive: Polluter Billionaire David Koch Says Tea Party ‘Rank And File Are Just Normal People Like Us’
By Lee Fang (1/6/2011)
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/06/koch-teaparty-us/
Excerpts:
Yesterday, David Koch — one of the richest men in America, co-owner of the conglomerate Koch Industries, and a top financier of right-wing front groups — attended the swearing-in ceremony for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and also hosted a party for the new Republican majority he helped bankroll.
Perhaps no one has been more aggressive in exposing Koch’s activities than ThinkProgress. We first reported in April 2009 that Americans for Prosperity, the front group founded and chaired by Koch since 1984, helped orchestrate many of the first Tea Party rallies and anti-Obama protests. ThinkProgess also unearthed a memo detailing how Koch convened a meeting of executives from Wall Street and the oil industry — along with hate talker Glenn Beck and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — to plan how to win the November elections for Republicans in 2010.
**********
It’s interesting that Koch, who inherited his wealth from his father’s oil company and is now worth $21.5 billion dollars, considers himself just another “normal” Tea Party member. Despite the myth that the Tea Party represents some kind of “spontaneous” uprising of middle class voters, many of the drivers of the movement come from America’s wealthy elite. Millionaire Steve Forbes and corporate lobbyist Dick Armey own the other significant Tea Party organizing group, FreedomWorks. Cliff Asness, a wealthy hedge fund manager who attended several Republican planning meetings and Koch’s secret meeting last June, considers himself a card-carrying member of the Tea Party movement.
Despite the Tea Party veneer, Koch and other wealthy businessmen have a self-interested reason to invest in anti-government movements and Republican politicians. Koch funneled large amounts of donations into electing George Bush in 2000 (even sending Koch-linked lobbyists to help disrupt the Florida recount). At the time, Koch Industries faced 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, known to cause leukemia, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. When Bush took office, his Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges and settled the case for a small amount of money. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Koch front groups largely dictated Bush’s environmental regulatory policy and Koch lobbyists gained appointments to key environmental regulatory position in the administration.
Although Bush is gone, Koch still flexes his muscle over major policy issues in the Obama era. Americans for Prosperity, leveraging its large budget and over 80 campaign operatives, coordinated Tea Party protests to kill clean energy reform (Koch Industries is a major oil company and is still one of the worst polluters in America), pass tax cuts for the rich, and to slow down financial reform (Koch Industries is also very active in the unregulated derivatives market). Koch’s vast network of front groups are also credited with successfully distorting the public’s understanding of climate change.
From NYT
The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party
By FRANK RICH
Published: August 28, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1
Excerpts:
ANOTHER weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who. Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier.
Vive la révolution!
There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.
Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.
All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” in her prescient 2009 book of that title: those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.
Only the fat cats change — not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government “handouts” to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly). Even the sources of their fortunes remain fairly constant. Koch Industries began with oil in the 1930s and now also spews an array of industrial products, from Dixie cups to Lycra, not unlike DuPont’s portfolio of paint and plastics. Sometimes the biological DNA persists as well. The Koch brothers’ father, Fred, was among the select group chosen to serve on the Birch Society’s top governing body. In a recorded 1963 speech that survives in a University of Michigan archive, he can be heard warning of “a takeover” of America in which Communists would “infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.” That rant could be delivered as is at any Tea Party rally today.
**********
When David Koch ran to the right of Reagan as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket (it polled 1 percent), his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security, federal regulatory agencies and welfare but also of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and public schools — in other words, any government enterprise that would either inhibit his business profits or increase his taxes. He hasn’t changed. As Mayer details, Koch-supported lobbyists, foundations and political operatives are at the center of climate-science denial — a cause that forestalls threats to Koch Industries’ vast fossil fuel business. While Koch foundations donate to cancer hospitals like Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York, Koch Industries has been lobbying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from classifying another product important to its bottom line, formaldehyde, as a “known carcinogen” in humans (which it is).
Tea Partiers may share the Kochs’ detestation of taxes, big government and Obama. But there’s a difference between mainstream conservatism and a fringe agenda that tilts completely toward big business, whether on Wall Street or in the Gulf of Mexico, while dismantling fundamental government safety nets designed to protect the unemployed, public health, workplace safety and the subsistence of the elderly.
Yet inexorably the Koch agenda is morphing into the G.O.P. agenda, as articulated by current Republican members of Congress, including the putative next speaker of the House, John Boehner, and Tea Party Senate candidates like Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and the new kid on the block, Alaska’s anti-Medicaid, anti-unemployment insurance Palin protégé, Joe Miller. Their program opposes a federal deficit, but has no objection to running up trillions in red ink in tax cuts to corporations and the superrich; apologizes to corporate malefactors like BP and derides money put in escrow for oil spill victims as a “slush fund”; opposes the extension of unemployment benefits; and calls for a freeze on federal regulations in an era when abuses in the oil, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries (among others) have been outrageous.
The Koch brothers must be laughing all the way to the bank knowing that working Americans are aiding and abetting their selfish interests. And surely Murdoch is snickering at those protesting the “ground zero mosque.” Last week on “Fox and Friends,” the Bush administration flacks Dan Senor and Dana Perino attacked a supposedly terrorism-tainted Saudi prince whose foundation might contribute to the Islamic center. But as “The Daily Show” keeps pointing out, these Fox bloviators never acknowledge that the evil prince they’re bashing, Walid bin Talal, is not only the biggest non-Murdoch shareholder in Fox News’s parent company (he owns 7 percent of News Corporation) and the recipient of Murdoch mammoth investments in Saudi Arabia but also the subject of lionization elsewhere on Fox.
Think Progress (9/27/2011)
Koch-Funded Book Argues Against Mine Safety Laws In West Virginia
By Lee Fang
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/27/koch-mine-safety/
Paul Nyden, writing in the Charleston Gazette this Sunday, revealed that Koch Industries — the massive conglomerate of oil, chemical, manufacturing, timber, hedge fund, coal, and shipping interests run by the right-wing ideologues David and Charles Koch — has seeded West Virginia with several conservative front groups. Koch foundations provide the cash for anti-government efforts in the Mountain State, including a right-wing “think tank” called the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia and for free-market faculty members at West Virginia University. Nyden notes that Russell Sobel, a local economist whose research and writing has been underwritten by Koch fronts, argues against the minimum wage and against mine safety laws:
Sobel also works closely with the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia, the Morgantown think tank which published his book, “Unleashing Capitalism: Why Prosperity Stops at the West Virginia Border and How to Fix It,” in 2007. The Sobel book is a collection of 12 essays, arguing that government regulations hurt West Virginia’s economy. One essay questions the value of “mandated” mine safety laws, stating government regulations may increase accident rates.
The Koch-funded think tank recently started a phony news service in West Virginia, called the “West Virginia Watchdog.” Americans for Prosperity, the fake grassroots group founded and financed by David Koch, has been running television ads in West Virginia attacking progressive reforms. David and Charles Koch, each worth $21.5 billion, have postured as great philanthropists, slapping their names on New York opera houses and the private prep school David attended, Deerfield Academy. But much of Koch’s wealth has been quietly spent lobbying against consumer protections, environmental regulations, and other efforts to erode the ability for Americans to provide accountability to powerful corporations. As the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported, Koch lobbied aggressively to prevent the EPA from “classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great quantities, as a ‘known carcinogen‘ in humans.”
Koch Brothers’ latest acquisition: Wisconsin
Sentinel & Enterprise
Posted: 02/28/2011
http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/opinion/ci_17501210
Excerpt:
But here’s what the mainstream media will never tell you. If workers have already agreed to his budget demands, why is Gov. Walker stubbornly insisting on breaking the backs of the unions? Because that’s what the Koch brothers told him to do. And, in Wisconsin, as well as many other states, what the Koch brothers want, the Koch brothers get. And they’re willing to pay handsomely for it.
Remember the names Charles G. and David H. Koch, because you’re going to hear a lot more about them. By day, they are major polluters, heads of the energy and consumer products conglomerate Koch Brothers, based in Wichita, Kansas. By night, they are one of the most powerful and secretive forces in American politics — whose stated goal is to get rid of all government regulation. They have, in fact, used a big chunk of their oil money to found and fuel a right-wing political machine so vast, so widespread, and so influential that it’s known in political circles as the “Kochtopus.”
Like any self-respecting octopus, the Koch boys operate with many tentacles, their principal one a faux-grassroots, corporate-funded organization called Americans for Prosperity. In 2009 and 2010, AFP provided most of the funding for tea party rallies nationwide. They bused people to Washington to protest President Obama’s health-care reform and global warming legislation. They paid for buses to Glenn Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial. They put up the money for Proposition 23, an unsuccessful effort to overturn California’s strict climate change laws. And, all the while, they fueled a relentless series of vicious, personal attacks on President Obama.
The Kochtopus was also active at the state level, supporting Republican candidates for governor who would embrace their anti-government agenda. And they found their poster boy in Scott Walker, always willing to dance to the Koch brothers’ tune — and take their call, even when it’s fake.
Because of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited and unreported corporate campaign contributions, it’s impossible to trace all the money the Kochs poured into Wisconsin. But we do know that Koch Industries was Walker’s second-biggest contributor. Their PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which spent $4.3 million attacking Walker’s opponent. The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council advised Walker on his union-busting legislation. And Koch Industries have opened their own lobbyist office in Madison.
But don’t say Scott Walker isn’t grateful. Buried deep inside the governor’s so-called “budget repair” bill is a totally unrelated provision allowing no-bid sales of state-owned heating, cooling, and power plants. And, in Wisconsin, guess who’s the leading customer for buying power plants? Koch Industries.
Follow the money. In Wisconsin, it leads to Charles and David Koch.
No. I was wrong. He was at a pro-union rally in Chicago. Maybe it is better to keep it local.
Swarthmore mom,
I knew Durbin was in Chicago. Did he got to Madison too?
Assistant majority leader Dick Durbin was in Madison over the weekend.