After the Joint Finance Committee recessed at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning following more than 17 hours of public testimony, Assembly and Senate Democrats convened a separate, informal session to hear more testimony from union employees opposed to Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill.

The JFC recessed its hearing on the bill until 7 p.m. Wednesday, prompting Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, and Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, D-Monona, to gather in the Capitol rotunda surrounded by several other Democratic members of the committee and other lawmakers who arrived in solidarity with the protesters and committee members.

Several hundred protesters continued to camp out in the rotunda throughout the night, with some sleeping before the JFC recessed. In an impromptu announcement to the protesters immediately after the JFC recessed, Barca accused Republicans in charge of the community of being “derelict in their duty.”

“We allow every citizen that wants an opportunity to come forward,” Barca said.

Sen. Robert Jauch, D-Poplar, who has served in Madison since 1968, said this week’s protests were unprecedented in his time in office.

“You are part of a very special moment in time,” he said. “This is the rebirth of the progressive movement here.”

While some protesters continued to sleep on the rotunda floor into the early hours of Wednesday morning, others lined up outside a fourth floor hearing room at 4 a.m. to continue testifying. Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, began the informal hearing in a separate room from the Joint Finance Committee hearing.

Several dozen groups of University of Wisconsin students testified at the listening session early Wednesday morning, all of them speaking against the bill. Throughout the morning Jauch and Taylor both left to rest before another committee hearing later Wednesday night.

A number of professors, graduate students and teaching assistants from UW and other UW system schools also testified against the bill as the number of other public employees at the session dwindled. Some student and union activists silently implored all those testifying to stay at the hearing as long as possible, continuing the “filibuster” of the bill many have employed as a resistance technique.

Citizens testified up until 8:30 a.m., when the hearing had to move to a different room because of another scheduled hearing. Around 9 a.m. the informal hearing reconvened in the Grand Army of the Republic room, which used to house the Civil War Museum, a spokesperson from Barca’s office said.

Twelve lawmakers from the Senate and Assembly heard public testimony in the next room, including Taylor, Rep. Donna Seidel, D-Wausau, and Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison.

Testifiers included teachers, students and labor union members upset and fearful about what the budget repair bill means to the future of Wisconsin.

Republican leaders were aware of the outpouring of citizen testimony but felt some context is necessary so the public understands that they have been given considerable amounts of time during the JFC hearing to voice grievances.

“There were 17 hours of public testimony,” Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald’s spokesperson Andrew Welhouse said. “Two years ago the Democrats rammed through a budget repair bill in 48 hours and had no public hearing. So 17 hours is a pretty good improvement over that.”
– Andrew Averill contributed to this report.