Book excerpt: ‘Forward for the People: The Autobiography of America’s Longest Serving Legislator,’ by Fred Risser and Doug Moe

The following is and excerpt from Forward for the People: The Autobiography of America’s Longest Serving Legislator, by former Wisconsin state Sen. Fred Risser and Doug Moe, © 2025 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Reprinted with permission.

Chapter 12 – Escape to Illinois

Beginning in 2011, Governor Scott Walker had Republican majorities in both the assembly and senate, and he wasted little time getting friendly legislators to advance bills to further his pro–big business, anti-regulation, and anti-tax agenda. New Republican legislators were casting votes before they unpacked and settled into their Capitol offices. On January 21, a veteran lobbyist told the Associated Press: “Everything’s coming out in a breakneck pace. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

One of the problems with moving too fast on bills—not allowing time for them to be fully vetted—is that you often find unintended consequences that require revisiting the issue later to correct the mistakes. One of the first bills in 2011 was a sweeping civil lawsuit “reform” initiative that capped the amount of punitive damages a plaintiff could collect. I sat on the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Ethics that voted 3–2 to send the measure to the full senate. I voted “no”—the suggested cap was $200,000, which I felt was insufficient. Yet, the bill passed.

The senate also quickly passed a Walker-driven bill that would reorganize the Wisconsin Commerce Department into a new public-private entity called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The plan called for current Commerce Department employees to have to reapply for their jobs within the new entity, and it provided no guarantee that successful ongoing programs—some of which provided economic assistance to veteran- and minority-owned businesses—would continue.

I argued against the plan because in essence it created an independent authority that could go into unlimited debt and use public money without any true oversight. To me, that seemed downright scary. I also fought against a bill that would require any tax increase to be passed by a two-thirds (or “super”) majority of both the assembly and the senate. That bill passed, as well.

By far, Governor Walker’s most controversial move was introducing a “budget repair” bill that would remove the right to collective bargaining for most public employees. A sad irony: under Governor Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin in 1959 became the first state to grant public-sector unions the right to negotiate contracts. That year, as a young legislator, I was cochair of the Joint Committee on Finance, which played an important role in getting the legislation to Governor Nelson’s desk.

Now—in 2011—I felt Walker was acting more like a dictator than a governor. To not even first discuss what concessions might be made? It was a grandstand play, one guaranteed to pit neighbor against neighbor in Wisconsin. The New York Times wrote at the time: “Mr. Walker and his Republican supporters see it as a tough-minded strategy that other states can follow. History repeating itself, in reverse.”

I’ll admit I wasn’t certain at first that Walker would follow through with such a draconian and anti-democratic plan. I’d seen new governors come in across six decades, and they tended to float a lot of ideas early, only some of which moved forward. I wasn’t sure anything would come of Walker’s anti–public sector union plan. In hindsight, it was probably wishful thinking on my part.

When we realized Walker was all too serious and hastily moving ahead, there seemed at first little we could do to stop him, although large crowds had begun gathering on the Capitol grounds to protest Walker’s anti-union plan. Less than a week after Walker first announced the legislation on February 11, my Democratic senate colleagues and I developed a plan that, once it was executed, would make national headlines for weeks.

It was the idea of John Anderson, who worked on the legislative staff of Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller. Anderson mentioned to his boss that by state law, a senate vote on a measure having significant financial impact—such as Walker’s union-busting initiative, which was also known as Act 10—required a special “fiscal quorum” of twenty of the thirty-three senators to be present for the vote. Minus the fourteen Democrats, there would not be a quorum in the senate—and, consequently, no vote.

Having done the math, Miller quickly formulated a plan and began trying to reach members of our caucus the evening and night of February 16. Action on the legislation was scheduled for February 17, a Thursday. The senate session was to begin at eleven. Miller asked all of us to gather at eight o’clock in the morning at the State Senate Democratic Committee office on King Street. We weren’t all there: Tim Cullen had spent the night in Janesville, while Bob Jauch and Lena Taylor were getting a brief rest after being up most of the night at a Joint Finance meeting.

My recollection is that I didn’t get a call from Miller until around seven o’clock on the morning of February 17. But I lived just off the Capitol Square, so making it over to King Street by eight wasn’t an issue. Mark didn’t go into any detail, but he said I might want to bring my toothbrush. Clearly, he had something in mind. I didn’t press him on it, but I quickly packed an overnight bag and put it in my car.

At the eight o’clock meeting, we discussed the idea of having all the Democratic senators leave the state that morning. Miller explained how with only nineteen senators present at the Capitol, a vote could not be held on Walker’s so-called budget repair bill. He felt we should travel across the state line to Illinois. No one in the room voiced a strong objection to the idea of leaving. It would buy us time, if nothing else. We agreed to meet

around noon at the Clock Tower Resort, just off Interstate 90 in Rockford. Before the meeting broke up, we stood and clasped hands together in a show of unity.

I went to my car and left for Rockford right away, without contacting either Nancy or my senate office. I arrived at the Clock Tower before noon and found several of my colleagues in the hotel lobby. We quickly arranged for a private room where we could talk. We weren’t yet a full caucus. Spencer Coggs got lost trying to find the hotel. Tim Carpenter had driven to Milwaukee first, along with Lena Taylor, as they didn’t have extra clothes in Madison with which to pack a bag.

Tim Cullen had the most interesting morning. When Miller called him on the night of February 16, Cullen explained he was in Janesville and wouldn’t be able to make an eight o’clock meeting the next morning in Madison. Tim spent the night in Janesville, and then early on that morning of February 17, he received two phone calls at his home. The first was from Steve Bablitch, younger brother of Bill Bablitch, the former Wisconsin legislative leader and supreme court justice. Bill Bablitch was Cullen’s mentor, and Steve was calling to say Bill had died at home in Hawaii after a long illness. The family hoped Cullen could go to the Capitol in Madison, give Bill’s friends and former colleagues the news, and perhaps shepherd press coverage.

Cullen was getting ready to come to Madison and do that when, around 8:30, he got a call from Mark Miller, just out of our King Street meeting, telling Tim he needed to drive to Illinois. Cullen was surprised, and he explained why he needed to go, at least briefly, to the Capitol. Miller told him to be careful and get out before the scheduled vote at eleven.

Cullen then did something that speaks to the last remnants of bipartisanship that still existed in Wisconsin politics in 2011. He phoned Mike Ellis, the longtime Republican state senator—also a friend of Bablitch’s—to tell him of Bill’s death and explain that he, Cullen, would be coming to the Capitol. By the time Cullen arrived, Ellis, who was senate president, knew of the Democrats’ plan to leave Wisconsin. When Ellis came out of his office around 10:30 and saw Cullen talking to reporters outside the senate chamber, he said, “Will you be out by 10:45?” It was a classy thing to do. Cullen looked around and saw that the Capitol was packed with protesters and onlookers. Leaving wasn’t going to be easy. He scrambled to get out before the vote, but he did it. Ellis soon phoned to ask if he’d made it out safely. Around the same time, Ellis, in his role as senate president, announced a “call of the house” to send Capitol police officers searching for senators to return them to the senate chamber. By that time, Tim was headed south and taking another call from Mark Miller, who urged him not to drive on Interstate 90 to Illinois. Miller was afraid there might be state police at the border to stop him.

It was an extraordinary morning.

By the end of the day, all fourteen Democratic senators were at the Clock Tower: me, Tim Carpenter, Lena Taylor, Spencer Coggs, Chris Larson, Jim Holperin, Tim Cullen, Mark Miller, Robert Wirch, Julie Lassa, Robert Jauch, Jon Erpenbach, Dave Hansen, and Kathleen Vinehout. Unfortunately, by that time, too, the press had located us. We decided to leave Rockford and go to Freeport—most of us, anyway. Cullen went back to Janesville for the night, and Erpenbach went into Chicago, where a Wisconsin State Journal reporter somehow found him in a hotel lobby. “I can tell you I’m clearly representing the majority of my district, based on the contacts I’ve had with people,” Erpenbach told the reporter. “It’s not like we wanted to do this, but we needed to slow this down.”

The rest of us convened at the Freeport Country Inn and Suites. We soon learned that MSNBC host Ed Schultz wanted to interview us on his show that night. We went to Libertyville, where a makeshift studio had been set up. Mark Miller and I sat in front and did most of the talking, with the remaining senators seated in the background.

It’s important to remember that huge throngs of protesters—tens of thousands on a daily basis—had descended on downtown Madison in the week following Walker’s announcement of his intention to end collective bargaining rights for public employees. Progressives across the country, perhaps the world, were there in spirit as well.

The night of February 17, Schultz was originating his MSNBC program—called The Ed Show—from Madison. He was in Wisconsin, we were in Illinois, and he was fired up. He said at the outset:

I have to tell you, folks, that I have never been more connected                emotionally to a story in my entire career. There’s something about the heartland, there’s something about the voices that I heard today, there’s something about Wisconsin. This is ground zero for labor in this country.

We are on the front line for the ideological fight for America: Madison, Wisconsin. At this hour, protests here in this city are still at a fever pitch. The Wisconsin Senate Democrats have left the state and Governor Scott Walker—well, he did not get his union-busting bill today. The story, I think, is far from over.

At that point, Schultz welcomed us to the show. “I want,” he said, “to introduce

this country to a gentleman named Fred Risser. He is the longest-serving legislator in the United States of America. He was here back in [1959] when they passed collective bargaining.” Schultz then asked for my thoughts as I’d watched the day unfold.

“Wisconsin’s a great state,” I said.

We’ve got a great liberal tradition of service by our state and public employees. You know, we were the first to adopt and implement social security back in the early 1900s. We were one of the first states to adopt and implement collective bargaining for state employees back in the 1950s. And I was happy to be part of that program.

We’re here today, to slow down this steamrolling process that our young governor has adopted. He’s attempting in five days to eliminate and do away with what the state has accomplished in fifty to a hundred years. What we’re going to do is we’re going to slow this process down. We’re going to give the people of this state the opportunity to talk to their representatives, to talk to the executives, to let the public know what they feel about it, and to slow up what this outrageous, dictatorial new governor is doing to us.

Schultz said, “Senator Fred Risser, what is it going to take to have you come back with your fellow senators? Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“I doubt that we’ll be back tomorrow,” I replied. “But we’ll be back some time . . . after we have given people an opportunity to make known their feelings to their various legislators and to the state. Our effort here is to give the people a chance to be heard.”

Excerpt from Forward for the People: The Autobiography of America’s Longest Serving Legislator © 2025 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Reprinted with permission.