Wisconsin Senate Leader's Wife Gets Lay-Off Notice, Thanks to Budget Stalemate

More

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's controversial budget repair bill, which targets public sector employees, could soon hit the Republican leader of the state's senate in the pocketbook.

Reports the Wisconsin State Journal:

HUSTISFORD, Wis. -- The wife of the Wisconsin Senate majority leader is among school staff receiving preliminary layoff notices.

Lisa Fitzgerald is a counselor in the Hustisford school district and is married to Republican Senator Scott Fitzgerald.

Superintendent Jeremy Biehl says the school board decided Wednesday night to send preliminary layoff slips to all 34 members of the teaching staff, including librarians and counselors. Biehl says the action was taken because of the uncertainty of the state budget bill.

Republican Wisconsin State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald has been a backer of the bill, calling it "the right way" forward.

"In Wisconsin, about 15 percent of the population is a member of a union. There's another 15 percent, though, that is either unemployed or underemployed for economic reasons. We're working to grow the economy, not the government," he said in mid-February, announcing his support for the budget repair bill. "The bill for decades of irresponsible spending has come due. This is how we're going to pay it."

Read the full story at The Wisconsin State Journal.

Jump to comments

Garance Franke-Ruta is a senior editor covering national politics at The Atlantic. More

She was previously national web politics editor at The Washington Post, and has also worked at The American Prospect, The Washington City Paper, The New Republic and National Journal magazines. At The Prospect she won the 2007 Hillman Prize awarded to its group blog, "Tapped."

In 2006, she was fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., and in 2007, a summer fellow with The Iowa Independent, based in Des Moines, Iowa.

Garance has lectured at the Kennedy School, the Harvard Art Museums, Williams College, Wellesley College, Brandeis and Georgetown Universities, and taught in Georgetown's Master of Professional Studies in Journalism program. She also has made numerous appearances on national and regional television and radio programs.

Born in the South of France, Garance grew up in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico; New York City, New York; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has resided in Washington, D.C., since graduating from Harvard in 1997.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Writers

Up
Down

More in Politics

In Focus

Photos of Tornado Damage in Moore, Oklahoma

Just In