What I just witnessed at the Wisconsin State Capitol was either the end of democracy as we know it, or the beginning.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators surrounded the building, a small orange card handed to me by Steve Walters, dean of the Capitol press corps, allowed me access to the extraordinary events taking place behind the scenes.
I was there among the protesters, packed so thickly into the building’s corridors that it took me more than a half hour to get my press pass and make it back to the Senate, which was set to vote on Gov. Scott Walker's “budget repair bill,” which would impose unilateral changes on state workers, strip most state and local public employees of their collective bargaining rights, and impose rules changes that could likely spell the demise of the unions
