(Bi-)partisan gridlock

Nice Isthmus piece on the myth of non-/bi-/post-partisanship

During the 2007 budget deliberations, the state Assembly was controlled by Republicans, and the Senate and governor’s office were in the hands of Democrats. As months went by with the budget conference committee barely even meeting, the Capitol press corps wrote incessantly about "partisan gridlock." The sides were so far apart they could no longer even speak to each other.

The truth is that the two sides weren’t meeting because one side didn’t want to. The GOP’s budget strategy was to not pass a budget. Because they were outnumbered and Gov. Doyle had veto authority, GOP leaders decided to hold out so long that Democrats would cede to some of their demands just to stem the flow of reporters' questions about Madison’s poisonous partisanship.

It worked.