As I said earlier, everyday just brings a new surprise here at work. I particularly love the guessing game I have to play every morning as I approach the Capitol, deciding which door I am going to be let in through today. It varies depending on the current policies, which again, change every day.

Then there’s always the fun task of seeing how many times you are going to get stopped by police officers before you can get to the office. For example, they’ll want to see your badge at the top of the stairs, even though they know the bottom of the stairs is blocked off, and you need to have ID just to access the staircase. Alas, it isn’t their fault- they’re just told what to do.

The problem lies with Governor Walker and the DOA, who insisted on a huge crackdown on protests and the public in the Capitol, practically (literally at times) shutting the entire building down, despite it being legally required to be open to every Wisconsin citizen. I understand it was necessary to close the Capitol overnight after it had been open 24hours a day for over two weeks, with people sleeping in. Lord knows it needed a clean. But to then fail to reopen it to the public; that was out of line, and just another example of the underhand tactics employed by the Walker administration.

Last week, protesters who refused to leave were locked into the building. Initially, no-one else was allowed in. Finally caving to pressure, law enforcement began to slowly-painfully slowly- let some people into the building, but only those with legitimate reasons. And they had to come through just one entrance, via a metal detector screening. Those attending a public hearing, had to wait in line to get a hearing badge, and then wait for either a page like myself or a police officer to escort them to the hearing room, and then back to the exit. There was only a limited number of badges available, based on the number of seats in the hearing room. For constituents who wanted to visit an office, they had to wait for the office to be contacted, wait in line to get in, and then wait for a staff member to come down and collect them. They then also had to be escorted by a police officer. Only 8 constituent badges per district.

This continued all week. People even had to be escorted to the bathroom.

Now if there had been two whole weeks of riots, and multiple incidents of people in the wrong places causing damage and being violent, then I could understand the enhanced security procedures. But there have been zero arrests, and only a tiny number of citations- less than the average football game at Camp Randall. Yet still, the Republican administration, perhaps unable to cope with the large show of democracy any longer, chose to implement these new procedures.

In response to having their constituents locked outside, Democrats took their offices to them. Literally. Desks were carried outside, chairs rolled up. Signs were made and hung from windows. Office hours were held on the ground of the Capitol for any citizen from any district, Democrat or Republican. A stunt? of course. Made a serious point? Absolutely.

Of course, once they were outside holding office hours, there was no guarantee the Representatives would be able to get back inside. Just ask Rep. Nick Milroy, who in trying to get back to his office after having a meal outside, found himself denied, despite having his leggie ID badge on him. When another officer let him through, the first yelled that he wasn’t allowed, and the Representative promptly found himself tackled to the ground. Fun times.

Watch the video here.

This video also shows the difficulty involved in getting into the Capitol. The man trying to get in is former US Representative Dave Obey, a veteran Wisconsin politician.

By the end of the week, access to the Capitol had been restored, after a court case and a Dane County judge ruling that the Capitol had to be open during its regular hours. The court case itself was accompanied with another crazy news story however; supposedly, protesters had caused $7.5 million in damages to the Capitol building. Why? Because of the signs they had stuck up. Apparently tape and marble don’t mix, along with all the other “destruction” protesters have caused. Absurd! New figures released show the actual costs involved could be as low as $347,000.

But the Crazy award of the week goes to the one, the only, FOX news! This week they successful mixed live reporting in Wisconsin with pre-filmed footage of rioting protesters. These protesters however, were not in Madison. They weren’t even in Wisconsin. How do we know? There were palm trees in the background. The footage was actually from an event in Sacramento, but Fox failed to make that distinction, allowing viewers to think protests in Madison were getting violent.

Oh Fox, how we love you. Since then, a number of protesters have taken to carrying inflatable palm trees around with them. Check out Nicole’s blog on the creativity of protesters.