A Letter to Wisconsin Voters from our friends in the Flatlands; The Truth about the Fab 14.

From Wispolitics, by Doug Bump: Couple says Senate Dems worked 'endless hours' in Illinois

A Woodstock, Ill., couple who hosted Senate Dems during their flight from Wisconsin says the senators worked day and night to stay in touch with constituents and negotiate with Republican colleagues and the governor.

"We witnessed first-hand how these Senators never stopped working from the moment they made the heart-breaking decision to leave the state they love," write Kelly Vinehout and Doug Smith in an open letter to the people of Wisconsin. "They made many personal sacrifices because every week they received tens of thousands of messages from their constituents pleading with them to not return."

"Although we are very private people, we decided to write this letter because, just as you had a right to learn the contents of your Governor’s proposed bill, you have a right to know the truth of what happened during the three weeks your Senators worked in Illinois," the letter states.

Kelly Vinehout is Sen. Kathleen Vinehout's sister. Sen. Vinehout said the Dems stayed with her sister for about a week before moving on to another "undisclosed location."

"They spent endless hours returning telephone calls to the people in their districts," Kelly Vinehout and Smith write. "Contrary to the contents of some of the newspaper articles we have since read, they attempted daily to negotiate with their Republican colleagues and their Governor, and spent endless hours attempting to contact these legislators. We watched them write these letters at our kitchen table. We watched their disappointment as their pleas for negotiation were steadfastly refused. We, common citizens who previously knew very little about politics, were then amazed to read news releases stating it was the Democratic Senators who were refusing to negotiate."