Scott Walker

Who is Scott Walker?

Scott Kevin Walker is an American politician who is the 45th and current Governor of Wisconsin. A member of the Republican Party, Walker was first elected Governor in 2010 and was sworn in on January 3, 2011.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Walker attended Marquette University. He started his career working for IBM before gaining a marketing job with the American Red Cross. At the age of 22, Walker initially ran and lost for a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly in a Milwaukee district in 1990, though later won the first of five terms in a special election two years later after moving to a more Conservative district in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He served in the Wisconsin Assembly from 1993 to 2002. In 2002, after the resignation of Tom Ament, Walker again won in a special election, winning the first of three terms as Milwaukee County Executive. Walker won reelection in 2004 and 2008; serving as County Executive in Milwaukee County from 2002 to 2010.

After a first run for Governor and dropping out before the Republican primaries in 2006, Walker again ran for the governorship in 2010. Walker won in a three person race in the Republican primary and faced Democratic nominee, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in the general election, where Walker won with 52% of the vote. After being sworn into office in 2011, Walker introduced a controversial budget repair plan which modified collective bargaining rights for most state employees and made over $1 billion in cuts to the state's biennial education budget and $500 million in cuts from the state's biennial Medicaid budget. The budget led to significant protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol and sparked an effort to recall Walker among the critics of the proposed budget. In June 2012, Walker again faced Barrett in Wisconsin's first and only to-date Gubernatorial recall election and defeated him for a second time, obtaining more than 53% of the vote. Walker is the only governor in U.S. history to win in a gubernatorial recall election.