Scott Walker
Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker may have single-handedly sparked a political revival of organized labor. Elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, Walker's controversial plan to restrict collective bargaining rights in his state launched rowdy protests in Madison and a fierce effort to recall his allies in the state senate. Labor unrest only spread from there. Protests rocked the midwest into the spring, and a union-backed campaign in Ohio successfully repealed that state's collective bargaining restrictions in a November ballot initiative. Two Wisconsin state senators eventually fell to recall challenges, and though Democrats failed to steal back control of the legislature or roll back the collection bargaining restrictions, a campaign to oust the governor himself is now underway.