Narayan Mahon for The New York Times  A few protesters keep a vigil these days in the Capitol rotunda in Madison, Wis., a big change from the demonstrations last winter.  MADISON, Wis. — They wander the marble halls, day after day, hollering at passing lawmakers. They have turned up in committee meetings wearing peculiar masks. They are occasionally carried away by the police for filming official proceedings (not allowed in the chamber galleries) and for holding small signs (also barred in the galleries) quoting from documents like the Constitution. One is accused of pouring a beer over the head of a Republican leader, the co-chairman of the joint finance committee.  They are the hardy handful, the last remnants of the tens of thousands of protesters who packed the square around the Capitol here earlier this year, fuming at the state’s Republican leadership and its cuts to collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions. The rest went home long ago.  As Wisconsin braces for a new chapter in its political war — a major recall effort against Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, will begin statewide on Tuesday — some leaders here, even Democrats, have come to wonder whether the lingering protesters at the Capitol are still helping the efforts or harming them.  “We certainly defend their First Amendment rights, but it does become counterproductive at some point,” said Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, who described some of the remaining protesters’ tactics as abhorrent. “Are there questions about what the administration has done to the Capitol? Of course. But there are ways to raise those without dumping beer. It starts to alienate the public at large.”  For weeks in February and March, the numbers swelled outside this Capitol. Tens of thousands of protesters — and protesters of the protesters — marched around Capitol Square and filled the building’s rotunda, chanting, shouting and singing in response to Mr. Walker’s plan to cut collective bargaining rights and workers’ benefits in order to help solve the state’s budget problems.  Madison, the home of the University of Wisconsin, had long been viewed as a liberal-leaning bastion of protester types, but these demonstrations drew people from all over Wisconsin and other states. Some have described the protests here as an early catalyst that, later in the year, helped inspire the Occupy movement.  Once the state’s Republican leaders, who took control of the Legislature in the 2010 election, approved Mr. Walker’s measures in March, many of the protesters left and the national spotlight seemed to turn away. A group — 50 to 150 people — still turn up for a daily “Solidarity Singalong” in the rotunda, in which homemade anti-Walker tunes (like “Roll Out the Recall”) have grown increasingly polished and layered with harmony as the singers this month surpassed their 200th day of performing.  But a smaller group of protesters has kept a more constant vigil at the Capitol, returning nearly every day that the lawmakers are in session.  Sometimes they break into chants in the halls: “Recall Walker! Recall Walker!” Other times, they spread out their laptops and files on the floor to confer about the next plan. They watch for passing officials, and call out to them.  “Can I ask you to consider leaving the Republican Party?” Miles Kristan, 26, called down on a recent afternoon from the rotunda’s overlook. “Hey! Will you leave the Republican Party?” (This lawmaker took care to not look up.)  Later, as David Prosser, a State Supreme Court justice walked by, another in the group shouted, “Choke me! Choke me!” alluding to an incident in which some of the justices, in discussions over the collective bargaining law, had a physical altercation with one another.  Republican leaders here — long the central targets of dissent — have become so familiar with the remaining protesters that they have devised nicknames for some.  “There are some still running around the Capitol that are, I guess, more agitators than anything,” said Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican leader in the State Senate who has been a strong advocate of Mr. Walker’s agenda. “It’s hurting them now. It’s kind of changed. And actually because some of them have developed their own profiles; it’s almost a joke.”
Thousands of demonstrators swarmed Wisconsinâs Capitol last winter, opposing cuts to collective bargaining rights and workersâ benefits. A handful are still there.