Dear Republican state lawmakers:

Welcome back to Madison from your holiday break. After your drubbing in the fall elections, you probably needed time to recuperate.

Here's some friendly advice as you're sworn into office in the coming week as the minority party in both the Senate and the Assembly for the first time in more than a decade:

Don't isolate yourselves.

Instead, try to isolate the far left by working with Gov. Jim Doyle and other moderate Democrats to get things done.

Doyle and others across the aisle at the Capitol have worked with you in the past to prevent across-the-board tax hikes. Doyle helped you streamline the DNR permitting process to help businesses without harming the environment. Doyle helped you repeal a tax on job creation and create incentives for high-tech startups and business investment.

Those are just a few examples of Capitol cooperation on important state issues in recent years.

It's now time for legislative Republicans -- led by Minority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in the Senate and his brother, Minority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, in the Assembly -- to get serious about achieving common goals by working in the sensible center of the political spectrum.

What the GOP leaders shouldn't do is stand on the sidelines lobbing rhetorical bombs.

That's what Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, who became Assembly minority leader in November, seemed to be doing last week. When asked by the Associated Press about the state's giant budget shortfall, Jeff Fitzgerald replied: "I don't have to solve that problem. Obviously, that's the Democrats' problem."

Wrong.

The budget crisis is all of Wisconsin's problem. And Republicans ought to be just as serious about fixing state government's dire financial condition as Democrats.

Democrats control the Assembly by a relatively slim margin of 52-46. That means they'll likely need GOP votes to approve a responsible budget package and send it to the governor's desk.

Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who has served as Senate minority leader for two years, sounded more collaborative last week. He said Senate Republicans are willing to work with and support Democrats if the budget solution is based on good financial practices that get the state out of its current mess.

The older Fitzgerald brother has the better approach. The GOP needs to get in the game. Party members need to be a factor and force in the final budget product.

If they don't, then the far left of the Democratic Party will be only too happy to take their place at the negotiating table.