What do you think about the way in which the Wisconsin Senate ended the standoff about union rights?

I think it will be subject to a court challenge should it make it past the Senate.

To be honest…that was the most profound failure of a government to live up to it’s duty as a democratically elected power with balanced powers that I think I’ve ever seen. Not because it was the most damaging or worst…but because it was so flagrantly about treating the alternative as the enemy – and forgetting that each Senator was elected by the people.

In their struggle to win the favor of on constituency, they are determined to grind down the other.

I think it’s bringing us closer to what could very well be an idelogical municipal civil war.

I agree with @marinelife and with the sentiments of @iamthemob.

Dirty trick? Yes. Particularly because Scott Walker hinted to what was going on earlier in the day at a public speech during the questioning segment. He stated that lawyers were exploring all of their options and that they would “move” as soon as the lawyers said they could.

Instead of keeping lines of communication open (as a few of the Rep senators had), Gov Walker shut the door and implemented a tactic. The ramifications of that tactic will most likely hurt Milwaukee, Racine & Kenosha schools the hardest, should it stand.

It is unknown whether the tactic was used to get the Dems back to vote on the entire bill or not at this time. That’s yet to be seen

Last night the Dems in IL were discussing their legal options with their lawyers.

In my opinion taking the “spending options” out did not take out the financial ramifications. Many seem to agree with this on the local news here, so that will be the likely argument should this head to court.

I think the dirty trick was what the Wisconsin State Democrat legislators were perpetrating on their constituents. Running away like willful children and hiding, shirking their duty….that seems cowardly to me. The GOP legislators had been waiting patiently for longer than I expected. Just my opinion though.

@Tuesdays_Child And what of the constituents that fully supported the Dems holding out for bipartisan involvement on this bill? This is an independent state. Most people here easily see both sides of this issue.

Neither “side” is covered in glory.

If government were going to be honest maybe someday, somewhere else these kinds of things can be debated and resolved without the label “partisan” being applied, so that “bipartisanship” would be assumed.

If Republicans want to do away with public employees to the maximum extent possible and privatize or outsource a lot of government functions, which isn’t an entirely unreasonable mode of operation, or if Democrats want to continue to award public employees better benefits than they can hope to achieve in non-public employment, acknowledge the full costs involved and budget accordingly, then they should have that debate and settle the issue.

No one is “winning” from this display, unless they’re playing the equivalent of a board game that scores “points” or “moves on a board” as a way to keep score. It’s not ‘winning’ in the real world.

It’s only a dirty trick if you are on the other side. Dems wouldn’t hesitate to do it if and when.

@SpatzieLover, I fully realize that there are people on both sides of the issues but, and I mean this as respectfully as possible, the people of Wisconsin elected Scott Walker as Governor and a majority of the congressional body is Republican as a result of that same election, and to quote President Obama, elections have consequences. Once again, this is just my opinion.

@Tuesdays_Child There are some major reasons the Reps took over. The number one reason was money from billionaire sources like Koch. The Dems didn’t have the same financial resources to tap from.

Scott Walker got into that seat because money was piled on his campaign all the years Doyle was governor. Milwaukee Mayor Barrett was virtually unknown to the rest of the state until the last weeks of the campaign.

This is true for many of the senate seats as well. Ron Johnson is an extremely wealthy businessman with extremely wealthy friends.

Money buys seats. The Dems were out of money.

I am more concerned with the unilateral breach of a contract with the workers. The workers were willing to negotiate and had made concessions about wages. Walker et al didn’t like the terms of a pre-existing agreement and decided to tear it up.

Were these illegal campaign contributions? If not, then that is a moot point. Unions regularly support Democratic(and oppose Republican) candidates with mass amounts of money. That is what campaign contributions are for, in fact, with the reasoning that you just laid out, one could say that President Obama bought his office. In the end it comes down to the election results. I’m not saying that this system is right, only that it is what it is…on both sides.

@Tuesdays_Child These billionaire corporate owners are now in their pockets (especially Walkers). This is the reason the Reps voted without the Dems present. They have an agenda. The Dems were getting in the way of that agenda.

Okay, we’ll just have to agree to disagree…....

@Tuesdays_Child I agree & sorta wish the legislatures could do the same ;) then has out that bill.

53–42 passed. Dems are still in IL and won’t return until the bill is passed.

I am wondering what type of a sick out will occur after this.

Another quick update for those of you following: Walker won’t sign the bill “until he legally can”—-which won’t be today— So far, there are 4 lawsuits filled.

So the Democrats decided to hold government hostage until they got thier way. It didn’t work. If this tactic is successful, why not use it anytime a bill is not something you like. Hell, let’s hope the democrats stay in Illinois. Maybe they can find work there.

@Jaxk Until their constituency was heard…not until they got “their way”.

@SpatzieLover

You can’t really be suggesting that thier constituency has not been heard. Hell, the capital was virtually shut down by the protesters. The Democrats simply didn’t get thier way. That’s why they’re gone.

Yes I can mean that they weren’t heard

@Jaxk I have not forgotten your stances since our time in Askville. It would be nice if you would open up to discussion instead of debate. I will not do that here

What do you think about the way in which the Wisconsin Senate ended the standoff about union rights?

Right on!

@SpatzieLover

At least you quotes an unbiased source :) It is quite common to think that if they don’t do what you want, that you weren’t heard. That’s not the case. No one was surprised by this move nor can the Democrats plead ignorance of what’s in it. It would have been nice to have all the notices and procedures that would normally occur but with the demonstrator’s overwhelming the capital, it simply isn’t possible. The whole intent was, as I said to shut down government until they got thier way. You can call that debate or discussion or whatever you like.

@Jaxk This has been building here for quite sometime. The fact that both parties agreed going into this that there needed to be change to the collective bargaining rights proves they could have worked together to come to a better conclusion than this.

I only included that source because of the list. For some reason the Journal article I wanted is no longer on the web…it happens a lot with our local papers.

I think it shows that Governor Walker had been lying all along in saying that stripping union collective bargaining rights was a budgetary necessity. In the end, Republicans admited it had nothing to do with the budget, and stripped it from the budget issues which still remain to be addressed so they could ram through the union busting alone. They violated Wisconsin’s 24 hour notice Open Meeting law to jam it through. I think they have shown their hand. The Coke Brothers who fund these far-right ideologues only made $9 billion last year and they want way more. So their idea is to take it out of the middle class.

@bkcunningham – the problem is, it wasn’t really the end of the standoff – it was essentially an eff you to the democrats, and it seems less and less about whether they are effecting good change for the government.

The day before, Walker was apparently working with the Democrats on a compromise.

But then, Miller sent this letter. The first option was to put forward an amended bill: With an agreement between all parties, the bill currently before the Senate could be amended. Limited, preliminary discussions have occurred and, as you know, the Senate Democratic caucus would support modifications that restore collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers.

But, Fitzgerald said that instead, this was the offer:

“This afternoon, following a week and a half of line-by-line negotiation, Sen. Miller sent me a letter that offered three options: 1) keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 2) take our counter-offer, which would keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 3) or stop talking altogether.”

So, within hours, they stripped the bill and passed the contraversal position.

So now, we have claims before courts regarding the legality of what happened, we have an enraged side of the population that feels tricked, we have a good third of the Senate that’s like WTF.

Now of course we have the Democrats rallying, and using war analogies…and that’s never productive.

@iamthemob I don’t like it either. But the failure to live up to a democratically elected government falls on the shoulders of the hiding Democrat legislators.

They were quorum-busting, not “hiding”

FROM THE SOURCE LINKED ABOVE: Quorum-busting has been used for centuries. For instance, during his time in the state legislature, Abraham Lincoln leapt out of a first story window (the doors of the Capital had been locked to prevent legislators from fleeing) in a failed attempt to prevent a quorum from being present.

Why is it people can’t call it what it really is? If you’ve ever been to any local vote or been a member of local government you certainly are made aware of Robert’s Rules

@SpatzieLover – Thank you.

@marinelife On what ground do you see this being challenged in court? It was legal maneuvering pure and simple. Nothing new really.

Alright everyone – this is some insane 1984 doublethink now…

Apparently, the U.S. Senate minority is threatening Harry Reid with a blockade of any non-fiscal legislation until the current budget impasse is resolved.

Now, I don’t think that we need to debate whether one side is right or the other wrong – but I’ve already seen the same people who called the Democrats in Wisconsin “cowards” for blocking the quorum call this “leadership.”

It seems like we’ve all officially been brainwashed.

@perspicacious Legal maneuvering against Robert’s Rules and without quorum.

@SpatzieLover I didn’t know that about Lincoln. Hopefully he wasn’t too sore after that. :-) With respect to the lawsuits, do you know what angle they are taking (e.g. how they are trying to invalidate the bill)?

Personally, it seems to me that this was definitely a fiscal/budget related matter, so the lack of quorum thing would be good to challenge.

@Dr_Dredd At least three of the filed complaints were for open-meetings violations

Here’s a good article (though slanted) that has direct quotes from the senators

And this article has some great links within it

Walker signed the bill this morning

There was an ethics complaint filed against Walker over the phone call incident.

The quorum busters are still in talks with their legal team, but as far as I know none of them have filed a complaint/suit as of today. A couple of them are back in Wisconsin, as at this point they wanted to see their families.

@SpatzieLover They had a quorum. I don’t see a valid legal argument.

@perspicacious – the legal argument is whether the bill was stripped down sufficiently so that it wouldn’t require the quorum necessary to vote on a budget item.

It’s about the nature of the bill, which would then define whether they had a quorum.

I haven’t read the bill but the article I read said that all of the spending provisions were stripped from the bill.

The first article @SpatzieLover linked talks about the alleged improper notification for holding a public meeting. “They (Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz) said the lawmakers provided insufficient notice, and argued that any decision reached at the meeting should be invalidated.”

@Dr_Dredd & All, At the bottom of this page Is an interview with the Wisconsin 14

At 6:10 of the video Senator Lassa holding the mic states the reasons for what they think is illegal: broke open meetings law, voted on a bill that wasn’t before them, voted on a bill not available to the public anywhere.

@iamthemob I am reading Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships by Madeleine Landau Tobias and Jania Lalich right now. I am studying up on cults in preparation for something I plan to write, and I honestly thought a break from a steady diet of politics would be refreshing reading. Instead, I am struck by how many of the “thought reform techniques that cults typically employ are used by today’s far right. The one glaring difference is the far-right cult doesn’t know who their fearless leader is. Make no mistake, there is one. But fearless leader chooses to remain in the shadows for now.

@ETpro
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!!
~ Frank Baum

@Espiritus_Corvus Exactly. “Nothing to see here, Move along.”

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

The plot thickens. The lawsuit was filed by a local district attorney.

Legal challenge filed against Wisconsin’s anti-union law

It thickens further @Dr_Dredd.
If the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices change, most likely, so goes the bill