Gov. Walker Publishes a Law Ignoring the Courts and the Sec. of State

Just in case you didn't understand the definition of 'hubris,' this is it. The Legislative Reference Bureau published the collective bargaining law, ignoring  a court order against its publication and the Secretary of State's restraining order.

The Governor and the Republican Party of the State of Wisconsin have no officially voided the right to call themselves the law and order party as they have now ignored a lawful court order, a court order issued by a sitting judge on a pending case in accordance with Section 813.02 of the Wisconsin Statues. During the negotiation and passage this law, the Republicans voided the right to call themselves the party of the Constitution and respect for the institution of the Government of the State.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online, the reference bureau published the law with a footnote acknowledging the court order, but insisting that the law says that all new legislation must be published within 10 days of passage.

The issue is that a law in Wisconsin does not take effect until it is published. Therefore, now that it has been published, cities and counties that have been renegotiating contracts with its public workers have had the ability to do so yanked out from under them.

This is just another example of how the new Republican majority in the Legislature and the Governor are ignoring the law and the courts. During the passage of the law, the Republicans used sleazy parliamentary tactics to pass the law. A late night, 43 second vote on the law in the Assembly, the "emergency" meeting of Senators that separated the collective bargaining part of the law, then passage of that part without the Democratic Senators present.

This is a reprehensible and cowardly act not worthy of the party of Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan. These are the tactics of a fringe group that knows that without snake-like tactics, it will be found out for the radical, out of control minority that it is.

"Today the administration was notified that the LRB published the budget-repair bill as required by law," said a statement from Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch. "The administration will carry out the law as required." from the above referenced article.

 Secretary Huebsch states it as if the administration didn't know anything about the publication.

813.02 Temporary injunction; when granted. (1) (a)
When it appears from a party’s pleading that the party is entitled
to judgment and any part thereof consists in restraining some act,
the commission or continuance of which during the litigation
would injure the party, or when during the litigation it shall appear
that a party is doing or threatens or is about to do, or is procuring
or suffering some act to be done in violation of the rights of
another party and tending to render the judgment ineffectual, a
temporary injunction may be granted to restrain such act.

This is the state law that governs injunctions. There can and should be punitive damages assessed on the state by the court for ignoring this injunction.

The spirits of Lincoln and Reagan are dead and the New Republican Party has shown that they have no respect for the court system, the law, or gentlemanly conduct. 

Gov. Walker and the Cult of Insincerity: Collective Bargaining in Wisconsin

And in another shocking (not really) display of do as I tell you to not as I say, Governor Walker commended the Green Bay school district for passing a contract that handled all of the Governor's concerns without needing a dictate from Madison.

"They've recognized it's much better to have control of your own destiny. It's much better to have a handle on that so they protect jobs, they can prevent massive layoffs and they can ultimately protect the kids," Walker said.                                               Green Bay Press Gazette, March 10, 2011

It is touching and heartwarming for the Governor to recognize that people can actually govern themselves. Isn't that a Conservative plank? Local self-governance, self-determination, no overlords from afar?


How much less fighting screaming and anger would there be if the Governor had simply asked the unions for what he wanted and made it clear what the consequences would be? It would appear that Green Bay was able to figure it. No wonder Green Bay is the only city in the state with a national champion this year. Green Bay people are smarter (obviously, I live in Green Bay!)


According to the article in the Green Bay Press Gazette today, the contract "suspends" collective bargaining rights for the two year term of the contract. Suspension rather than outright elimination would seem to be an excellent way to solve what is in truth a temporary problem, the budget deficit.



Governor Walker is using his (temporary) power in Madison to permanently strip collective bargaining away from public sector employees. Meanwhile, there is very little serious evidence that the "benefits" that unionized public employees get have anything to do with the deficit in Wisconsin.

All of this is more perplexing since there was no deficit (according to the Legislative fiscal Bureau) until after Governor Walker extended tax cuts to businesses in his first few weeks.

Collective bargaining is not technically a right, but it is a privilege that workers spent years earning. Some people lost their lives to create unions and earn those rights.  Governor Walker, one of those dreaded 'career politicians', has never actually held a significant job since dropping out of Marquette University.

I agree with Governor Walker, people should control their own destinies. Madison, Washington, no one should decide the fate of the people of Wisconsin but the people of  Wisconsin.

Ronald Reagan and Scott Walker

Ronald Reagan on the importance of political compromise(in his own words)
An American Life (his autobiography) | 8/7/03 | Ronald Reagan

Posted on 08/07/2003 2:05:04 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
"When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it.
"Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything.
"I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.'
"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.  http://goo.gl/Lu3XZ

Scott Walker is not a Reagan Republican.

Scott Walker is a Socialist (in Reverse)

"Typically, socialism is concerned with both the social and economic system in a country. Property and wealth are shared, and their distribution are subject to the control of the people, who exert equal control of the government. The community or state owns all the things used for work production, called the means of production, and thus may also decide what is produced and how to distribute as evenly as possible the moneys paid for things produced."  Link here.

Governor Scott Walker is a reverse socialist. Socialism can be denied as taking from the status quo (right now, in America, the rich) and giving to everyone. It involves leveling the playing field, using the community resources for the entire community. What Gov. Walker and the new far-right of the Republican party want to do is take from those who have fought for, bargained for, or asked for and been given and bring them down to 'the rest of us.'

The collective bargaining agreement that was made between the State of Wisconsin and its public workers unions were negotiated agreements. It was an agreement, signed and certified. Governor Walker simply wants to take away their gains.

He is like a kid in high school who comes home from school complaining that everyone else has a car. Rather than working for his own car (dealing with a public sector job where you are vilified), negotiating his own price (collective bargaining) and pay his own auto loan ($100,000+ in education loans for a $25,000 a year job), Scotty wants to slash the tires on everyone else's car.

There is a simple solution to the idea that the public workers get too much through their collective bargaining, join a union. If everyone made as much as (people claim) public sector workers make, then we would be able to eliminate the deficit through an increase in tax revenues.

The next argument is that this would be bad for business. A couple of things to note: 1) In a down economy, thousands of companies are posting record profits (including Walker's paymasters, the Koch Brothers). 2) Most of the world is unionized (and the parts that aren't are starting to - notice the workers' rights movements in China and India).

By Governor Walker's logic, the next bill will be to restrict Wisconsin wages to $2,200 a year, the average wage in Shanghai in 2009. We must be competitive after all.

The American Way is not to take from those who have so they don't have any more. It is to try to give more opportunity to earn to everyone.

Isn't that the American Dream, the hope of every Horatio Alger, Jr. reader?

The sneaky part of this movement by the governor and other far-right Republicans is that the want to do it the old-fashioned way, on the backs of the working man and woman. Any student of history knows that that is how most of the great wealth was made in America prior to the idyllic 1950's (when America had the highest percentage of unionized workers).

Stay tuned for an observation of the abuses of the unions and where they went wrong.