Last week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker put a deceptively positive gloss on the legal battles surrounding his stalled union-busting bill in an interview with the right-wing Newsmax website.
Background on the Legal Battles
As CMD has reported, Governor Walker’s union-busting bill (“Act 10”) was amended by a conference committee on March 11 to avoid quorum requirements, then passed by the Wisconsin Senate with no Democrats present. State Open Meetings laws require 24 hours notice for all meetings, or two hours with “good cause,” but neither standard was met at the March 11 vote. Following a complaint from Dane County’s District Attorney, Judge MaryAnn Sumi found a probable Open Meetings violation and issued an order preventing the Secretary of State from publishing the bill, a necessary step before it can become law. Attorney General JB Van Hollen appealed the decision, and the Court of Appeals offered the case to the state Supreme Court on March 24, which has not taken action (possibly because Justice Prosser’s election is still pending). In the meantime, the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law under statutory authority separate from that of the Secretary of State, raising questions of whether the bill has become law, and prompting Judge Sumi to issue an order declaring it not to be in effect.
On April 7, Governor Walker’s Administration jumped into the fray and asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to vacate Judge Sumi’s order.
Walker Administration’s Legal Position Contrary to Governor’s Statements
The Walker Administration’s petition was discussed during the Governor’s videotaped interview with mustachioed Newsmax anchor Ashley Martell. Walker said:
My administration this week appealed to the state Supreme Court on two counts. Really both on […] the fact that we don’t believe it is legitimate for the judge to be an issuing a temporary restraining order when we think the law was dufully (sic) passed by the members of the state legislature. (at 3:29)
Mustache Martella replied: “speaking of that, the legal issue seems to be the notice given before the vote . . .”
The heart of the issue that is regarding the restraining order really involves the issue of the open meetings laws and whether or not there was notice on that. The legislature feels, and I think they are right about this, that they very clearly did follow the statute, that under other circumstances there might be a problem, but in a special session . . . it is clear that they followed the law. (at 4:12)
Despite Walker’s faith in the conduct of fellow Wisconsin Republicans, his legal team is not contending that GOP legislators followed the law, but only that violations of that law be enforced more leniently. In its petition to the Supreme Court, not once does Walker’s Administration argue that Republican legislators acted lawfully.
Walker’s petition focuses on three issues, claiming (1) that breaking an Open Meetings law is a “procedural violation” that cannot be punished through voiding a legislative act, (2) that a court does not have jurisdiction to prevent a bill from becoming law (even if it may have authority to void a law once enacted), and (3) that the Act is published and is now law, meaning Sumi’s order has no relevance. The brief also questions whether the District Attorney can sue to invalidate a statute, and whether Judge Sumi could enter an order considering defendants’ legislative immunity. Significantly, the petition does not discuss whether legislative notice rules can override Open Meetings laws (which, if argued, could have implied legislators acted lawfully).
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Walker’s Newsmax statements give the impression that legislators acted honorably, avoiding the fact that they may have illegally shut citizens out of the political process, violated the state’s constitutionally-recognized open government guarantees, and did so on a bill that has a significant impact and massive public attention. This is no small matter. As the late Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice William Bablitch wrote in the 1994 case State ex rel. Hodge vs. Town of Turtle Lake:
The purpose of the Open Meetings Law is to protect the public’s right to be informed to the fullest extent of the affairs of government. . . An open meetings law is not necessary to ensure openness in easy and noncontroversial matters where no one really cares whether the meeting is open or not. Like the First Amendment, which exists to protect unfavored speech, the Open Meetings Law exists to ensure open government in controversial matters.
Open Meetings laws are fundamentally important to Wisconsin’s democracy, and violations are serious business. If Walker genuinely believes the GOP lawmakers’ actions were virtuous and lawful, his administration’s legal documents should reflect that.
By: Brenda Fisher, Center for Media and Democracy, April 13, 2011
April 14, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Collective Bargaining, Democracy, Gov Scott Walker, Governors, Ideologues, Ideology, Politics, Public Employees, Right Wing, State Legislatures, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Act 10, AG J B Van Hollen, Judge MaryAnn Sumi, Newsmax, Open Meetings Law, Wisconsin Court of Appeals, Wisconsin Democrats, Wisconsin Legislature, Wisconsin Senate, Wisconsin Supreme Court |
Leave a comment
Ohio Democrats this week introduced into a divided state legislature a new bill that would allow Ohio citizens to recall Governor John Kasich and other legislatures. The state has been in an ideological upheaval for months after Kasich’s budget bill was introduced, similar to the Wisconsin bill that has received incredible national attention for stripping unions of their collective bargaining rights, and eventually signed April 2nd after some concessions were made by the Republican-held Assembly and Senate.
There are now 17 other states where similar bills have been passed. Democrats in Ohio are now trying to join the ranks of some of those states like Wisconsin, where voters also have the option to recall their elected legislatures.
Reuters reported that State Representatives Mike Foley and Robert Hagan’s bill would allow “Ohio voters to undertake a recall effort if they gather petition signatures of voters equal to 15 percent of the total votes for governor or in a particular legislative district in the last election.”
Recall efforts are already well underway in Wisconsin, where 16 senators have petitions started against them. Governor Scott Walker, in his inaugural term, cannot be recalled until he has served in office for one full year, according to Wisconsin state law.
Kasich’s bill to limit collective bargaining rights of unions and slash funding for many state-funded programs has received passionate opposition by supporters of workers’ rights. Protests in Columbus drew thousands in February, riding the wave of protests started in Madison and that then spread throughout the country.
The hotly-contested Senate Bill 5, or SB5 as it has been dubbed by the media, severely limits the actions of unions, and in conjunction with Kasich’s budget, introduces major cuts to public programs: like a $852 million cut to schools.
The Toledo Blade explains SB5: “It prohibits all public employees from striking, prohibits local governments from picking up any portion of an employee’s contributions to his pension, eliminates automatic step and longevity raises in favor of a yet undefined performance-pay system, and prohibits unions from automatically collecting ‘fair share’ fees from members of a workforce who opt not to join the union.”
Besides the Democrats’ efforts to pass the recall bill, Ohio law also allows for a public referendum of any passed bill. Opponents of the bill need to gather 231,147 signatures 90 days from the official signing of the bill for the statewide referendum to be voted on Nov. 8th.
By: Jennifer Page, Center for Media and Democracy, April 11, 2011
April 13, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov John Kasich, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Ideologues, Labor, Lawmakers, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, State Legislatures, States, Union Busting, Unions, Voters | Ohio, Ohio Senate Bill 5, Public Employees, Public Referendums, Recalls, State Budgets, Toledo Blade, Wisconsin, Workers Rights |
Leave a comment
At Monday’s public hearing in Milwaukee on Governor Walker’s budget, Wisconsin Republicans once again resorted to anti-participatory tactics to avoid criticism of their far-right agenda. Despite these efforts, strong criticisms were squeezed-in by longtime Milwaukee school choice advocate Howard Fuller, calling GOP efforts to lift income limits on school vouchers an “outrageous” program “that subsidizes rich people.”
Republicans Regulate Milwaukee Hearing
Milwaukee’s hearing at State Fair Park was the third of four statewide sessions on Walker’s proposed budget by the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee, and controversy arose well before the hearing began. According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, two of Milwaukee’s congresswomen, Rep. Tamara Grigsby and Sen. Lena Taylor, were concerned that many working people would be excluded because the hearing was scheduled to end at 6pm. The two arranged to hold informal sessions until 9pm to allow people to voice their opinion, then notified Joint Finance co-chairs Rep. Robin Vos (R-Burlington) and Sen. Alberta Darling (R- River Falls) about their plans.
Sen. Darling reportedly approved the Grigsby-Taylor informal hearing and Rep. Vos “said he would think about it.” However, Taylor soon received notice from State Fair Park that Vos had reserved the facility until midnight, meaning the Dems’ hearing could not take place, and Milwaukee’s working population could not have their voices heard.
According to Taylor, “This isn’t open government. This is not democracy. This is shameful.”
Beer City Blockage the Latest in a Series
Vos and Darling were unabashed about their intention to suppress opposition, with Darling telling the Journal-Sentinel “we had to take precautions so that what happened at the Capitol wouldn’t happen at State Fair Park.”
“The hearings are going to be done when we say they’re done,” Vos said.
This is only the latest in a series of Wisconsin GOP efforts to limit scrutiny and stifle dissent. On February 11, Governor Walker sought to limit deliberation on his budget repair bill by introducing it on a Friday and ordering a vote on a Tuesday (Senate Democrats thwarted these plans by leaving the state). The Walker Administration violated the constitutionally-guaranteed right of public access to the state capitol in late February, and a judge ordered it re-opened; the administration violated that order in March and a hearing on that violation is pending. On March 11, Republicans forced the union-busting budget repair bill through the Senate with minimal notice, breaking state Open Meetings laws and possibly violating the constitution’s public access guarantees.
Hearing Limits Input from Milwaukee’s Particularly-Affected Populations of Color
This latest step towards suppression is especially egregious considering Milwaukee is not only the state’s largest city, but has the most people of color, a population that will be particularly affected by Walker’s budget and budget repair bill. The plans eliminate funding for a new program to track and remedy racial profiling (the first step towards confronting Wisconsin’s atrocious record of racial disparities in incarceration); will limit eligibility for medical assistance; kicks legal immigrants off food assistance; and eliminates funding for a program that provided civil legal services to low income residents. Walker is also expected to cut $300 million from Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), severely limiting education quality for the district teaching the greatest number of students (and students of color) in the state.
With Republican legislators keeping the Milwaukee hearing short, only speakers who signed up before 12:30pm had their voices heard. Hundreds of people were denied the ability to speak, and as the hearing ended at 6:30pm, there were shouts of “let us speak” and the now-familiar “shame” directed at those lawmakers.
Howard Fuller Heard on Education
While many Milwaukee residents were not heard on Monday, at least one prominent voice spoke strongly against Walker’s plans for Milwaukee schools.
In addition to cutting $300 million from Milwaukee’s public schools (and eliminating teacher’s unions), Walker’s budget reinforces existing inequalities by expanding the “school choice” program, which allows students to opt-out of public schools and use a taxpayer-funded voucher for private school tuition. The voucher program has been criticized not only because it directs money away from public schools, but because private schools can pick-and-choose their students, often selecting those who come from an advantaged background and leaving the rest to suffer in under-funded public schools.
Milwaukee became the country’s first publicly-funded school voucher program in 1990, and it grew under the tenure of MPS Superintendent Howard Fuller. He currently directs an institute at Marquette University that authorizes schools trying to get into Milwaukee’s choice program. Howard has collaborated with Republican lawmakers in the past, many of whom support so-called “school choice” out of belief in free market principles of competition and privatization. While many on the left fear defunding public education, some urban advocates like Fuller have supported vouchers to give promising low-income students a better chance at long-term success by providing education options that would not otherwise be available.
But Fuller, who is now regarded as the nation’s most influential African-American spokesman for “school choice,” strongly criticized Walker’s plans to remove income eligibility caps for the private school voucher program. “Please don’t make it true that you were using the poor just to eventually make this available to the rich,” Fuller said. “If [lifting income eligibility] is done, I will become an opponent of this.”
“I never got into this to give someone like me $6,500 to send their kid to Marquette High School (tuition $15,000 per year). . . This is where I get off the train, I’m not going to go anywhere in America and fight for a program that subsidizes rich people.”
By: Brenda Fischer, Center for Media and Democracy, April 12, 2011
April 13, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Class Warfare, Democracy, Economy, Education, Government, Governors, Health Care, Ideology, Immigrants, Jobs, Labor, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Teachers, Uncategorized, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Grigsby Taylor Hearing, Howard Fuller, Joint Finance Committee, Legal Services, Marquette High School, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Public Access, Racial Profiling, Rep Robin Vos, School Choice, School Vouchers, Sen Alberta Darling, State Fair Park, Wealthy, Wisconsin Budget, Workers |
Leave a comment
Partisans on both sides were ready to scream “fraud at polls” as the balloting wound down in Wisconsin in the recent state Supreme Court election.
Normally, the race would have been a snoozer. Incumbent Justice David Prosser, a former GOP state assembly speaker and failed congressional candidate, won 55 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting. His opponent, an ultra-liberal named Jo Anne Kloppenburg, ran a distant second. But that was before Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed and won enactment of a series of reforms that change the rules for state government workers in a way that limited their collective bargaining power.
After that, the election was presented as a referendum on Walker’s reforms, one the unions opposed strongly, going so far as to occupy the state capitol building in an effort to block the legislature from doing its business.
Since the court will inevitably rule on the legality of Walker’s reforms, a victory by Kloppenburg would have been a major setback for the new governor since it would have shifted the 4-3 majority on the seven-member Supreme Court from 4-3 conservative to 4-3 liberal.
The morning after the election, the Associated Press was reporting Kloppenburg ahead by just over 200 votes, enough for her to declare victory, even though the margin was close enough to trigger an automatic recount. The GOP was concerned because the heavy presence of pro-union activists in the state from around the country may have been able to take advantage of weaknesses in the state’s election code to unfairly, perhaps even illegally, influence the election.
The GOP was ready to question the validity of the outcome when a reporting error in heavily-GOP Waukesha County was discovered that gave Prosser a lead of more than 7,000 votes.
Now it was the Democrats‘ turn to cry, “Foul!” and to raise the specter of vote fraud.
Both parties are right to be concerned. Elections in Wisconsin are a messy business, particularly because the state allows same-day registration on Election Day, and because of something known as “vouching,” in which voters who can prove who they are can attest to the identity of others seeking to vote.
Something needs to be done. It’s time for a bipartisan effort to look at the entire election. As the Wall Street Journal‘s John Fund wrote recently, “An independent investigation is called for, if for no other reason than to clear the air and to recommend procedures to ensure such errors don’t happen again. Just as many Wisconsin officials have ignored or downplayed evidence of vote fraud (see the Milwaukee Police Department’s 2008 detailed investigation) so too have sloppy election procedures been allowed to fester in some counties.”
He’s right. Too many people choose to look the other way when the issue of voter fraud is raised, especially if their party is the one that benefits. Elections are too important to not take these allegations seriously. Wisconsin has the reputation for being a “good government state.” If they want to keep it, Governor Walker should appoint an independent panel to review the election and use it as the basis for a set of electoral reforms that could be a model for the nation.
By: Peter Roff, U.S. News and World Report, April 11, 2011
April 12, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Democracy, Elections, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Union Busting, Unions, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | David Prosser, Election Reform, Jo Anne Kloppenburg, Partisans, Voter Fraud, Vouching, Wall Street Journal, Waukesha County, Wisconsin Legislature, Wisconsin Supreme Court |
Leave a comment
While Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan prepares to shut down the federal government to prove that government is bad, analysts say the radical agenda of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suffered a major set back today as his good friend incumbent Justice David Prosser was defeated for Wisconsin Supreme Court. The AP unofficial vote count, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting, puts challenger Joanne Kloppenburg ahead by slightly more than 200. A recount is doubtless on the way.
In a state that has never unseated a conservative Supreme Court justice, people power fueled a concentrated effort to deny the Imperial Walker one branch of government. Walker’s opponents hope a Kloppenburg victory will swing the Supreme Court in a more independent direction and set the stage for the court to strike down Walker’s controversial collective bargaining law. While the fate of the law is uncertain, Kloppenburg’s three week sprint from dead-in-the-water to victor may give Walker, Ryan and other Wisconsin politicians pause as they rush to radically reshape government to benefit the privatizers and profiteers.
Sleepy Court Race Electrifies the State
While it may seem odd to many Americans, Wisconsinites like to elect their judges. Although an elected judiciary has its problems (namely, unseemly high-dollar elections), the ballot box sometimes hands citizens a rare opportunity to un-elect judges — and that is what many Wisconsinites decided to do today. Prosser, a former Republican Assembly Speaker, stumbled when his campaign embraced Walker’s election.
The Kloppenburg victory is stunning. Six weeks ago, sitting Judge David Prosser was a shoo-in and the challenge by Assistant Attorney General Kloppenburg was a snooze fest. But something happened on the way to the high court. A governor, who was elected to create jobs, took office and quickly moved to disenfranchise voters and kneecap unions so they could no longer be a viable force in state elections. The raw power grab sparked a spontaneous uprising, the likes of which this state has never seen, and the Supreme Court race was the next vehicle for people to have their voices heard.
Proxy Fight Over Worker Rights
The whole country took notice when firefighters, teachers and cops stood with working families across Wisconsin to say ‘no’ to Walker’s radical plans to bust unions, cut $1 billion from schools and privatize the university system.
When his “budget repair bill” was passed March 9th, many national observers thought the fight was over. With large margins in both houses, Walker’s stranglehold on government seemed invincible.
But irate Wisconsinites fought back on multiple fronts, filing lawsuits over the way in which Senate leaders rammed the bill through with less than the requisite notice required under the state open meetings law, blocking the bill’s implementation. They filed recall petitions against eight Wisconsin senators and this week delivered the requisite signatures for two of those recalls well ahead of schedule. They turned their attention to the heretofor unnoticed race for Wisconsin Supreme Court. Within days, handmade signs for Joanne Kloppenburg popped up across the state. Many voters understood that to win any of the battles ahead over worker rights, over the recalls, over redistricting and more, a more balanced judiciary was needed.
Kloppenburg went from being a long-shot to victory in a three-week sprint marked by huge independent expenditures on both sides. The anticipated recount will keep the juices flowing and will fuel the remaining recall fights.
Shock Doctrine at Work
While some voters believe the court will act as a check and balance on the madness at the state level, they are concerned that Paul Ryan continues to run amok at the federal level — threatening a complete government shut down. At the same time that Walker was working to obliterate unions and privatize public schools, Ryan, Chair of the House Budget Committee, decided to go after Grandma with the complete privatization of Medicare. His radical budget bill, unveiled this week, slashes trillions of dollars from America’s social safety net and throws the elderly into the private insurance market with a “voucher” in their pocket.
Less interested in balancing the budget than redistributing wealth, his budget plan would funnel billions into the pockets of big insurance firms while also giving a ten percent tax break to corporations and the very richest Americans.
What is really going on here? Naomi Klein warned in her groundbreaking book “Shock Doctrine” that the right-wing excels at creating crises, real and imagined, to viciously advance their pro-corporate anti-government agenda. She credits economist Milton Friedman who observed that “only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real changes. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is out basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.”
UW Professor Joel Rogers wrote recently: “As explained by Grover Norquist and Karl Rove, this project aims at national repeal of most of democratic achievements of the 20th century, a return to business domination of public life not seen since the Gilded Age and McKinley.”
The Wall Street financial crisis caused by years of deregulation and lack of government oversight cost Americans eight million jobs, tanking federal and state tax receipts and creating budget shortfalls. Ryan and Walker are moving to take advantage this real jobs crisis to cook up a fake deficit crisis to advance a radical agenda that is hostile to the very idea of government – the idea that sometimes services are best provided and things are best accomplished collectively, for the public good, and not for corporate profit.
Today, many voters believe that this agenda was checked in Wisconsin. While another recount battle looms, voters of Wisconsin are pledging that they will not allow this victory to be stolen.
By: Mary Bottari, Center For Media And Democracy, April 6, 2011
April 6, 2011
Posted by raemd95 |
Banks, Collective Bargaining, Corporations, Debt Crisis, Deficits, Democracy, Economy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government Shut Down, Labor, Medicare, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Rep Paul Ryan, Republicans, Right Wing, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | Activism, Joanne Kloppenburg, Justice David Prosser, Karl Rove, Private Insurance, Privitization, Social Justice, Vochers, Wall Street, Wisconsin Senate |
Leave a comment
Unknown Feed
mykeystrokes.com 