The Badger Awakens, Part 9

While our pundit class is too busy trying to call the winners and losers of last night's GOP Clown Car Nationals race, over at Balloon Juice Kay has the story of how Wisconsin Republicans have decided that the lower court injunction against Scott Walker's union-busting bill doesn't actually apply to them because they don't want it to, so they're going to stick it in the budget anyway.

Assembly Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said at a press conference Monday that Assembly Republicans will put the collective bargaining bill back in the budget as an amendment by calling an extraordinary session if the State Supreme Court doesn't act before Tuesday afternoon. The bill would strip most collective bargaining rights from public workers.

“If need be, we are going to have to pass collective bargaining again because it is such an integral part of not having those services slashed and those people laid off,” Fitzgerald said.

During a normal legislative session, lawmakers must provide a 24-hour window between the time one house amends a bill, and the other takes it up. The only way this rule doesn't apply is if members bypass this rule by a two-thirds vote.

When in extraordinary session, an amended bill can move directly from one house to the other, bypassing the 24-hour waiting period.

That means if the Assembly does add the collective bargaining bill to the budget Tuesday, the budget bill would move immediately to the Senate.

Nothing like this has ever happened before in Wisconsin state legislative history, and the state's Republicans clearly don't give a good god damn about the rules, about transparency, or accountability when it comes to doing the bidding of their corporate masters who have bought and paid for every single one of them to destroy unions in the state. 

Wisconsin Republicans are willing to literally go to the most extraordinary lengths possible in order to bust the state's unions and end collective bargaining.  Checks and balances?  That's for Democrats.  Republicans make their own rules.  Literally.

Ahh, but that all became a moot point today as the Wisconsin Supreme Court indeed handed down their ruling in favor of the GOP.

Wisconsin's Republican governor has won a major victory: the state Supreme Court says his polarizing union rights law can go into effect.

Gov. Scott Walker pushed the law that eliminates most of public employees' collective bargaining rights and forces them to pay more for their health and pension benefits. He says it's needed for the state to address its budget problems.

The law passed in March after weeks of protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the state Capitol. But the law has been tied up in the courts since a Democrat filed a lawsuit accusing Republicans of violating the state open meetings law during the run-up to passage.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said the judge had no authority to interfere with the legislative process.

And so collective bargaining dies a slow death in Wisconsin, and will be executed in other states as well.  After all, workers without the ability to resist their employers ultimately become whatever their employers want of them.

Remember this when Republican legislators come after your line of work.