Posted on 03/03/2011 12:10:24 PM PST by bigbob
Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Waunakee, steps off the elevator to his latest hideout, a downtown Chicago hotel room he found for eighty bucks a night on Priceline.com.
He steps into the hotel’s lime-green and gold lobby and makes a beeline for the free coffee and Kleenex. “I gotta blow my nose,” he says, and blows.
Life on the run hasn’t been exactly glamorous for Erpenbach and the 13 other Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin Feb. 17 to prevent a vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill. Their strategy relies on Senate rules that require a quorum of 20 legislators to vote on bills with a fiscal impact.
It’s been an exhausting rush from hotel to hotel — with tea party activists sometimes in mad pursuit — and a blur of phone calls and e-mails as senators struggle to stay on top of breaking developments back home, where throngs of protesters have occupied the State Capitol for about as long as the senators have been driving around Illinois.
(Excerpt) Read more at host.madison.com ...
As one blogger noted with LOL cleverness:
"The Badger 14: FLEEING THE FUTURE!"
“a downtown Chicago hotel room he found for eighty bucks a night”
Such thrift!
WI taxpayers are getting screwed again by this bunch of cowards as the bills for their time on the lam will come back to the state or the union, which are supported by WI taxpayers. They should be docked pay, rather than fined $100 a day. The union will pick up the tab for that and eventually Soros will contribute to their cause if he hasn’t already.
Want a great example of MSM bias?
The whole piece is a glorification/martyr piece on teh 14 fleebagger democrat senators. The press is sympatico.
Contrast how they interview and ask questions of Walker.
Contrast this to how they would be framing the 14 senators if the democrats were in power and the fleeing senators were republicans. Can you say “law-breakers, obstructionists, sore losers, contemptuous, breaking their oaths of office, etc”.
The difference is republicans do not flee when they are in the minority to prevent votes from occurring. It’s not in their nature. They aren’t by nature, cowards. Fleeing and not doing your job, isn’t considered a virtue. The press covers it that way though, for democrats who do this.
Now why does that not surprise me???
Wouldn't that be fun.
Such hypocracy. Risser says the tea partiers get in his face. I guess he hasn’t seen his colleague telling a woman she’s f....ing dead. Nor has he seen the union thugs and their signs.
Liberals cannot see just how stupid they make themselves look.
I’ve seen your idea a couple of times in different forms for the past several days and have wondered why I havent seen more mention of that idea. One alternative I thought was neat was why dont they legislate that after a certain number of days, the seat would be considered abandoned, and the Governor could appoint replacements and/or hold special elections.
Soros will contribute to their cause if he hasn’t already.
I’m certain he has. Soros has a pony in the race. America is the only country that stands between him and one world government. IMHO.
“He wants us to debate something that he says is not negotiable,” he says. “That’s not a democracy.”
Yes it is. In this democracy, we held elections just 4 months ago, and you lost! So now you are in a significant minority, and this is how the majority wants to go.
I still say Walker should offer them a compromise, put it in writing, whatever. Once they Democrats return to the Senate, lock the doors and vote on the original bill, stripping the collective bargaining. Compromise? Did we say we were going to compromise? Sorry.
Erpanbach gave an interview the other day and said that he was bing supported by HIS PARENTS! Good Grief! This guy is 49 years old. Such embarrassment, being on the dole from mommy and daddy.
We are a Republic, you disengenuous fool.
Okay, Walker can be non-negotiable, and so can this 'rat clown. They can still debate it... that's part of democracy. And then vote, that's democracy too. In a republic, that is.
This clown scrounges for an $80/night room, all the while his minions ring up $7.5 million in damages to the Capitol (that's $536,000 for each of the fleeing 'rats) and $165 million in additional WI taxpayer costs due to running the clock on a vote (that's $11,786,000 for each of the fleeing 'rats). Penalty to this clown: $100 per day.
I wish I had a job where, if I didn’t like how things were going, I could just run away and still get paid, and get treated like a celebrity.
Actually, I don’t, because it would suck to have a job that was so useless to society that people were happy when you didn’t do it.
That’s a democratic politician for you.
Unfreakinbelievable! NO - you haven't set a precedent on how to deal with a disagreement! You're acting like typical spoiled 2 year olds....that's exactly how spoiled liberals/socialists/progressives act!
These 14 people have no idea how to act like an adult and how to properly deal with a disagreement! Proof, yet again, that liberalism is a mental disease.
Since a slider hamburger generally has about 250 calories, he better watch out for Michelle Obama. If I ate 5 hamburgers for dinner, I wouldn't brag about it.
Others have abandoned their young children. Sorry kids, your parents have to get that union campaign cash.
They just ordered the arrest of the fleebaggers. They have to be in WI though:
“Senate Republicans Thursday ordered the arrest of their 14 Democratic colleagues, who fled the state two weeks ago to avoid a vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial budget repair bill.
It’s unclear whether the resolution to force the senators back to the Capitol is constitutional. The state Constitution prohibits the arrest of legislators while in session unless they’re suspected of committing felonies, treason or breach of the peace.
Democrats say the Republicans are overreaching, and have consulted an attorney for an opinion on whether the GOP actions are legal.
“The Republicans have gone around the bend,” said Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee. “They’ve just increased their bullying tactics and are producing an even greater divide in our state.”
James Troupis, a private attorney hired by Fitzgerald, contended Thursday that the move is legal. He cited a portion of the state Constitution that provides that each house “may compel the attendance of absent members.”
Meanwhile, the governor said he remains optimisic the 14 lawmakers will return soon.
“My hope is we can figure out a way to help the state senators come back on their own,” Walker said.
Republicans voted unanimously to give the Democrats until 4 p.m. Thursday to appear before the Senate. The 14 Democrats are believed to be in Illinois. If the senators do not return by the deadline, the Senate agreed to find them “in contempt and disorderly behavior,” according to the resolution.
“They have pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis,” Fitzgerald said.
The Senate resolution calls for the Senate sergeant at arms to “with or without force,” and with or without the help of any law enforcement officers, take missing members into custody and bring them to the Capitol — any time of the day or night.
Longtime Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, said it was “below the dignity of the state Senate to be spending its time passing such resolutions.”
He said none of the 14 senators is in Wisconsin, and none plans to be in the Senate chamber by 4 p.m.
Thursday’s move was made in concert with a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Oconto County Republican Party Chairman Kevin Barthel to compel Sen. Jim Holperin, D-Conover, to return to the Senate,
Barthel, who also was represented by Troupis, said in a statement that he filed the action as an individual resident of Holperin’s Senate district.
“In my neck of the woods ... folks fortunate enough to have jobs do them every day following the rules of employment. If not, they quit or get fired,” Barthel said.
Oconto County Circuit Court Judge Jay Conley ruled in favor of Barthel, finding that Holperin was failing to carry out his duty to attend Senate sessions.
However, the judge stated that only the Senate had the right to enforce the attendance rule under the Constitution.
Under the resolution adopted Thursday, the senators may only be taken into custody if they return to Wisconsin, Fitzgerald said. The resolution does not call for their extradition from another state.
Some police — many of whom have marched alongside protesters against Walker’s plan to effectively end collective bargaining for public workers — have already objected to the arrest resolution. Jim Palmer, head of the 11,000 member Wisconsin Professional Police Association, called it an “unreasonable abuse of police power.”
“Due to the fact that Wisconsin officers lack any jurisdiction across state lines, does Sen. Fitzgerald intend to establish a lawmaker border patrol?” Palmer said. “The thought of using law enforcement officer to exercise force in order to achieve a political objective is insanely wrong and Wisconsin sorely needs reasonable solutions and not potentially dangerous political theatrics.”
— State Journal reporter Clay Barbour contributed to this report. “”
I think that is abundantly clear, and makes the rest of the article's speculation otherwise to be both absurd and shoddy. BTW, they didn't actually issue "arrest" warrants, they issued warrants for custody -- I'm certain if they were captured, the result would be to have them returned by force to the chamber.
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