Posted on 03/19/2011 10:21:46 AM PDT by bigbob
Senate Rule 93 says that when the Legislature is in special session, "A notice of a committee meeting is not required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board."
That's the rule Republican leaders are citing in their contention that one of the votes leading up to passage of Gov. Scott Walker's controversial anti-union bill was legal.
One ironic footnote: The rule was written in 1983 by two of the Democratic senators who left Wisconsin last month to avoid voting on the bill, Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville, and Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison.
The two were among 14 senators who fled to Illinois to slow down the bill, which Walker and Republican leaders were fast-tracking through the Legislature.
Cullen said he didn't recall authoring the rule 28 years ago. But, through happenstance, Cullen said he's never criticized the lack of notice for the March 9 meeting of the joint conference committee.
But he remains critical of the speed with which the Legislature sought to pass the measure, which eliminates most collective bargaining rights from 175,000 state and local workers. And he believes the Republican leaders abused the mechanism of the conference committee.
"Conference committees are intended to work out significant differences between the houses," he said. "This may have been the fastest conference committee in history. As far as I can tell, they didn't work out any differences - they just voted."
And Risser said he didn't remember the specific 1983 rule, but questioned its relevance.
"The decision was based on the state open meetings law," he said.
The rule that the Republican majority in the Wisconsin Senate relied on was written by two of the Fleebaggers! Of course when you've been in the same political office longer than many of your constituents have been alive, it's no wonder you get a little feeble-minded.
If a county judge has the power to overrule the actions of the State Senate, then maybe we should turn to a high school student senate to overturn the judge's decision. Makes about as much sense...
the fact that it was written in 1983 by two guys who are STILL in the legislature speaks to an entirely different (though related) problem. Geez, that was nearly 30 years ago.
My thought was the same...sweet
Are we certain that this was a special session? If so, why was it a special and not a regular session?
Yes, when the DemocRats are in power, they enact rules to wield supreme power, but when Repubs take of the reigns and use these same rules, somehow that's abusive.
Look up "hypocrite" in the dictionary and tell me there's not an illustration of a democrat.
THAT was MY thought too....there’s part of the PROBLEM...perpetual politicians.
“Conference committees are intended to work out significant differences between the houses,” he said. “This may have been the fastest conference committee in history. As far as I can tell, they didn’t work out any differences - they just voted.”
Doh! That’s because there WERE no differences once the Dems absconded. Everyone was lined up to vote on this up or down and all the ‘down’ votes had fled town. Is he a dummy in real life too?
Lesson: When the rats are away, the elephants will play.
To be fair, Tim Cullen was out of the Senate for some time and only recently decided to run for office again. Risser, however, was standing on the corner of Main and Bedford and they built the Capitol building around him.
The problem in WI is that Madison is located in the most liberal county (Dane) in America. Apparently, one must use the Dane County courts first, which leads to bogus decisions like the one from Sumi yesterday.
The last thing that scummy Jim Doyle did to Wisconsin right before he left office, was to get a bunch of older liberal judges to retire early so he could appoint a bunch of liberal cronies to their positions. The thought being that they would run in April of 2011 with (inc) after their names. Voters have the chance to sweep these ghouls out of office on April 5.
On an important related note: Wisconsin voters must go to the polls on April 5 and make sure that David Prosser gets re-elected to the WI Supreme Court to retain the 4-3 conservative balance. The unions are targeting him for defeat so that they can undo everything that Scott Walker and the Republicans pass in the way of legislation. Democrat judges have no conscience, as we have seen with the Sumi decision.
A good point about the Supreme Court - Prosser’s re-election will really be about the first litmus test of true WI public sentiment, won’t it? (As opposed to moonbats-on-Capitol-Square sentiment)
Yes, bigbob, you are right on that. Make sure you tell all your friends and relatives (of right mind) to get out and vote for Prosser.
Join the “buy-cotts” if you can. The union thugs need to know we are pushing back.
If the best WI can do is 140,000 against 5,000,000 they had better rethink the math. (they are teachers after all)
It was in special session. That was the point.
Oooops...
Will do - I know several who are buying all their gas at Quik Trip from now on. and telling them why.
And for the record, Fred Risser (FLEE-Madistan) is 83 years old, and has held the same seat in the WI State Senate since 1962. Plus, he was in the State Assembly for 5 years before that.
He’s been a democrat state politician since the year “Perry Mason” debuted on TV and Sputnik was launched.
They tried hard to stack the judicial primary and, in an election that usually flies under the radar, Prosser won a place with every other candidate being a prog.
I’d say our ground game was great, then. Hope it continues now that the progs have their drawers in a knot.
Drudge Freep!
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