The Wisconsin Senate has passed a resolution calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a union rights bill, the Associated Press reports.
The resolution says the absent Democrats are determined to be guilty of contempt and disorderly content.
It gives the sergeant at arms the authority to take any and all steps, with or without force and assistance from police, to bring the senators back, the AP says.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says today’s action is legally different from an arrest, but “definitely a shift from asking them politely.”
The vote comes two weeks after the Democrats left the state to delay a vote on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal taking away most collective bargaining rights from public workers.
(Source: USA Today)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
15 Responses
Its about time! They shouldn’t be paid for the time spent on their shenanigans and they should pay for their expenses.
just trying to understand! does this mean that now they could be bought back from out of wisconsin with force?
For anyone who had any doubts, it is now clear that the Democrat Party has become nothing more thn a gang of thugs.
Being a legislator involves judgment about representing your constituents. If advancing their constituents’ interests includes a parliamentary trick like staying out of state to deprive the majority party of a quorum, the legislators should not be subject to arrest on the order of the majority of legislators, especially when the arrest is ordered pursuant to a resolution that was enacted in the absence of a quorum.
No. 1’s point – that legislators who are boycotting a legislature to deprive the majority of a quorum and the authority to enact a law that the absent legislators, or their constituents, oppose are not doing their jobs and therefore should not be paid – is therefore illogical and unsound.
No. 3’s point, that a quorum-depriving boycott is thuggish, makes even less sense. If anything, the majority of the Wisconsin senate is proposing thuggery – dressed in state police uniforms – to break this deadlock.
Boycotts and quorum-depriving tricks are part of the legislative process – not the noblest part, admittedly. There is apparently no provision in the Wisconsin constitution or statutes that addresses the situation where a quorum cannot be mustered because a minority fears what a majority would do if it had a quorum. Quorum tricks are a regular – but not frequently used – fact of corporate governance. I do not know how to break this logjam, but a majority resolution calling for the arrest of the minority is not the way to go.
3, Actually as you could see, they are an extension of Union leadership where rank & file has little say where the money should go. That’s one of the sticking points here where WI wants to allow teachers NOT to join the union. Less money to leadership means less power at the top. Follow the cash!!
Back in the 1980s, Republicans left the US Senate to prevent a quorum. Then majority leader Robert Byrd sent the Senate Sergeant At Arms out to arrest them.
No prominent conservative complained about the Republican tactics back then.
No. 6: Are you saying that Nos. 1 and 3 are prominent conservatives?
Charliehall, are you saying 2 wrongs make a right???
6, And in the 40s the DemocRATS tried this when it came to a civil rights bill. Gee how shocking.
It looks like Wisconsin is going the way of Germany in the 1930’s. What’s next elimination of all political opp[osition and the opening of concentration camps?
A little about the actual issue at hand: Unions are democratic and should exist but hold an advantage that offsets the balance of power needed in a democracy. Unfortunately many a time they push and get short-term goals that have negative impacts on their company’s competitiveness, their industry’s welfare, and in the long run themselves. We have seen this all too many times. Look at the auto industry. The unions cut back their demands eventually but only when the entire auto industry was on the brink of extinction. The legislation being enacted by the Republicans needs to focus more on leveling the playing field than taking their voice out of it. The current system though, is a hindrance to our economy’s competitiveness in the global economy and we continue to fall more and more behind. Something needs to be done…and fast.
This is absurd. Taking away bargaining rights is unAmerican and they, too, could have been arrested.
Grow up!
No. 9: Are you saying, by your violation of ordinary English-language conventions of capitalization, that the majority party of the United States, are rats? I think you are unduly pessimistic about Democrats. Approximately 75% of Jews call themselves Democrats. Are you saying they are rats? And is it loshon hora to call someone a rat? Ask a rov.
#13, please dont expect everyone to make the same painstaking effort in typing, as you do, anymore than you will make a painstaking effort to be more pleasant, as otherd do.
Emails, commenting on blogs, text messages, sociologically speaking, are notorious for typos which are not an accurate reflection of one’s true ability at being literate. It’s a cheap shot to point that out. Shows little integrity at all.
#4, your own faulty reasoning still does not hold up to your own “tricks”. And as you say, certainly not noble, but you are entitled to it.
Fundamentally, you are twisting the context of No. 1’s post, which, in fact (lol), is a sound and valid point of view. Meaning, if it is interpreted by an individual that the Democrats are participating in shenanigans, and, therefore, should not be paid, such a view is, indeed, sound a logical. You are wrong – faulty reasoning.
Additionally, one would have a valid point to question you by asking you to clarify your misinterpretation of No. 1’s point when you maligned their point by saying, “legislators who are boycotting the legislature..” Cannot legislators and the legislature be perceived as one and the same? Is there a legislature without legislators?
Number 1’s point is more effective as it is not clothed in baroque and ornate pomp and circumstance.