I was putting together a rather mean-spirited and mocking post on a somewhat related subject (then I remembered that it’s Christmas, and that the ROI would probably suck anyway), when this thought occurred to me: we can stop pretending that opposition to Walker’s and Wisconsin Republicans’ collective bargaining reform policies was anything except a distinctly minority opinion, right? Possibly even fringe? – I mean, the Wisconsin electorate had three opportunities – four, if you count that Supreme Court election separately – to retract the legislature’s reforms, and at the end of it all the Wisconsin electorate pretty much shrugged.
And that includes the 2012 general election: after all, the same electorate in that state that returned Barack Obama to office “punished” the Wisconsin GOP by… putting them back in charge of the state Senate. I can only conclude that they’re generally fine with their tax money being saved like that.
That’s it. Just a random thought.
Moe Lane
RT @moelane: #rsrh A thought on Wisconsin and collective bargaining reform.: http://t.co/jhU4zOGm
Just a reminder, Walker’s gov. union reforms are currently suspended pending an expected WISC reversal of another Dane county judge’s ruling. WI also has another SC election coming up shortly, and it’s one of the conservatives. The unions will make a play to unseat him.
It’s like it’s 2011 all over again.
Sadly, I see this as a repeatable gambit in WI. Dane County judge invalidates union reform law, just before union contracts come due, so those unions can re-up their contracts. If WISC is in conservative hands, the law gets reinstated but the union contracts are locked in for another few years, if not the whole law goes away.
We really need another conservative or two on the WISC as a buffer and particularly the Chief Justice seat so the law can be reinstated quickly. (Chief Justice gets to set the calender for the court)
Even Tom Barrett admitted the GOP changes work .. the Dems can’t say they didn’t.
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This is also bleeding the unions .. over time they will become less able to mount serious challenges. We don’t have to fight 2011 over and over ad infinitum.
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Further, *MICHIGAN* seems poised to shiv the UAW et al but good .. further cutting off the oxygen for the unions.
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Mew
The beauty of this gambit is that, since it’s entirely in the hands of the Dane County court and the leftys in Dane who elect the judges who will keep knocking it down, the public is not involved. The gov unions will get to stay on life support until the Dems can retake the state gov or the supreme court.
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Any non lefty judge appointed to a vacancy in Dane will just get replaced in the next election with or without union help. It’s Dane county man.
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Do you think that any lefty in WI gives a flying fig what Tom Barrett thinks or says? He’s the guy who lost to Walker twice. He got slapped in the face by one of his supporters for conceding “too early”.
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The Dems “can’t say they didn’t” work? They can say any old thing they want. Particularly if the economy of WI takes a turn for the worse. Walkers reforms will be blamed for anything and everything bad that happens from this day forward. Listen to what the Left says about the 1980’s or what the Left says about the 1920’s. Everything that was good about the governance of those eras is vilified by them.
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My point isn’t to discourage or be a doomsayer. It’s to point out that we need to continue to fight and to be aware how the left will try to undo our victories.
And my point is that we won’t have to fight it indefinitely .. at some point, they will accept that they’ve lost *this* battle (or, more accurately, they will be distracted by the next shiny battle) and we can move on.
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This is a rearguard holding action. Michigan is now the front lines.
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As for Dane County judges, once they get slapped upside the head a few times, publicly, they’ll shut up. Judges are the most arrogant pricks on the planet, shame works *very* well on them.
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Mew
I don’t share your optimism on what leftys will do. They have zero reason to accept a loss when they have a weapon to effectively fight back with. They view that law as a temporary inconvenience, or rather a temporary insult. They invented reasons to strike it twice now. I see little reason they won’t continue to in the future anytime an important union contract is set to expire. It will probably become an election promise required to win judicial elections inside Dane Co.
MI is most certainly the front line, but all I’m saying is that the WI reforms are not locked down and can be circumvented for long enough to keep the gov unions alive until the Dems regain power.