Silly, silly, cabal. Never knows when to stop. Good luck to them. It’s just a matter of time before they’re sent packing. We will hang out our laundry on your FEMA camps and deep underground military bunkers (DUMBs, down there). Thanks to Casey.
UPDATE: #Wisconsin GOP passes union-stripping bill
By Laura Conaway, Maddow Blog, March 9, 2011
https://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/09/6229962-update-wisconsin-gop-passes-union-stripping-bill
Wed Mar 9, 2011
“We are peaceful let us in”
UPDATE @7:32 EASTERN: NBC News reports that the Wisconsin Senate has passed a bill stripping unionized state workers of collective bargaining rights without any Democrats present. It went 18-1 — Republican Senator Dale Schultz was the lone nay. The Assembly looks likely to vote tomorrow morning. Democrats say the rushed proceedings violate the state’s open meetings law and that they’ll be asking the State Attorney General to intervene.
Previously: Potentially big news in Wisconsin just now. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Republican Senators have moved Governor Walker’s budget-repair bill to a joint committee. That committee can then rework the bill and send it back to the House and Senate for a vote. From the Journal-Sentinel:
What changes would be made remains unclear, but Democrats said they had not been consulted on them. They raised concerns that Republicans would take out all the spending in the bill and leave only the changes to collective bargaining.
To pass spending measures, 20 senators must be present, but Republicans hold just 19 seats. But Republicans would not need any Democrats to be present to pass the collective bargaining changes as a standalone bill.
That squares with what we’re hearing, too — that Republicans are splitting Governor Walker’s bill into two parts. They can vote by themselves, without a budget quorum, on anything that’s not fiscally related. Since the union-busting is not about the budget (as we’ve been saying throughout the standoff), they could vote on that without the Democrats present.
A Republican source in Madison tells NBC’s Mike Taibbi that Senate Republicans could vote on the provisions to strip collective bargaining rights as soon as tonight. Mr. Taibbi reports that the source is furious because a compromise with Democrats had nearly been in place. Another report, on WisPolitics, makes it sound like today’s development happened in a hurry.