no, I actually think that the right are far more “fuck you and the horse you rode in on - this is what I believe and I don’t give a fuck what you think” than the left, who will try absolutely anything, including engaging in rank stupidity, to couch their beliefs in terms of objective propriety.
(when I say right and left, I mean as it applies in this country. I’m not going to accuse, for example, FARC, of caring too much about appearing to be right)
Why do you suppose there is a rule requiring a quorum in the first place? If it is so damn subversive, why give the minority that power at all? Why not just pass laws with whoever shows up?
The answer, of course, is it is pretty much the same as why both parties want to keep the filibuster. Democrats and Republicans both want the option to deny a quorum as a last resort when untenable legislation is on the verge of passing. When either party is in power, they could get rid of the quorum rule just as easily as the filibuster rule, but they don’t. It is for purely political reasons; they know that some day, they will be in the minority, and they want a last resort. Both parties want it, because both parties use it.
But, by all means, join the party that wants to keep the quorum rule.
The case is offered here that the Dems refusal to “go along” is abrogating the will of the people, as manifest in election. True enough, the people should have known what they were getting. Mr Walker’s campaign was pretty standard Pubbie with a distinct hint of tea. The voters should have expected the sort of fiscal voodoo that they do so well, or at least, consistently. They should have expected social program budgets to be viewed with horror, and corporate interests to be warmly and generously nurtured.
But show me where he campaigned on disempowering the unions? Show me where he said “What I’m going to do is, I’m going to use legislative power to undermine my political opponents, I will use the power of the office to maintain my party’s grip on those offices.”
He had no mandate for that, he kept that part of his agenda hidden until he figured he would get away with it. So blocking the “will of the people” doesn’t enter into it, the people did not make an informed decision on this issue. Does anyone seriously imagine that Walker could have won if he ran on union-busting?
We have procedures painfully evolved to make the will of the people manifest. And surely, we should respect those procedures. But those procedures are not the thing itself, they are only a reflection of a deeper truth, the will of the people. And if the people are deliberately ill-informed, then there is no such deeper truth to reflect, the procedures lose all value, and are nothing but smoke and mirrors.
I’ll just flat out disagree. Quorum, in its purest form, is a pro-democratic notion that pays, at a bare minimum, lip service to the notion that debate and discourse can shape and affect policy. (fillibuster, IMHO, is the consequence of taking that too far.) The entire point of quorum is to insist that a sufficient number of decision makers be present (usually set at the majority number) so that there is a fair opportunity to be heard on a matter and to ensure that the body-controlling interest (i.e. the party that runs the deliberative body) doesn’t make unannounced decisions. The entire point of having a sargeant-at-arms come and fetch you (even under protest) into the legislative body gives credence to the fact that it’s, at its heart, a concept intended to enhance the justness and validity of a democratic action.
Not the perverse, “I’m representing my consitutents by not actually engaging in the legislative process” bullshit that you think doesn’t smell like a rancid thong.
Denying the quorum is the legislative process. It is consistent with the rules of the Wisconsin senate.
Well then you’ve been polarized. I can assure you that from the liberal side, I see Righties engage in large amounts of the behaviors you’re attributing to the left.
Maybe you’re just finding that your political stance has changed.
Is it your contention that every law passed in every deliberative body was preordained by a mandate of the people? In that, they knew that this was how each senator/representative/executive would force the issue?
Again, this is complete fucking fairy tale attempt at seeming just.
If it is an unpopular law, it will get repealed. That’s the painfully evolved procedure that makes the will of the people manifest.
Really, asshole. Would you feel the same if they didn’t abscond to another jurisdiction? and were forced to count as a quorum when they were hauled into Madison in shackles?
The fact that they spell out what happens when you don’t have a quorum tells you that they knew that sometimes if the process became dominated by one side, you’d have an in extremis option. When you have ZERO ability to affect the legislative process under the normal rules of participation, you do have a last ditch option.
If your constituents want one thing and jumping ship is the only real way of “negotiating” for that thing, it is ABSOLUTELY doing your job by holding up the process.
Until they start jumping states in response to every piece of legislation, say as often as another body did with fillibuster, IMO you don’t have a leg to stand on.
do you have that last ditch option if you don’t flee the jurisdiction?
It’s another counter balance. If you really intend on denying the quorum but the body has the option to send the MoA after you, you’re gonna have to go outside that jurisdiction. So it’s not a trivial process and your constituency will find out real quick you’re not in the state.
These measures, quorum busting and fillibustering, were not intended as casual remedies.
This could all have been prevented if only there had been a law against bimonthly payroll.
a) unlimited time to debate was not originally intended to result in legislative logjam. which is why it was removed in the HOR. It persists in the Senate as that body is supposedly the chamber of somber reflection, and is now ultimately politically impossible to remove, since it affords extreme power to the minority party.
b) I would submit that having to flee a jurisdiction that you’re supposedly representing is NOT (edit!) a designed feature to protect minority rights. I seriously doubt it was an intended feature of government back in oxcart days, if you catch my drift.
So, you agree, then, that Gov Walker did not inform the people as to his true agenda? But this has no effect on the legitimacy of his efforts? Just a moment ago, you were preaching from the pulpit of democratic piety, now you want to give me hard-headed realist? Well, whats it gonna be, hoss? Percy Dovetonsils or Otto von Bismarck?
It ain’t kosher to use the power of the legislature to hobble your legitimate political opponents. Short of violence, I approve of any effort to resist such a repulsive power grap. I have seen some fairly dramatic civil disobendience in my time, taking a Greyhound to Chicago doesn’t exactly shock me.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, because all i see here is a distinction without a difference.
If a legislator is making a 24-hour speech about earthworms in order to prevent the legislature moving forward on a bill, he is no more representing his constituency and no less subverting the democratic process than a legislator who decides not to show up in order to prevent the legislature moving forward on a bill.
no no, it’s not merely “decid[ing] not to show up”. it’s “escaping the jurisdiction which he was democratically chosen to represent”
again, if you want to analogize to a criminal case (I fully expect some dog-killing retard to show up and spew non sequiturs though), there’s a big difference between misdirecting the jury, spewing extremely distracting but inconsequential tales, pleading that you really didn’t intend any harm in having sex with that underage girl etc. and, you know, high tailing it to Switzerland.
It is not possible to deny the quorum without ‘absconding’ to another jurisdiction, for the reasons you outlined. I would feel like they were pussies for not executing the quorum procedure in such a way as to achieve their legislative goal: blocking the union busting legislation.
I hope this is an awakening within the Democratic Party to fight the Republicans with every tool in the toolbox. I expect no less from the Republicans. May the best party win.
I agreed as to no such thing. I have no fucking clue if what walker did came absolutely out of the blue (as you seem to think is the case) or not.
And, again, I’m not questioning your endeavors to resist efforts that are antithetical to your best interest. But call a spade a spade, yeah?
But, as an aside, again, if crippling public unions is such an affront to ones political opponents, you will either face their majority wrath in the next election, or you will be executing the will of the majority.
so what does that tell you about the intended propriety and justness of the action?
and double quoting words which are properly used just makes you look like a fucking nitwit.
There is nothing improper or unjust about denying the quorum.