Egregious harm isn’t always fast or obvious.
Do you support corporations being the only entities that determine who gets elected? Citizens United allows unlimited corporate spending on elections. Without union money, only corporations will be represented.
Eventually this would likely turn around. But a decade or more of twirling down the drain is a good thing to nip in the bud while you can.
Citizens United also allows unlimited union spending on elections, bro.
That doesn’t change the fact that only people can vote. You know, the ones who are apparently about to get irrevocably harmed by this law that they will be unable to get themselves over to the voting booth and vote in representatives to change it.
That sounds like a stupid set of rules. You should take that up with the body and they should change it to something manageable.
That said, a legislator that decided to withhold quorum capriciously would face recall.
Just face it, you don’t have faith that enough reps in wisconsin can get voted in to overturn the law.
In other words, you’re all about the minority rule.
I disagree with your assertion that physical presence in the legislative body is required to represent your constituents.
not if his electorate is a very, very homogeneous group of contrarians.
say the quorum rules are enshrined in the constitution.
would you be yakking on about this one legislator upholding the democratic process?
I’m sorry, I assumed you were actually listening to what I was saying. If you’re just going to ignore it I suppose I shouldn’t bother trying to engage you.
Slow damage isn’t always obvious. It might take years to realize that your wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation.
If I sneak into your house and give you a chest X-ray every night while you sleep, it might not hurt you in the short term. But over time it will turn you into a leathery sack of tumors.
Wow, you’ve managed to reduce this to the ridiculous. You know, I don’t think one senator should be able to start a war. I also don’t think one senator should be able to raise taxes. I also don’t think one senator should be able to ban transfats.
However, there comes a point where I think a number of senators should be all of those things. Why don’t you?
I would listen to what you’re saying if it were intelligible.
You’re saying that only corporations were the beneficiaries of the citizens united case. which is patently false.
um, it seems to me it would be obvious after one year.
but, no matter. apparently the damage here is so manifest and apparent that it justifies legislators not actually showing up to legislate, and is met with applause for the “democratic process” by some. how does this comport with your subsequent explanations as to why this law can’t be subsequently repealed in the next electoral cycle?
I do. It’s called a majority of senators. As in one more than 50/50.
They need 20,000 signatures to force a special election. Then a vote will follow.
No, again you show that you have not been following. I said that if unions are hobbled (this is what we’re talking about, remember) then only corporations will have the run of the board.
Read that section a couple of times to make sure you get it.
See below.
And the people who wrote Wisconsin’s constitution think that 14 of [insert however many state senators Wisconsin has] is enough to withhold quorum. I can’t see why your opinion weighs heavier than theirs.
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
Allow me to map this out that way I see it. It might be wrong, but bear with:
* Unions get hamstrung by Walker. This spreads to other states.
* Union membership goes down (because why pay dues if you can't bargain).
* Union coffers dry up.
* Next election, corporations (thanks to Citizens United) have no opposition in their spending. There is no union money to counter it.
* Republican control. This increases every election and you're insane if you think the 21st century Republican would ever allow collective bargaining to reassert.
[/QUOTE]
Think of this in terms of Prohibition. That was passed. Supposedly by a majority, even though there was wide spread dissent. Despite the fact that a large number of US producers went out of business, however, it was eventually repealed, right? If people REALLY want unions (and remember, we are talking about unions for government workers here, not private unions), then anything that one party gets through can always be repealed later on.
Basically, this legislation getting passed is not going to be a watershed moment where the Republican party takes over control of the government for all time and puts down the majority so they can rule with an iron fist. If a major of citizens disagrees with these policies then not only won’t this spread to other states but in the next election cycle those current in power in Wisconsin will find themselves out of a job…and everything will be turned back around to the way it was before any of this stuff happened. Hell, the public unions might come out of this stronger in the end.
-XT
Because most people aren’t political. You get enough money for commercials for conservative candidates, you’ll swing the election for conservatives.
Unions aren’t going to be hobbled the second after the law is passed. First off, it only addresses public unions, anyways.
I still don’t get how you go from “ZOMG! ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! WE NEED TO CIRCUMVENT DEMOCRACY TO PREVENT THIS BILL FROM GETTING PASSED” to “oh Davey… woe be us. now that this law is passed, what ever are we supposed to do?”
all within the span of ONE! electoral cycle. :rolleyes:
If you could avoid the societal damage of prohibition would you?
Of course some day this could be changed back. But how much damage would it do in the short term.
It is democracy. It’s in their constitution. Why don’t you respect the Wisconsin constitution?
you are aware that quora aren’t intended to be de facto fillibusters, right? it’s only by the quirk of federalism and the concept of jurisdiction that you’re even having this discussion. (which actually takes me back to my original quesiton: I wouldn’t expect you to know the answer, but how would you feel if Dog The Bounty Hunter went into Illinois and scooped up enough D senators to make a quorum. Democratic process, ahoy!?!?)
but I’m sure you’ll be busy trumpeting the justness of the quorum evaders in 1942 when Congress was trying to pass civil rights legislation and Dixiecrats were trying to… how would you put it… represent their constituents and engage the democratic process… right?
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
If you could avoid the societal damage of prohibition would you?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know. The easy answer is that in hindsight, and based on my own feelings, I’d say ‘sure’. However, by doing so I’d be thwarting a large number of my fellow citizens, and the issue would continue to revolve around, never resolved in that large number of citizens minds who really thought that alcohol was an evil that must be stopped through legislature. By allowing it to happen, the issue was resolved decisively. Sort of like the Civil Rights movement…while I would love to have spared the country the pain of going through all that, and simply given minorities the rights they deserve by fiat, by having it unfold the way it did the issue has been by and large resolved, and we’ve moved on to further refinements.
I don’t know, since I can’t predict the future. Could be a little…could be a lot. Could be none at all, or in fact it could help to make public unions stronger in the future. Or destroy them, which might turn out to be a bad thing or a good thing. There is no way to really tell. Consider what people thought about Prohibition before it was enacted, or Civil Rights before it finally got pushed through. Some were right in their predictions, others completely wrong. Only by allowing the situation to evolve and be resolved have we found out who was right and who was wrong.
-XT