Wisconsin Judicial Tyranny

APRIL 1, 2011
By Kyle Olson

4/1/2011

Why did the state of Wisconsin bother to have an election last November?

To look at the results, you would think the voters had spoken clearly. They elected a Republican governor and legislature, based on the promise that they would take strong action to balance the state budget and give schools and municipalities more control over their local budgets.

Within a few weeks of taking office, the Republicans followed through on their promise.

Public sector unions that had stubbornly refused to make concessions to help struggling schools and municipalities save money were called out. Labor costs comprise about 80 percent of any school or municipal budget, but the unions wouldn’t let local officials cut labor costs.

The unions abused their collective bargaining privileges, so the state moved to take most of those privileges away. We elect state officials to make those kinds of decisions. If voters decide later that those decisions were wrong, they elect different people next time.

But it’s beginning to seem like the will of the people, as reflected in the election results, is completely irrelevant. The Democrats and their special interest sponsors in the labor movement are using any means at their disposal to block the efforts of the officials who won the election.

Our Founding Fathers warned against “the tyranny of the minority.” This must have been the type of situation they had in mind.

First we had the runaway Senate Democrats, who accept large cash donations from the unions to do their bidding. They fled to Illinois and blocked the legislative process, because the voters did not elect enough of them to defeat Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed legislation through prescribed methods.

How is that democracy?

Now we have Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi, a woman whose family is knee-deep in Democratic Party politics, blocking implementation of Walker’s legislation. She issued a temporary restraining order, based on the accusation that a Senate committee approved the law in violation of the open meetings act. When the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law anyway, she reiterated her order and threatened anyone who implemented the law with sanctions.

That poses a simple question - if the Senate committee indeed violated the open meetings law, couldn’t it just meet again, vote in favor of the law again, then have the full Senate pass it again and the governor sign it again?

Not so simple, according to a Senate staffer. The Senate could do all of that, but the Democrats have vowed to keep posing legal challenge after legal challenge, to block implementation of the bill indefinitely.

As one key Democrat told the media, his party will use a “tsunami of litigation” to hold up the process. And there’s no doubt that they can go judge shopping and find useful tools like Judge Sumi any time they want.

How is that democracy?

People love to gripe about the influence of special interests in government. Now they’re watching a horrific example of special interest influence blocking the will of the voters, and nobody is saying a word.

The Democrats who are doing the unions’ bidding accept thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from organized labor every year. That’s what special interests do - purchase the loyalty of lawmakers - sometimes Democrats, sometimes Republicans - to protect their agenda.

And the unions’ pet lawmakers will go to any length to disrupt the process, even if that defies the will of the voters.

It’s hard to believe that the average voters of Wisconsin, who cannot afford to purchase the loyalty of legislators, are not descending on Madison in droves, demanding that the people they elected to govern be allowed to govern.

Kyle Olson

Kyle is founder and CEO of Education Action Group Foundation, a non-partisan non-profit organization with the goal of promoting sensible education reform.