Walker Says Wisconsin Citizens Opposing Him Caused Job Losses

Scott Walker blames Wisconsin citizens not following him
as cause of job losses, and Wisconsin's economic downturn

Wisconsin democracy means no questions

"Republican candidate Scott Walker promised Tuesday to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin by the end of his first term if he's elected this fall as governor," notes Kathleen Foody in a piece quoting Scott Walker's oft-repeated campaign promise in 2010. (Wausau Daily Herald, August 25, 2010)

But once elected, Scott Walker planned radical policy changes that he refused to campaign on.

Walker was caught on tape saying, "we dropped the bomb" on an unsuspecting Wisconsin in 2011, causing citizens to protest the secretly crafted attack against the right of public workers to unionize (Act 10), the state take-over of community control, among other radical policy shifts, also not campaigned on.

Now, as Walker's extremist policies have left Wisconsin dropping to 44th in the nation in job creation, Walker says popular opposition to his policies [though Walker's party again controls both houses of the legislature thanks to secretly crafted gerrymandering] caused the drop in job creation.

It was reported in February 2012 that a GOP memo shows "Republican Lawmakers were made to pledge secrecy over (its gerrymandering), (and) Public comments were to be ignored."

Walker surely loves to craft policy in secret, and is disdainful of openly displayed displeasure with Republican policy by Wisconsin citizens.

"Asked Thursday about new numbers showing Wisconsin lagging in job growth, Gov. Scott Walker pointed to the uncertainty he said business owners felt because of the political tumult that rocked Wisconsin early in his term," write Craig Gilbert and Rick Romell in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

This is a line Walker has been repeating for two years now.

If Wisconsin citizens would dispense with open displays of their negative opinion of Scott Walker as a deceitful, corrupt governor; renounce their political opinions; and follow our dear leader; then all would be well in Wisconsin—jobs would spring up across the state, communities would flourish and all would be bliss under Walker's rule.

No uncertainty, just obedient citizens.

Uncertainty, in Scott Walker's view, comes from open discourse and open voicing of grievances against Walker and the GOP.

Maybe that's why Walker still refuses to face the Wisconsin people in public, unscripted listening sessions.

Secrecy by Walker and the Republican Party, and citizens' political obedience to Walker are what is needed to abate uncertainty.

And those 250,000 new jobs Scott Walker promised?

Never mind that. Walker meant only if everyone follows him as he leads his comrades, though Scott Walker is very difficult to find in Wisconsin now-a-days.

But maybe Walker will declare an emergency and start throwing those opposing him into prison, seriously. See Vanegeren and Elbow, The Capital Times, March 19, 2013.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen Slams Judiciary Branch

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's (R-Madison) public News and Media piece at the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) webpage is typical of Van Hollen's corrupt dealings for the Republican and Tea Party.

In his news item about filing a motion to stay the decision in Madison Teachers, Inc., et al. v. Scott Walker, et al., Van Hollen makes no mention, not one word, of the Equal Protection and Wisconsin Constitution Article One violations that resulted in a summary judgement for the plaintiffs against Act 10 by Judge Juan B. Colas.

Act 10 was passed with all GOP support and no Democratic Party support.

Van Hollen is a Republican who has been caught publically lying before in his capacity as Wisconsin Attorney General on behalf of the Republican Party.

Would not such found violations—Equal Protection and Wisconsin Constitution, Article One— be of news value, putting aside that our AG is corrupt?

Of course, these violations are of news value, and a summary judgement is a high legal hurdle to reach.

But the DoJ's piece is just another propaganda sheet intended to advance a narrow partisan interest.

As Edward Fallone writes:

The conservative 'noise machine'– consisting of ersatz news media, think tank “experts,” and political campaign consultants — will no doubt seek to mold public opinion in this case. They will ignore the merits of the legal claims at issue and try to convince the public that any adverse ruling is the result of one partisan judge acting without legal authority. Of course, the consequence of such a strategy is to intimidate judges who might otherwise give legal claims against the State a fair hearing, and also to steadily undermine the public’s confidence in the legal system.

Members of the State Bar should refuse to play along with this game.

If Van Hollen were honest, he would, as in the DOJ's legal brief, present the issues at hand instead of inserting just one hyperlink on the word "decision" in the DoJ news item.

Wisconsin is treated to the GOP's spin that "real and significant financial problems faced by local governments" are victims of the Court's decision, and are being "force(d) a return to a broken system," even as national Republicans and Tea Partiers have obstructed "much-needed aid to state and local governments ... ." (Krugman. NYT)

Walker has already blasted Judge Colas as a "liberal activist judge," with no facts or evidence presented.

Of course, the print media picks up the press release and news items and repeats the spin in the first two grafs and headline, knowing fully well most readers won't go much further.

Scott Walker's War on Civil Rights Suffers Major Blow

Update: I highly recommend John Nichols' Scott Walker reduced to name-calling to defend struck-down Act 10 and Edward Fallone's piece on the reckless and hollow statements of the Walker administration to Judge Colas' ruling. Vis:

The conservative “noise machine”– consisting of ersatz news media, think tank “experts,” and political campaign consultants — will no doubt seek to mold public opinion in this case. They will ignore the merits of the legal claims at issue and try to convince the public that any adverse ruling is the result of one partisan judge acting without legal authority. Of course, the consequence of such a strategy is to intimidate judges who might otherwise give legal claims against the State a fair hearing, and also to steadily undermine the public’s confidence in the legal system.

Members of the State Bar should refuse to play along with this game. By all means, we should feel free to criticize the reasoning of Judge Colas’ opinion. His application of the precedent to the specific provisions of Act 10 is fair game for critical analysis. However, anyone who has been following the nationwide litigation concerning public employee bargaining rights must recognize that Judge Colas was correct to take the plaintiff’s constitutional arguments seriously. - Fallone

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First Latino Judge in Dane County, Juan B. Colas, delivers devastating summary judgement and opinion against the GOP— restores community control, remedies Equal Protection and Wisconsin Constitution Article One violations, among other corrective action against increasingly lawless Scott Walker administration.

Even as the Scott Walker regime continues a veritable occupation of the Capitol through its unconstitutional denial of Wisconsin citizens' freedom to assemble and protest corrupt politicians, the Walker regime was dealt a body blow late last Friday.

In Madison Teachers Inc. et al v. Scott Walker et al [Case No. 11CV3774], Judge Colas delivered a stinging rebuke against Walker's infamous Act 10 that singles out political opponents of Walker, denying free speech and free associations while dismantling the community control that villages, towns and cities have enjoyed through Wisconsin history.

Walker as usual refused to engage a legal opinion, sending a disingenuous e-mail communication to supporters reading in part "... a liberal activist judge in Madison overturned the will of the people and imposed his personal political beliefs on all of us."

Funny that Walker's "will of the people" is described by Walker in his infamous 2011 recorded conversation with the faux David Koch as being of such little concern that Walker dropped "a bomb" on the Wisconsin people.

So, does Walker take issue with the Court's jurisdiction? No.

Engage the Court's opinion? No?

Does Walker speak to the found violations of free speech, freedom of association and equal protection under the law? No.

Reads Judge Colas' opinion: "[I]n the statutes at issue, the state has imposed significant and burdensome restrictions on employees who choose to associate in a labor organization. The statues limit what local governments may offer employees who represented by a union, sole because of that association. ... "

The next year will likely see criminal federal and state charges against Walker and his political cronies for their criminal rise to power. One looks forward to the next year.

WTDY Report—State Documents Show Scott Walker Lied on Anti-Worker Law

Scott Walker testifies before
U.S. House Oversight Committee in April 2011

WTDY's reporter, Dylan Brogan, breaks a major story, obtaining state documents revealing Scott Walker began drafting the anti-workers' bill, Act 10, in November 2010, contradicting his April 2011 testimony before the U.S. Congress and assurances made to the Wisconsin people.

[D]rafting documents obtained by WTDY News from the non-partisan Legislative Reference Bureau reveal that Act 10 was actually being drafted in November, just weeks after Walker was elected governor.

The documents call into question Walker's stated policy rationales on the controversial legislation.

Indeed, as Uppity Wisconsin notes, "This directly contradicts sworn testimony Walker gave to the U.S. House Oversight Committee, where he said that labor unions trying to have their contract approved in a lame-duck December session was the motivation and starting point for the creation of Act 10."

Federal Judge finds Scott Walker's assault on workers unconstitutional

FDR signs the Wagner Act in 1935

Update: Federal Judge Partially Strikes Down Wisconsin Act 10, the Anti-Collective Bargaining Bill - "... in a clear victory for the public-sector unions in Wisconsin, the onerous recertification and anti-dues check off provisions, which again only applied to non-public safety employees, were enjoined on both equal protection and First Amendment grounds. The court found absolutely no connection between the Walker Administration’s purported justifications for treating these two groups of public employees differently and the need for these two punitive provisions."

"The Labor Relations Act now forbids an employer to say to a laborer: 'Give up your union or give up your job,'" said the great jurist, Robert H. Jackson in 1939. "... Are our great constitutional guarantees in danger? The answer really lies with the people themselves. Civil rights are pretty generally safe except in periods of widespread emotional instability. In such times there are always those who, either because they lack balance themselves or because they see an opportunity to exploit the anxiety of others, institute scares and make drives to save the country from exaggerated dangers by suppressing free speech, or censoring free press, or punishing free opinion."

Jackson was U.S. Solicitor General at the time of this national town hall and had the idea that law and politics ought be the sphere of the American public: Open and public, or civil rights will die.

Jackson could have been speaking to Scott Walker, J.B. Van Hollen and the rest of the GOP regime who concocted the law and after law for cynical, partisan purposes, and even admitted so. See videos of State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald and Walker below. Repeatedly, Walker cried crisis and danger, and used fear to ram through an anti-citizen agenda, with Walker supporters harassing Wisconsin volunteers.

“Today’s ruling affirms Governor Walker and Legislative Republicans once again overreached in their attack on public workers’ rights to belong to a union. This is a tremendous victory for public workers and the rule of law. These abuses of power should have no place in our public policy decisions. The court has affirmed these were political decisions in an attempt to bust unions, not sound public policy,” said State Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison).

Scott Walker has a different notion than Justice Jackson on civil rights; mocking and ridiculing them, and bragging about collusion with Attorney General Van Hollen, and using working families' livelihoods as political fodder.

"The other thing is I’ve got layoff notices ready. We put out the at-risk notices. We’ll announce Thursday, and they’ll go out early next week. And we’ll probably get 5 to 6,000 state workers will get at-risk notices for layoffs. We might ratchet that up a little bit, you know," said Walker in his infamous taped phone conversation before ramming through Act 10.

It comes as great comfort that U.S. District Judge William M. Conley rules in Wisconsin Education Association Council et al v. Scott Walker et al (Case: 3:11-cv-00428-wmc; U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin) that Act 10, the so-called Budget Repair Bill, is a violation of union members' First Amendment rights.

"[U]nions engage -- indeed, one of their core functions is to engage -- in speech," writes Justice Conley.

Though the Republican Party thought that it could pick and choose which union members' First Amendment rights to violate, the Court disagreed.

"So long as the State of Wisconsin continues to afford ordinary certification and dues deductions to mandatory public safety unions with sweeping bargaining rights, there is no rational basis to deny those rights to voluntary general unions with severely restricted bargaining rights," writes Judge Conley.

"Wisconsin citizens have long known Gov. Walker's attack on workers was not honest and today's court ruling shows his attack was not legal," said a statement from former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, a Democrat running against Walker. (Bruce Vielmetti and Patrick Marley. MJS)

GOP leader Fitzgerald expanded on Falk's assessment on Fox News last year, saying busting unions will help the GOP defeat President Obama: "If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin," said Fitzgerald.

Nothing about saving tax-payers' money; and all about a corrupt brand of politics that has seen Scott Walker's closest aides convicted and facing multiple felonies in a criminal investigation of Walker's campaign while Walker tries to stall the investigation in hopes of surviving the recall election.

Walker's signature assault on civil rights is under countetattack by those dedicated to the rule of law, and his legal and political malfeasance is only just beginning to be revealed some 14 months into office.

From Wisconsin State AFL-CIO

“Gov. Walker’s extreme attacks on public sector workers has, in part, been reversed by the court of law today and found in violation of the U.S. constitution,” explained Phil Neuenfeldt, President of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “This proves that Gov. Walker rammed through his radical and secret agenda without regard to the U.S. constitution, the rule of law, or to what is right and fair for Wisconsin families. There is still much to be done to reverse the harm that Gov. Walker has done to nurses, teachers, snow plow drivers and other public workers. The fight to fully restore public employee’s voices on the job and a strong middle class for Wisconsin continues.”

“This is a better day for public sector workers but unfortunately does not fully restore the ability of public employees to have a meaningful voice in the workplace so that they can speak out on behalf of the communities they serve,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. “Limiting collective bargaining, as Scott Walker has done, is unjust and un-American. The fight to reclaim Wisconsin and restore the rights of working people to collectively bargain continues.”

While this is a step in the right direction, there is still much work to be done to ensure that all working families have the right to collectively bargain. We must stand together until justice is restored to all Wisconsin workers.

In Solidarity,

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Walker, DOA Sec. Huebsch Back Down

From Mary Spicuzza (WSJ):

State Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said Thursday he thinks the law is in full force, but agreed to stop implementing it.

"While I believe the budget repair bill was legally published and is indeed law, given the most recent court action we will suspend the implementation of it at this time," Huebsch said. "DOA will continue to abide by the court orders, like the department has done all throughout this process."

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said the judge's latest order has "taken away their last excuse."

"I can only hope today's amended order is crystal clear enough for them to stop disregarding the rule of law," he said.

Rightwingers to Judge Sumi: Go Ahead, I Dare Ya

Wisconsin DOA Sec. Mike Huebsch

Update: Declaration: Wisconsin’s new collective bargaining law has not been published and is not in effect, a judge has ordered. Judge Maryann Sumi ordered Thursday morning that the law “has not been published within the meaning” of Wisconsin law and “is therefore not in effect.” (Spicuzza, WSJ)

Rightwing ideologues backstopped by billionaires and the national GOP believe they can do anything.

One scholarly Dane County Judge, Maryann Sumi, and the people of Wisconsin will likely prove them wrong this week.

"Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said Wednesday he has a legal obligation to implement all laws passed by the Legislature, signed by Gov. Scott Walker and published into law." (Spicuzza, Barbour, and Treleven in WSJ)

This obligation exists of course despite the clear judicial order that Huebsch halt implementation of the anti-union scheme that does not have the force of law.

In some many words, the orders of a judge are irrelevant, in the view of Walker,  Huebsch, AG Van Hollen and the rest of the regime who decide what the law is.

Further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 is enjoined, Judge Sumi made clear Tuesday. "Now that I've made my earlier order as clear as it possibly can be, I must state that those who act in open and willful defiance of the court order place not only themselves at peril of sanctions, they also jeopardize the financial and the governmental stability of the state of Wisconsin," Sumi said. ( Treleven and Spicuzza in WSJ)

The GOP regime has other ideas, one of which is that judicial orders are of no legal significance and no consequence.

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald Should Get Contempt Citation by Judge Sumi

Update II: Publish or Perish: The Budget Bill is Not Law, by Edward A. Fallone

Update: I think Republicans are feeling a tad desperate. Their arguments are now coming down to ignoring the TRO Decision text and the first sentence of the Order text, reading, "For the reasons stated on the record at the March 18, 2011, hearing conducted by the Court, ... ." What is the GOP thinking? Since when can a named defendant ignore a TRO?

" ... Nothing in this government happens in secret. ... I do, therefore, restrain and enjoin the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10."
- Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi, in decision granting Temporary Restraining Order of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's bizarre machinations last Friday resulting in the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) publishing the anti-collective bargaining bill [2011 Wisconsin Act 10] is Fitzgerald's self-admitted attempt to implement as law precisely what he is enjoined from doing as a named defendant in State of Wisconsin ex rel., Ismael R. Ozanne v. Fitzgerald et al [Case No: 11 CV 1244].

This ought to earn Fitzgerald a contempt citation Tuesday morning.

It is a plain fact that Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) is a named defendant in the March 18 order by Judge Maryann Sumi [Case No: 11 CV 1244] granting a motion by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne on behalf of the state of Wisconsin for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on the implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, the anti-collective bargaining bill.

The named defendants are Scott Fitzgerald, Senate President Michael Ellis, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, GOP Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, and Secretary of State Doug La Follette.

"It's published," Fitzgerald said. "It's law. That's what I contend." (Marley and Stein, MJS, March 26)  Fitzgerald refers to the LRB's publishing the language of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.

Judge Sumi found that the rushed, secretive process violated Wisconsin's Open Meeting Law that forbids exactly what occured in the Republican attempt to jam legislation through before the people knew what was happening.

Sumi cites Wisconsin Constitution Article IV, Section 10 as the policy rationale in the Open Meeting Law (19.81(3)) of the Wisconsin Statutes.

Reads Judge Sumi's order in part:

I begin with Wisconsin Constitution Article IV, Section 10, a straightforward statement of the public's expectation for the legislature: 'the doors of each house shall be kept open except when the public welfare shall require secrecy.'

Sumi found a probability of success of D.A. Ozanne's case on the merits.

Sumi also found that Republican leaders illegally held a "closed session of a body that took decisive action propelling 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 forward," noting in her decision that resulting action taken at an illegal meeting is voidable.

"I am now issuing a restraining order preventing further implementation of this act," writes Sumi.

Sumi repeated: "I do, therefore, restrain and enjoin the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10."

But defendant Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald acted last week to implement 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 in plain violation of the restraining order.

Dane County DA Ozanne said last Friday, "I was surprised to learn shortly before 5 p.m. this afternoon that, despite Judge Maryann Sumi’s temporary restraining order, an effort was undertaken to try and make 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 (Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill) effective. I was even more surprised to learn that the impetus for an attempt at publication, contrary to Judge Sumi’s order, came from a named defendant in the lawsuit." (WisPolitics)

That would be Scott Fitzgerald who said publicly he consulted with others to see that the LRB acted to implement 2011 Wisconsin Act 10.

"Every attorney I have consulted said this will now be law," Fitzgerald said. "It wasn't a secret. I think they left the door open for this." (Clay Barbour and Ed Treleven, Wisconsin State Journal)

It appears that contra Fitzgerald and the Walker administration, 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 will not take effect.

But Republican lawlessness must end. Fitzgerald should be held in contempt.