Assembly Votes Down Resolution on Gallery Dressware with Information

Ejected for holding camera

- Party-line vote on resolution in state Assembly says no message on your clothes, no expression on your dressware -

Think silently wearing a shirt with the First Amendment text while sitting in the Assembly Gallery is your right? Silently holding a copy of the U.S. or Wisconsin constitutions is your right?

No, say Assembly Republicans. This is not hyperbole. The GOP claims it has the power to eject you, and they have done just that with 10-15 armed police acting under orders of the Sergeant of Arms and the GOP leadership.

Crazy time with these Republicans.

Emily Mills reports:

Toward the end of the Assembly's floor session Tuesday night, a resolution introduced by Reps. Mark Pocan and Chris Taylor to suspend a rule forbidding anyone sitting in the gallery from having or holding signs was voted down on a party-line vote of 35-57. ... many Democratic representatives wore buttons during the session displaying the text of the First Amendment.

The Republicans believe whatever assembly rules or interpretation of rules they make outweigh the Wisconsin and U.S. Constitutions, and all statutes. The police, reportedly often reluctantly, follow along with Republican orders.

Wisconsin Republicans Order Forceful Removal of Citizens for Wearing First Amendment Shirts

Update: See What is Happening in Fitzwalkerstan IS ILLEGAL! and Bill would allow police to arrest people for violating administrative codes at the Capitol, i.e. shirt with the Bill of Rights visable, ala Atwater v. City of Lago Vista (99-1408) 532 U.S. 318 (2001).

Madison, Wisconsin—This is the life of citizens under the Republican Party rule: Armed officers ejecting citizens from public meetings.

And this is Republican rule not representation, having people silently sitting in the state assembly gallery forcefully removed as some 10 capitol police banish Wisconsin citizens to repeat: For wearing shirts!

What are Republicans afraid of?

Will any Republican object? Do they even pretend to believe in liberty?

Now, Republicans are ordering that they not be filmed. Watch and listen below. Republicans believe citizens are "guests" and not citizens.

Wisconsin State Statue 19.90 - Whenever a governmental body hold a meeting in open session, the body shall make make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting.The Republican state assembly says: No.

From Debi Johnson-Champ:

Representative Frederick Kessler, (D-Milwaukee) from the 12th District, took to the floor and calmly but emphatically placed on the record:

'Mr. Speaker I just noticed that moments ago another person was removed from the Gallery for wearing a sign. And I have to say, in my opinion, the First Amendment is pretty absolute. The right to petition the government is a freedom that’s guaranteed by our First Amendment. And I’m deeply troubled when I see people being removed from the gallery for not speaking but merely wearing a sign. Those are First Amendment rights that are absolute, they’re absolute in the context of petitioning the government and I strongly object to people being removed from the Gallery because they are wearing items that express political opinion. Thank you Mister Speaker.'

Representative Terese Bereau, (D-Madison), District 76, then took the floor and questioned the need of “10 officers at taxpayers’ expense” to escort quiet spectators out of the Gallery for wearing t-shirts with messages taped on them, when many visitors are allowed to remain in the Gallery with t-shirts containing printed messages on them.

Perhaps one of the most interesting, if not bizarre, confrontations took place between a woman and two officers that informed the woman that she would have to either remove her t-shirt or leave the Gallery. She demonstrated that she had not used tape but had sewn the top of the message onto her t-shirt and the befuddled officers left without any additional action being taken.

She pondered the idea that a piece of string was the only difference between her and the ones that were removed. One has to ponder what the hell is happening in Wisconsin on almost every given day under the Walker administration.