From The Nation
Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, [1]
a Republican who serves as Governor Scott Walker's legislative
consigliere, is trying to put the best face on his attempt to rewrite
not just the rules of the Senate but the Wisconsin Constitution.
As everyone from Kenosha to Cairo knows, fourteen Democratic members of the Wisconsin Senate [2] have
refused to return to the Capitol and provide Republican leaders of the
chamber with the quorum required to approve Walker's budget repair bill.
The Democrats fled to Illinois in order to delay action and force
negotiations on the measure, which would strip most public workers of
basic bargaining rights. The bill would also restructure state
government so Walker can begin dismantling BadgerCare and SeniorCare and
start selling public properties to private corporations.
Walker is furious with the Democrats, [3] since they are messing with the plan he outlined in a taped phone
conversation to bust the unions and make himself the next Ronald Reagan.
So Fitzgerald is under pressure to get the job done.
Late last week, Fitzgerald got his fellow Republican senators to vote [4]
to hold the fourteen Democrats in "contempt of the Senate" and to order
police agencies to "forcibly detain" -- translation: arrest -- them.
Pretty serious business, this arresting of colleagues. But Fitzgerald
says: "They have pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis."
Click Here to Read Whole Article
Actually, Fitzgerald is the one ambling into the crisis zone. [5]
The Wisconsin Constitution, like those of most states, was written
with an eye toward preventing the use of legal threats to harass
legislators. It reads: "Members of the Legislature shall in all cases,
except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from
arrest; nor shall they be subject to any civil process, during the
session of the Legislature, nor for 15 days next before the commencement
and after the termination of each session."
Fitzgerald would have Wisconsinites -- and Americans who continue to
watch developments in the Midwestern state where an uprising against
Walker's bill has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the
streets -- believe legislative rules give him the authority to override the
constitution.
But a legal analysis prepared by one of the state's most prominent
law firms -- Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach -- shreds that argument.
"None of the 14 absent senators has been charged with a crime. Nor
has any crime occurred," it reads. "The Wisconsin Senate has absolutely
no authority to order any of its members arrested or taken into custody
in order to compel their attendance."
That's the bottom line.
So if there is a "constitutional crisis," it has been created by Fitzgerald -- at the behest of Walker.
They are acting not as representatives of the people but as
autocrats. We have seen this before. Back in 1798, in the first real
constitutional crisis of the new American republic, President John Adams
and his allies pursued political foes. Vermont Congressman Matthew Lyon [6] was incarcerated, under the Alien and Sedition Acts, [7] for criticizing Adams.
The voters of Vermont were offended, as were the American people.
Thomas Jefferson sought the presidency in order to remove Adams, restore
First Amendment rights and, in Jefferson's words, end "the reign of the
witches." After a contested election, he was elected by the US House,
with Lyon casting a deciding vote in Jefferson's favor.
America's constitutional crisis was over.
Next Page 1 | 2
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
Nichols writes about (more...)
