Posted on 09/14/2012 6:26:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
We've been here before, remember? A left-wing judge struck down the law on a procedural technicality in May of last year. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a month later. Bet heavily that this will be reversed too, just because I suspect America's not quite ready to start throwing up constitutional roadblocks to fiscal reforms while states are already teetering on a fiscal cliff. Especially after Wisconsin held an election just three months ago where voters had a chance to effectively decide that issue.
The law remains largely in force for state workers, though a federal judge struck down part of that section of the law as well earlier this year. But for city, county, and school workers the decision by Dane County Judge Juan Colas returns the law to its status before Walker signed his law in March 2011.
Colas ruled that the law violated workers' constitutional rights by making denying to union workers certain powers available to their nonunion counterparts. The decision could still be overturned on appeal – the Supreme Court has already restored the law once in June 2011 after it was blocked by a different Dane County judge earlier that year…
School districts and local officials will have to return to the bargaining table with their workers in a much more significant way. The decision raises a host of questions about changes in pay, benefits and work rules that have taken place in the meantime while bargaining was essentially dead.
Under Walker’s law, both the state and local governments were prohibited from bargaining over anything besides a cost of living salary adjustment. Other issues such as health benefits, pensions, workplace safety and other work rules were strictly off limits.
The decision’s here. The court concedes that there’s no constitutional right to collective bargaining; the argument is that the state discriminated against union employees, which makes it an equal protection issue. Typically in equal-protection jurisprudence, governments are given wide latitude in economic matters; go figure that Wisconsin wasn’t given that latitude here. But then, the legal reasoning isn’t important. The point of the ruling is to snatch victory on collective bargaining for the left from the jaws of defeat after defeat after defeat. Maybe that’s how union rights will be handled from now on — as with abortion rights, they’ll be yanked out of the hands of voters and kept safe from the grubby hands of democracy. A savvy move. And in the spirit of fire-with-fire, I guess it’s now time for more conservative judges to start thinking seriously about revisiting Lochner. Long live rule by judiciary!
Reverse, then recall, this judge.
While there is nothing wrong for laws to be challenged in county courts, chronic judicial activism from one location affecting the entire state has its limits. It is due time for the State of Wisconsin to tell renegade judges in Dane county to F¥CK OFF.
Oh , goodie is this going to be a yearly thing ,strike it down then have it over turned
This decision will be; 1) enjoined by the Wisconsin Supremes, and then 2) overturned by the Wisconsin Supremes.
Judges have assumed far too much power
They like to see how clever they are in writing their opinions against what they know is right.
Who ALLOWED that to happen? One guess.
Recall in Dane County, home of Madistan, which votes 80% demoRAT? The rogue judge will likely be given a huge raise as part of his payoff!
Walker should simply declare that he is ignoring this ruling, since it was already upheld by the WI Supreme Court in mid-2011
A quick search reveals the judge is the first Hispanic judge in that county. An immigrant from Colombia, he was appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle, an ultra-liberal from Madison who was an early supporter of Obama. Any questions?
Would a recall be by Dane County voters only or would all of Wisconsin vote on it?
A left-wing judge struck down the law on a procedural technicality in May of last year. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a month later. Bet heavily that this will be reversed too...
bump
Even in the recalls of last year (2011) and this year, the RATs & their union thugs were able to easily gather enough signatures for 9 recalls against Repub state senators (who lost 2 of the recalls in 2011 and 1 more in June 2012). Therefore the RATs have the majority now in the WI state senate unless the Repubs can win back at least 2 senate races while not losing any more.
Conversely the Repubs were able to gather signatures for only 3 recalls against Dems, all of which the Dems won easily. Its sad, when 14 demoRAT senators skip the state & run away from their legislative responsiblities, and yet only Repubs could only manage to gather enough petition signatures to force 3 recall elections against the demoRATs. The other 11 demoRATs didn't even have to worry about petition signatures, let alone having to defend themselves in recall elections.
The constant recalls & court challenges ALWAYS in radical liberal Madistan & Dane County will now be a standard go-to process for the dems in WI. That's why Gov Scott Walker simply needs to issue executive orders against judges who rule agains this, and to declare the judge's rulings to be null & void.
I don’t see how a law can be created that tells me I can’t get together with fellow workers, develop a list of changes I would like to see in the work plan and then approach the boss about it.
If you live by the guide that you should go to the root of the problem, then blame must be placed on those that gave away the store, not those that organized to try and get it.
If someone tells me I can’t organize I’m going to say, oh yea, just watch me. Maybe I am just from a different generation.
The people need some sort of a power over judges which the system is not presently providing...
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