Cops and Robbers

The robbers are the public employee union members in Wisconsin and the Democratic Senators who are trying to keep them in the style to which they are accustomed. The cops are the Wisconsin State Patrol, which has been dispatched to fetch the Democrats back to the Capitol to do their jobs.

According to the Wisconsin senate majority leader, the Governor’s office is sending out state troopers to go after Wisconsin’s Democratic Senate members to bring in a vote on Governor Walker’s budget bill which would dramatically limit government workers union’s ability to negotiate many of their benefits.
“They are prepared to dispatch state troopers to go out to some of the residences of some of the senators,” said Republican State Senator Scott Fitzgerald on Newsradio 620 WTMJ’s “Midday with Charlie Sykes.”
“We don’t know that everybody is out of state. These troopers are going to go and try to escort these senators back to the chamber.”

Obviously the State Patrol can’t drag Democrats back from Illinois, but, as Fitzgerald says, it is not clear that all of them have fled the state. I believe only one Democrat would be needed for a quorum.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are vowing to fight on. Well, not fight exactly–“hide on” is more like it:

Democrats on the run in Wisconsin avoided state troopers Friday and threatened to stay in hiding for weeks, potentially paralyzing a state government they no longer control. …
But the dramatic strategy that’s clogged the Capitol with thousands of protesters clashes with one essential truth: Republicans told everyone unions would be a target, and the GOP has more than enough votes to pass its plans once the Legislature can convene.

Presumably the Democrats have to return someday, and the longer they stay away, the dumber they look. What a PR disaster for the Dems! Meanwhile, there was only one way the low comedy in Madison could get lower: Jesse Jackson could show up. Sure enough, he did. Jackson led union protestors inside the state capitol in a chorus of “We Shall Overcome.”

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