Judge Sumi really, really means it

In just a little while, Dane Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi will hear arguments on the request by Dane County DA Ismael Ozanne to block the union busting law until she can consider whether or not Republican legislators passed it properly (this morning's front page article). I don't have to tell you why it is being challenged. We all remember with a bit of rage how Sen. Scott Fitzgerald rammed it through in violation of the state's open meetings law while 14 Democrats were 'on the lam' in Illinois to deny them a quorum on the notorious budget repair bill.

Yesterday for the THIRD time, Judge Sumi basically asked Repubs what it is about her temporary restraining order that they did not understand, at one point threatening sanctions if they continued to defy the court.  Now Guv Scott Walker is all polite on us saying he'll abide by the law because he has to, but doesn't really want to.

He really does remind me sometimes of the playground bully who thinks he has the ball and can run home with it if he feels like it.  Democracy - you run for governor, you win by withholding your real agenda from voters, you start implementing the real agenda, voters are outraged, but you think once elected you can do whatever you want, and now a court says, well, maybe not, meanwhile your approval rating sinks into a deepening abyss.

Democracy - really doesn't stop on inauguration day.

Democracy - you have to abide by the law (yes, King Scott Fitzgerald, that even means you), even when it means you don't get your way during your reign.

United States democracy - founded on a revolution against the king, founded on a revolution against tyranny from the crown, when rule by the monarchy felt a lot like a suffocating oppression.

All you protesters and fed-up public and private sector workers who have seen you labor rights eroded, your wages sink, your houses lost to foreclosure, your kids' education in jeopardy, your health insurance disappearing - please ponder this. We are only in a 'budget crisis' by design of the corporate backers of these politicians and these initiatives in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, Indiana, and elsewhere, by design of mega-corporations who want to get government - and you - out of their way. They have no intention of creating good-paying jobs because they don't need to and don't want to - except for the fewer workers they need at lower wages and benefits (a la Kohler, Mercury Marine, and Harley Davidson).

In the public sector, they want to outsource your jobs, our schools, our utilities, our airports, our flagship university, our prisons, and more so that they can run things for their financial benefit, so that they can make more and more of this country into a corporate state - a bit like England in the 1700s.

The more this happens, the more we lose access to the big decisions that effect all of our lives and the common goods (along with the good of the commons), the quality of our lives, our environment, our educational institutions, etc.  We can challenge government; it remains accountable to us. Corporations remain legally accountable only to their shareholders, or in the case of the very private Koch brothers, to themselves.

Once upon a time, writing like this would leave one vulnerable to accusations of being 'leftist,' or 'socialist,' or a crazy liberal. But now we know that what I write here is merely descriptive,  not polemical.

Republican appointee Judge Sumi is one great example of this. She is hardly anybody's liberal, but she is obviously pretty convinced that Ozanne has an excellent case and an excellent chance of winning. While no one can say yet how she will ultimately rule, or what pressures she is dealing with right now, the response of King Fitzgerald to the perfectly legitimate actions of Democrats to prevent quorum, the deceptive and hasty maneuver to get the union-busting law passed, and then the response from the Walker administration when Judge Sumi said, 'whoa, wait, not so fast,' again reveals the essential thing we need to know right now about this administration and it's Fitzgerald enablers in the Senate and Assembly.

Folks, stay very engaged in this. Don't give up or lose hope. Something special has been sparked here in Wisconsin. Democracy can overcome corporate monarchy one more time, this time before it has a chance to re-entrench itself. I want democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people, not for the corporate giants, their shareholders, and their wealthy investors. I have a feeling you do, too.

Battle over rule of law

Stunning, isn't it, how quickly Gov Walker and the Fitzgerald Republicans have shown the kind of anti-democratic ideologues that they truly are. When they meet opposition, they hit hard, and then they try to roll over you. If you're the Democratic opposition in the Assembly and Senate, they try to pass quick votes on legislation no one has had time to read, they schedule quick votes and then don't tell the Democrats, they tear away a big controversial part of a bill successfully stalled by the Dems breaking quorum and heading south of the border, then violate open meetings laws to pass it anyway.

Then, when taken to court, a judge issues a straightforward, clear, unequivocal temporary restraining order to halt implementation of the bill until the issue can be thoroughly argued before the judge - and they act as if the court simply does not exist.

So the judge, understandably perturbed, reiterated her ruling earlier this evening. Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi again pronounced today that the temporary restraining order is in effect, which means the law busting public sector unions and cutting pay and benefits is not.

"Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of Act 10 was enjoined. That is what I now want to make crystal clear,"  said the judge.

What does it mean to an authoritarian government when a court orders it to stop taking an action it wants to take? Well, nothing; it simply ignores it, of course. The Walker administration is going on as if the third branch of government has no authority. It does not recognize the rule of law.

I don't know how to communicate sufficiently the danger we are in here, and in the state of Michigan and other states where folks of Walker's ilk are taking direct hits at the very idea of democracy itself and the vital institutions necessary to ensure its proper functioning. It is not up to the executive or legislative branches of government to decide whether or not they will abide by the law when rendered by the third co-equal branch of government, the judiciary. If they get away with this, something far more disturbing will be blowing in our wind here in this state.

Powerful forces rooted in vast corporate wealth are at work here and around the country to gut government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The rightist politicians give away their real agenda when they refuse to submit to the rule of law when it challenges that agenda - to subvert democracy itself to their benefit.

Sec. of State Doug La Follette was on The Rachel Maddow show tonight and one of the points he made was apt - if the Republicans want to settle the matter, they could start over, resubmit the bill, and vote on it again. They have a majority in both houses. Is this mere stubbornness, "I will get my way or else?"

Asked to guess about their reasons for not doing this, La Follette smiled and then wondered out loud whether they are afraid it would not pass a second time.  With polls turning sharply against the Republicans and several enthusiastic recall efforts underway in Senate districts, maybe that's the case.

But I also wonder this - if the real effort here is to try to trump the court with a sheer power play, to try to weaken the rule of law by weakening the institution of last resort when rights are on the line - our state and federal courts.

The struggle for democracy is never finally won. Lack of vigilance, low voter turnout and apathy, disdain for government which has been all the rage in recent years, have allowed the corporate takeover of our public institutions to become a real threat to our democracy, while we were all looking the other way, or watching TV or playing video games while texting our friends.

Now we know - it is time to rivet our attention back into the political system in which we live and to hope it is not too late to wrest our government at all levels from the corporate billionaires who are making their bid to take power into their hands and put government at their service - to the detriment (and I really mean this, folks) of all of us.