Last night's vote by the Wisconsin Assembly was almost certainly illegal

[highplainsdem]

I'm referring to the late-night surprise vote that was cut off in seconds, before most of the Democrats there could even register their "No" votes.

The TPM article on this

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/wi-assembly-gop-passes-walker-budget-in-surprise-vote----dems-chant-shame.php

says that some of the Democrats the reporter, Eric Kleefeld, spoke to had said the vote was illegal.

I just found a copy of the rules for voting on the Wisconsin.gov website

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lrb/gw/gw_20.pdf

and although it's clear that they have a right to cut off debate, there is nothing in the rules allowing the majority to cut off actual voting before all votes of the members present are registered. Nothing in there about being able to cut off voting the second there are enough votes to decide if a bill passes.

They need to be publicly shamed for this -- and taken to court.

I agree with the suggestion I've seen that this illegal stunt was done partly in the hope of making Democrats look bad for losing their tempers.

But I believe most voters will see through the stunt, if the Democrats focus on it enough and it gets enough media attention.

[midnight]

1. If you recall the punk-ed telephone call... Walker explains he is having lunch with Sennsenbrenner..

Sennsenbrenner is grooming this beast....

[el_bryanto]

2. As I said elsewhere, Walker and his tea-party follwers are delusional

They believe that all real Wisconsonians and Americans are behind them; they aren't worried then if their tanks seem weasily or underhanded. Nobody is going to listen to the Democrats or Unions anyway. I mean Walker certainly wouldn't, so why would the good citizens of Wisconsin.

Bryant

[nebenaube]

4. Well

I live in Wisconsin and the damage from this is unrepairable. Not enough people voted last time around and they are realizing that. The tension was palpable last week. With the daily revelations, it is notable that Walker's supporters are not speaking about this in public. At least not here in Eau Claire.

[magdalena]

10. Nor in Oshkosh.

There were so many Walker supporters around election time --- so many of my FB friends supported him, and while these repubs have always been incredibly vocal supporters in the past they are all strangely silent now.

[xchrom]

3. 'look bad for losing their tempers'?

:eyes:

[AleksS]

5. Wouldn't it be great if

Wouldn't it be great if it got thrown out in court over this?

(Of course the WMC-sponsored WI Supreme Court I'm sure wouldn't find any fault with ther GOP pals breaking the rules.)

[Viking12]

9. Exactly. The SCOWI is bought and paid for just like Walker.

[Dappleganger]

6. Fucking dictatorial.

That's not how a party with a "mandate" behaves--they are cowards who are usurping their positions and need to be taken to court over these tactics.

[rbixby]

12. That may be true

But if the legality of the vote is in question, the vote in the senate could be stopped until its resolved. I'm sure there's plenty of lawyers who could find a way of tying this up in court for months, and costing the governor's office huge and the assembly amounts of money in legal fees mounting a defense of it. Then how fiscally conservative do they end up looking? Even if it turns out that its legal because of some technicality, it could potentially be tied up in the court system for a long time.

[Lifelong Protester]

7. LEGAL ACTION NOW!

I am sure the Assembly persons shut out of this are on it, but legal action NOW


and publicize the hell out of it

[glinda]

13. +1000

[HereSince1628]

8. Cocky and frustrated people make mistakes. Looks like the R's did

I suspect the AFL-CIO lawyers are all over this.

No telling if that WILL result in a court filing to challenge the bill (if it becomes law) on the basis of denial of due process until the lawyers do their thing.

BUT, there is absolutely no doubt that for many Wisconsinites the R's will be seen to have jumped the shark.

Wisconsin is classic in it's Midwestern application of Common Sense and Decency. The r's didn't rise to meet that last night.

[Bjorn Against]

11. The Republicans seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot over and over again

This is actually going to help our side, we did not have the votes in the assembly and there was never any question that the Republicans were going to win that vote. Preventing Democrats from voting however is clearly wrong, and it is not legal which likely means that the courts will nullify this vote. They will have to vote again which will cause this thing to stretch out further, and the longer this goes the more damage is done to the Republican Party.

[ericjd]

14. Why The Wisconsin Assembly Vote Was Illegal

This is the text of a short article that might show up at the CounterPunch website; if so, there's no reason why I can't post it here too. Here is why Wisconsin Democrats should aggressively pursue overturning this vote.



Early Friday morning, the Republican leadership of Wisconsin’s state assembly rushed through Governor Walker’s bill that would strip most unionized state employees of their ability to engage in collective bargaining. As is by now familiar, the vote opened and closed in a matter of seconds, leaving 28 members of the assembly uncounted in the vote, which passed by a 51 to 17 margin (all 51 in favor, it should be noted, were Republicans).

Progressive media outlets—who, to their credit, have expressed outrage at the underhanded tactics employed by the Republican majority—are already touting this as a victory for Walker. But this concession seems premature as a close inspection of the Wisconsin assembly rules suggests that the vote was illegal.

According to Assembly Rule 76 (6), “During a roll call vote, any member may raise the point of order that a member appears to be absent from the chamber but is shown as voting according to the roll call display boards. If the presiding officer rules the point of order ‘well taken’, the vote of the absent member may not be recorded.” The clear intent of the rule is to prevent error or fraud from occurring in votes taken in the state assembly. But exercise and enforcement of the rule also clearly requires that there be sufficient time during a vote for assembly members to register whether or not there is a discrepancy between votes recorded and the members physically present on the floor.

Opening and closing a vote within seconds clearly violates the intent for which Rule 76 (6) was designed and adopted. Wisconsin Democrats thus have good ground for throwing out last night’s vote.



Eric Johnson-DeBaufre is a visiting lecturer at Boston University. He can be reached at [email protected].

[sakabatou]

15. Welcome to DU, Eric

[ericjd]

17. Thanks

Good to be here!

[highplainsdem]

20. Welcome, Eric! And thank you!

[ericjd]

21. Article up at CounterPunch

For folks who are interested, this article is now up at CounterPunch (thanks, Jeff!)

[highplainsdem]

22. Eric, would you please post a new topic about that? It deserves more attention than it will get as

a reply here. Thanks! I'll recommend it as soon as I see it posted.

[highplainsdem]

23. Whoops. Do new members need a certain number of posts to start a topic? I will post the article

for you.

[ericjd]

25. Thanks

Yes, you need to hit a certain target before you can start threads. Thanks for your help!

[ericjd]

24. I'd like to but I can't

I wish I could, but I am new here and can't start threads yet. Feel free to post one yourself if you'd like.

Cheers,

Eric

[highplainsdem]

26. I just posted it for you, with your name in the subject line, too, and your DU name.

:yourock:

[ericjd]

28. Again, thanks

so much for doing that. Very kind of you.

I just got finished emailing all 25 of the Democrats who were denied their right to vote, urging them to look into whether the vote could be invalidated because of the Rule 76 (6) violation. A few staffers wrote back and said that they would be looking into that as well as some other rules violations. A good sign that they are not taking this lying down.

Go Wisconsin!

[highplainsdem]

27. Link to that topic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x508592

[steve2470]

16. k&r nt

[ericjd]

18. Wisconsin Assembly rules

Although I am not a lawyer, I have taught legal research to lawyers and know my way around the law fairly well.

Reading the Wisconsin Assembly rules, I would argue that the quick vote clearly violates the intent for which Rule 76 (6) was created and adopted. That rule says that "During a roll call vote, any member may raise the point of order that a member appears to be absent from the chamber but is shown as voting according to the roll call display boards. If the presiding officer rules the point of order ‘well taken’, the vote of the absent member may not be recorded."

For this rule to be applied and to be enforceable, there needs to be sufficient time for assembly members to register whether there is an obvious discrepancy between the votes recorded and the membership present on the floor. A vote that opens and closes in a matter of seconds makes this impossible and thus would seem a clear violation of Rule 76 (6).

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Like this stopped Delay

but the shennanigans will land him in jail

[Matariki]

29. Why should they bother following laws - when are never consequences for them?

This is one thing that I'm very upset toward the Obama administration about - letting the Bush administration off the hook for violation of the rule of law. This is what that leads to. As if a person could brutally murder people one day and the next day insist "we need to look forward, not back" - and not suffer any consequences.

[Imajika]

30. It's very rare that a state judiciary would interfere with the workings...

...of the state legislature when it comes to the rules. Perhaps things are different in Wisconsin, but in most states the courts wouldn't touch an issue like this. The legislatures makes their own rules and my guess is there is about 0 chance that a Wisconsin court will strike down what Wisconsin's Assembly did last night.

There is a difference between illegal and unethical. There is also a difference between breaking the rules and breaking the law.

[SlipperySlope]

31. They can't be taken to court.

Courts have no jurisdiction to review legislative rules of proceeding, which are those rules having "to do with the process the legislature uses to propose or pass legislation or how it determines the qualifications of its members." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. DOA, 2009 WI 79, 319 Wis. 2d 439, 768 N.W.2d 700