This is What Democracy Actually Looks Like

The morons who have gathered in Madison to bang drums and shout their antique union slogans at Gov. Walker claim that they are "what democracy looks like".  Hardly.  Here's what democracy actually looks like:

It was Wednesday, March 9, and Governor Walker had decided to visit the Wisconsin State Capitol before he headed off to give his “Ag Day” speech that afternoon.

Walker figured he had been very patient. Four weeks earlier he had proposed his budget repair bill, and he had the votes to pass it. But one week after that, all 14 Democratic state senators fled to Illinois to deny Republicans the quorum they thought necessary to hold a vote on the legislation. In the days that followed, top Republican legislators and senior aides to Walker spoke regularly with Democrats in an effort to forge a compromise—several times believing that they had reached a tentative understanding that would allow the senate to take up the controversial measure, only to have the agreement collapse. The more this happened the less likely a compromise seemed.

So, shortly before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Walker addressed a meeting of the senate Republican caucus. It was time to end the standoff and move forward, he said. The world didn’t know it, but Republicans had been given the tools to do that two days earlier, in rulings from three nonpartisan bodies that allowed them to tweak the bill slightly and pass it with only a simple majority present in the senate. But Walker kept his comments general. He said that while Wisconsinites were divided about the wisdom of his proposals, there was widespread agreement that the stalemate had to end.

At a press conference that afternoon, a reporter asked Walker about a letter to him from senate minority leader Mark Miller. Walker had not received the letter—it was released to the media before it was delivered to his office. Miller offered two choices he knew would be rejected and said that if Walker did not meet his demands it would be clear the governor wanted to “keep lines of communications closed.”

It was a final act of bad faith from Miller. A few hours later, Republicans in the state senate moved swiftly to pass the tweaked bill. And two days later, Walker signed it.

It was over.

Of course, we do not have a democracy. We have a representative republic which means we don't make decisions by majority rule but choose people to represent us. We also don't make decisions based on who screams the loudest or bangs the biggest drum.  For all their noise and fury the assembled masses in Madison did little more than beclown themselves.

“Republicans have made a mockery of democracy,” said Representative Peter Barca, the Democratic leader in the state assembly.

On Thursday, Barca filed a legal challenge, alleging the vote had violated the Open Meetings law. But the case seems to have little chance of succeeding. The senate chief clerk, a nonpartisan official who offers parliamentary and legal advice to the chamber, wrote in an email to senators that the vote “appears to have satisfied the requirements of the rules and statutes.”

Those rules and statutes state that during a special session, under which the legislature has been operating for the past month, the only notice required is a posting on a bulletin board in the capitol. The Republicans did that. And then, just to be safe, they waited two hours, the minimum notice required under the Open Meetings law when it’s “impractical” to wait for 24 hours.

The absurdity of the Democrats’ outrage was too much. They weren’t merely wrong on a procedural point. They were accusing Republicans of “making a mockery of democracy,” operating like a “banana republic,” and, in former labor secretary Robert Reich’s words, conducting a “coup d’état.” All the while, Democrats were hiding in another state trying to prevent a newly inaugurated senate from holding a vote on vital state business.

But in the end, senate Republicans had found a way to vote. The Assembly passed the bill on Thursday. Scott Walker signed it into law on Friday.

And that is what democracy actually looks like.

Walker and Wisconsin won...period. The state will be better off for what happened with this bill. It may take a little time, but the positive effects will eventually become obvious.

And for those who fear that this will end Walker's career, Mitch Daniels in Indiana eliminated collective bargaining for public employee unions in his state by executive order. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the uneducated union masses, but what Daniels promised came true and he was re-elected with more than 60% of the vote.

Walker will be okay.  He still has nearly his entire term left.