Scott Walker Down the Rat Hole with the Palace Guard

Submitted by Mary Bottari
March 4, 2011
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/03/10260/scott-walker-down-rat-hole-palace-guard

The Wisconsin State Capitol has erupted in a torrent of
lawlessness this week that schoolchildren will be
reading about for years. No, I don't mean rowdy
protests resulting in mass arrests. Even though some
300,000 people have visited the capitol in the last two
weeks, the crowds have been peaceful and fun; no
arrests have been reported. I mean the convulsion of
lawlessness that has seized Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker and the Republican leadership -- a track record
that would make Richard Nixon proud.

Republic Senate Passes Unconstitutional Measures to
Rein In Wisconsin 14

As the Wisconsin Capitol remained in almost complete
lockdown Thursday in violation of a standing court
order, senate Republican leadership turned up the heat
on the missing 14 Democratic legislators with an
unprecedented series of new rules, some of which were
quickly assessed by lawyers as flatly unconstitutional.
On Thursday, 19 Republican
Protest sign seen at WI Capitol
senators passed a resolution authorizing the missing
Senate Democrats to be taken into custody by any
Wisconsin law enforcement officer for "contempt of the
Senate." Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said
the actions were justified because the 14 "have pushed
us to the edge of a constitutional crisis."

The latest legal ploy comes in the context of news
reports that the Wisconsin 14, who left the state to
delay Governor Walker's bill to eviscerate 50 years of
collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin public
employees, were preparing to come back under their own
steam to fight the battle of the budget. One senate
staffer explained that it would be impossible for the
14 to remain out when budget bill deliberations
actually get underway because they were needed to
defend school children, the poor and the elderly
against draconian cuts in the bill.

The unprecedented "arrest warrant" was taken as a
preemptive strike. As the senators were meeting, a Dane
County Court Judge was poised to rule the capitol
lockdown unconstitutional. The Republicans hoped to
shift the focus of the TV news that night and the next
day to their missing Democratic colleagues. But the
prominent law firm of Cullen, Weston, Pines threw a
wrench into these plans when it quickly reminded the
public that "the Wisconsin Constitution absolutely
prohibits members of the Wisconsin Senate from being
arrested for non-criminal offense. The Wisconsin
Senate' action today ... has no basis in the law of
this state." Further, the firm argued that if the
orders of the Republican legislators were carried out,
they themselves could be subject to a contempt ruling
under a Wisconsin statute that protects public
officials from just this type of chicanery.

Late in the afternoon, the head of the Wisconsin
Professional Police Association, James Palmer,  pleaded
for sanity in the State Capitol: "The thought of using
law enforcement officers to exercise force in order to
achieve a political objective is insanely wrong, and
Wisconsin sorely needs reasonable solutions and not
potentially dangerous political theatrics."

Legal Chicanery and Petty Politics

Republican senators had been ramping up the pressure on
Democrats all week, passing a resolution Wednesday that
fines the absent fourteen $100 for every day they are
absent. Lawyers point out that the $100 fine is likely
also unconstitutional under Wisconsin law. They passed
a resolution to allow the senate Sergeant at Arms to
request the assistance of any law enforcement officer
in the state to find and return any senator who is
absent without leave. The Republican senators needed
the extra help, since no local law enforcement agency
was treating the political brouhaha as a serious police
matter. It is likely the Wisconsin's State Patrol will
be suborned into the hunt. The State Patrol is headed
by recently-appointed Stephen Fitzgerald, father of
both the Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald and
State Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald.

The Senate also assigned Republican "supervisors" to
the staff of he missing senators. For instance,
Republican Senator Cowles is assigned to supervise the
staff of Democratic Senator Hansen. Many saw this as
preparation to fire Democratic staff members, or the
ultimate move to expel Democratic senators, which would
indeed cause a constitutional crisis, beyond the one
precipitated by Walker's unilateral dictates.

"Palace Guard" Maintains Capitol Lockdown In Defiance
of a Court Order

Since Monday, March 1, the Capitol building has been in
an unprecedented lockdown as the governor attempted to
clear the building in advance of his Tuesday budget
address. Protesters, Capitol workers, legislators,
Congressmen and others were shut out. Windows were
sealed shut. The lockdown continued in contempt of
court, because a Dane County judge ordered the Capitol
to open on Tuesday. When firefighters responding to an
emergency call at the Capitol Tuesday, even they were
turned away (firefighters have stood with the
protesters since the start of the frackass.) Although
they were eventually allowed in to rescue a police
officer from an elevator, Dane County Sheriff Dave
Mahoney said enough was enough. He withdrew his men
from the capitol, saying they were not hired to act as
a "Palace Guard."

Faced with the problem of getting his supporters in to
the Assembly Chamber on Tuesday, the governor and his
guard escorted a cadre of lobbyists and well-heeled
friends through a utility tunnel that runs from a
parking lot across the street, under the Capitol
grounds to the building's basement. Madison City
Councilwoman Shiva Bidar-Sielaff heard that the tunnel
might be being used for this purpose and went to check
it out. She found about a dozen police officers
guarding the tunnel entrance, some from Milwaukee, some
in suits with unknown insignias. She witnessed an
unmarked police vehicle screech into the garage. Out
stepped Wisconsin's First Lady, Tonnett Walker, who was
hustled into the tunnel as if the parking garage was
under attack. "It was all very 'Men in Black,'" the
Councilwoman said with a laugh, as she watched with a
handful of other observers. Other Walker supporters had
been bused in earlier; the bus signs and arrows were
still up on the walls.

Not surprisingly, the Governor's plans to cut $1
billion dollars from public education and cap property
taxes to force localitiess to balance their budget
shortfalls on the backs of teachers and other public
workers was greeted with wild cheers. Only about 20
protesters were allowed in, and they were quickly
escorted out when one upstart let lose a single "boo."
The Governor's private address took place in definance
of a standing court order to open the Capitol to
protesters, prompting Democratic assembly leader Peter
Barca to question the legality of the whole event under
the state's strong open meetings laws.

Desks on the Capitol Lawn

On Wednesday, Assembly Democratic representatives
couldn't get their work done with the Capitol in a
virtual lockdown, so they took their desks out on the
lawn for office hours. Democratic Rep. Nick Milroy
spoke with constituents standing in the freezing cold
-- the Wednesday low for Madison was minus 6 degrees,
not including wind chill. Milroy relocated his desk,
complete with family pictures and trinkets onto the
muddy lawn. On Thursday night, Milroy was wrestled to
the ground by police trying to prevent him from getting
inside the building to his office.

Representative Marc Pocan was so irate with ever-
shifting rules and the open access Republican
legislators seemed to enjoy, that he issued an "Open
Letter to Whoever is Calling the Shots on the Lockdown
at the State Capitol," demanding to know who was in
charge and asking for a measure of fairness for the
constituents of Democratic legislators.

On Thursday, a lone protestor stood in front of the
parking lot which holds the Capitol utility tunnel
entrance with a sign "Rat Hole to Walker's Palace."

Court Rules Capitol Shutdown Unconstitutional (Again),
Protesters March Out in Victory

In the early evening on Thursday, a Dane County Court
judge ruled for the second time that Walker's virtual
shut down of the Capitol was an unconstitutional
infringement on the rights of the protesters. An
agreement was reached to return the Capitol to normal
business operations by Monday. After talking to former
Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, Capitol
Police Chief Tubbs and Sheriff Mahoney who explained
the terms of the agreement, remaining protesters agreed
to leave the building for cleaning. The 100 or so
remaining protesters, who had stayed in the  building
in an effort to keep it open, packed up their gear and
left to the applause of Democratic Assembly members and
countless other supporters who had been blocked from
entering these past few days.

Lautenschlager summed up the two day-long court battle:
"This is an important determination by the courts.
First it says that actions of the state government
officials are unconstitutional, and it also affords
average citizens the right to be in their Capitol on
Monday to lobby their legislators and conduct normal
business. It is a huge plus in terms of access, and a
huge plus in terms of signaling to Governor Walker and
his colleagues that they will not be allowed to tread
on people's constitutional rights."

Protesters Having a Big Impact, Walker's Poll Numbers
Tanking

All that drumming from the Wisconsin State Capitol is
having a big impact. The governor's poll numbers are
tanking, and even the Republican-friendly polling firm
Rasmussen shows that only 41% support the governor's
propsal to gut collective bargaining in the state,
while 56% support the workers. Another poll shows that
if the election were held today, Walker would lose in a
rematch 52%-45%.

There are many shoes yet to drop in this dramatic
battle in Wisconsin. Will the Republicans attempt to
enforce their illegal warrant against the missing 14?
Will Papa Fitzgerald show for work in epaulettes? Will
the governor start laying off 13,000 workers as
promised, using real people with real lives as pawns in
his political game?

Stay tuned, politics in Wisconsin have never been this
wild.

*****

The Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy has
been live reporting from the historic Wisconsin
protests since day one. Check out our coverage here.
Tomorrow, over 100,000 people will be out in what may
be the largest rally in labor history, and certainly in
Wisconsin history.

___________________________________________

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