Madison Judge Strikes Down Act 10
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas, a former state assistant attorney general, ruled Friday that Act 10 - - the Walker initiative to nearly completely kill collective bargaining by public employee unions in Wisconsin - - was null and void for local government and school employees because it violated both the state and federal constitutions.
Update: The ruling applies to municipal and school employees, not state workers, according to Lester Pines, the plaintiffs' attorney:
"The decision essentially creates the (2011) status quo for municipal employees and school district employees because it declared that the essential provisions of Act 10 to be unconstitutional," said Lester Pines, an attorney for the Madison teachers and city of Milwaukee employees who are plaintiffs.An earlier 4-3 ruling by the State Supreme Court, and written by Justice David Prosser for the court's conservative bloc, had only validated the Legislature's process in approving it.
Saturday update:
[Labor plaintiff Attorney Lester Pines said Walker and others should not be demeaning judges with name calling...The Dane County ruling was made on behalf of the Madison Teachers Union, (MTU), and a Milwaukee public employees union.
"When a case is before judges, it's really not a good idea to insult the judge. First of all, it's just bad manners. But secondly, from a tactical point of view, when someone still has issues before him or her, why would you insult that person?..."
Representatives of Walker couldn't immediately be reached for comment Saturday.
Portions of the law restricting the activities of union organizations were struck down by a Federal judge earlier this year.
Atty. Pines was the attorney who won an injunction on behalf of the League of Wisconsin Women Voters in its challenge of the Voter ID law.
That case, and a parallel challenge, are before the state Court of Appeals; Republicans are pushing for a quick ruling by the Supreme Court in hopes of reinstating the law before the November 6th presidential election.
4 comments:
This will be reversed in less than two weeks or at a minimum "stayed". Bottom line- elections have consequences and the people spoke (twice if you count the recall as you should).
If you were truly a grownup, Grownup, you would recognize that the June 5th election was not about Act 10, but about a distorted view of the constitutional right to recall politicians. (It's amazing how many people have forgotten that George Petak was recalled, not for wrongdoing, but for a vote.)
The sad thing about this is that the public employees and the unions in Wisconsin did
bargain with Scott Walker over a whole range of issue's. Including pay and contributing more
to their benefits. The only thing they wouldn't give him is their right to collectively bargain.
And now Scott Walker resorts to calling the judge a liberal activist, and not because he won't allow the legislature and governor to create laws. But because he will not allow them to dictate and create
laws which violate the rights of workers.
JB- Exactly. If Walker's regular 4-year term was up and he had to play by the same rules as other candidates, he would have lost (you don't think at least 5% of voters voted Walker solely due to disliking recalls? Of course they did). Instead, we have to wait till 2014 to see him and WisGOP lose by even more.
And if the recall election was this November, when people can see that Act 10 has severely harmed the quality of education and services without giving any savings to the public, he'd probably be toast already (think some parents in G'town, Elmbrook, and New Berlin might regret their votes today? SUCKERS).
Instead we'll have to blow out the gutless WisGOP politicians who went along with this ALEC agenda. And payback will be a beeee-yatch!
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