Power-mad Republican legislators in Madison are falling into foot-stomping mode again.
They want the rest of the government - - thus constituents and citizens - - to kneel ever more deeply before them.
This time it's State Sen. and President Mike Ellis, (R-Neenah), who, after 42+ years in the legislator wants to change state law and require the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up directly (bypassing lower courts) any constitutional challenge to the Legislature's handiwork within 150 days.
For a guy who has been involved in a lot of law-making, Ellis seems oddly unaware of how the law realty works and doesn't care how transparent is his end-run around circuit and appellate courts a few blocks from the Capitol where elected judges might decline to march in lockstep with what Ellis' or any other Legislatures' agendas.
Maybe writing better law in the first place would result in fewer constitutional challenges.
Maybe 42 years in the Legislature overly-inflates some members' sense of personal or institution's value.
Ellis and his GOP colleagues also want to set a deadline of 420 days for a mining permit application to be fully vetted by the DNR. This calendar-bending sop to mining interests who wrote the bill also shows a lack of information about how state and federal law - - not to mention science - - works in a real world democracy.
It also reminds me of Sen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's demands in 2010 that the State Patrol arrest Democratic legislators who'd left the state during the Act 10 brouhaha.
The GOP legislative caucus is turning into a troupe of silly little dictators. Is there a seminar available for them in Separation of Powers And Calm Legislating 101?
Can we donate large quantities of decaf?
Perhaps they feel they have to act before the election?
ReplyDeleteIt's just thriftiness. If all cases go directly to the supreme court, that's far fewer judgeships that need to be bought.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we could try plugging in some of those calming cat pheromones around the capitol. Maybe that would help.
How about we just boycott the propaganda network that props this all up?
ReplyDeleteOh yeah -- that would be your bosses at journal communications -- and it shows, you never lay responsibility where it belongs.
This site has ceased being a useful source of information -- you prop up the propaganda machine by giving them all free passes.
Anonymous concern troll at 5:20- Is there a point to posting the SAME DAMN THING on this site 5 times a day? Save the J-S rips for when they're mentioned in the article.
ReplyDeleteAs for the topic at hand- Old Man Ellis clearly has no concept of what a "ripe law" is. Kinda hard to show the effect of something if it hasn't taken effect or gone through a local budget cycle, now can it?
These people really are losing their grip...on power, and they're starting to get desperate. Time to turn up the heat on them and make em crack.