Wisconsin, Act II: Collective Bargaining Goes Caput?

Tonight Republican Senators in Wisconsin, in a controversial maneuver that may be overturned by the judiciary, split apart the collective bargaining provisions from the fiscal parts of the "Budget Repair" bill that has been stalled for three weeks due to the departure of Senate Democrats from the state so that a quorum -- required to act on any spending bill -- could not meet to consider Governor Walker's divisive budget proposal.

The action began by the formation of a sham "conference committee" with representatives from the two legislative chambers acting as if to reconcile conflicting versions of the same bill passed by the two chambers. In this Republican-only committee, the spending and the collective bargaining provisions in the original bill were separated into two separate bills. The committee then "reported" the non-spending provision as a separate bill to the Senate, convened with a lower quorum threshold because no spending was in the bill to strip public employee unions of their ability to collectively bargain for salary or benefit increases beyond cost of living increases in the former.

Critics have reacted in an understandably hostile way, pointing to the demonstration this action gives to the governor's motives in busting unions all along rather than solving a budget crisis.

The online fundraising arms of the progressive left have launced drives to raise a half million dollars overnight to fuel the recall drives underway to remove Republican control of the Senate. Michael Moore, fresh from an appearance in Madison over the weekend, called upon supporters of the unions to travel to Madison to demonstrate in a nonviolent way their strong disagreement with the actions of the Wisconsin Republicans.

Does this mean the impasse over the issue of workers' rights is over? No, this effort may actually activate pro-union support rather than tamp it down. Public opinion had already changed against Walker and the Republican legislators. As the details become known of the manner in which this measure was addressed, the odds are that the Republicans will pay a very large political price.