McIlheran demands Walker's political unraveling

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's award-winning calumnist Patrick McIlheran is rather excited by a trivial observation he found in the National Review, pointing out that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's plan to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights is not a "fiscal bill" for the purposes of the State constitution.

As such, its passing does not require the three-fifths quorum currently being denied the governor by the 14 Democratic Senators reportedly ensconced in Illinois (there are 33 seats in the Senate; Republicans hold 19 so Walker only needs one of the 14 Democrats).

Everyone already knows the CBA-stripping provision is not a "fiscal bill" — nobody more so than Walker, who has continually and practically to an irrational extent insisted that it is, for one obvious reason: If he acknowledged its true intent and purpose, which is to bust public employee unions, the jig is up and the ruse exposed.

Sometimes you almost want to feel sorry for McIlheran.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the NR piece is authored by one Prof. Jim Lindgren, who also wrote the unwarrantedly smug criticism of a couple of Madison lawyers we had a look at here.