Excellent essay here.
And a reminder that governments don't have rights; people have rights. Governments have powers but only those given to them by the people, which they may expand or retract from time to time. One of those rights — in Wisconsin, at least — is the right to recall elected officials. Nine such elections took place this summer. Democrats won five of them while Republicans won four.* In their wake, one Republican, Robin Vos, is spearheading an attempt to restrict the right of recall. As I mentioned earlier, this is purely a move by Republican politicians to abridge the rights of the people, and nobody should let them get away with it.
Another right Wisconsinites possess is the right to vote. The Wisconsin constitution says that the legislature may enact laws "[d]efining residency." Recently the Republicans in power enacted a law requiring photo identification. What's your picture got to do with residency?
We'll find out soon enough.
* A less mentioned aspect of this summer's political jamboree is that Republicans filed formal notice of recall against seven other Democratic incumbents, and failed to collect the required number of signatures in every instance. Yet the Republicans keep telling us they are "winning."
For Rockin' Robin, the devil will be in the details. Just who and how will malfeasance be defined? The will of the people is much simpler.
ReplyDelete"Ethical violations," didn't he say?
ReplyDeleteAnother overlooked or even denied fact is that the Rs started recalling first. It is part of their national playbook, because they are always in synch with the masses. Turning that narrative around was another gratifying outcome. Blowback, what a bitch.
ReplyDeleteAfter they attempted to have their political adversaries arrested, taken into custody, and bodily conveyed into a public building, on the twenty-seven-thousand-dollar advice of James Troupis, Esq.
ReplyDeleteIt's good the wingers ran their own recalls. They saw first hand how hard it was and also that they were not up to the task, but others were. They know that deep down. They could have got those signatures in many places if they were better organized and put more people in the field. But they weren't and didn't. We outhustled them, and not by a little bit.
ReplyDeleteThis by Wisconsin Reporter fan Gary Jacobsen is smothered in awesomesauce:
ReplyDeleteDemocracy is not an American idea. We are a REPUBLIC with a constitution that needs to be followed and maintained to preserve freedom and liberty for it's citizens. Even at our founding as a country our founders knew of the many flaws and damnation democracy brings to it's people, thats why they stayed as far away from that as they could and it's not mentioned anywhere in the constitution or declaration of independence.
This is a cult or must be concidered one to be held in our educational systems buildings and under a flag that represents this great REPUBLIC with the grace of our representatives and people that know better is truly dissturbing and unamerican. The proof of this can be found in all the documents that were created to form this REPUBLIC and there is no standding evidence that a democracy was to be any form of our governmental system and for good reason.
What the.
ReplyDelete