I have to give Scott Walker credit for one thing. He's not afraid of political death. He just keeps doing every single thing he can to piss off as many people as possible, while continuing to be one giant Koch-sucker.
Today's installment, courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal frontpage today:
The lead lawyer for the state agency in charge of settling state labor-management disputes would become a political appointee under a proposal included in Gov. Scott Walker's biennial budget, a change critics say injects political influence into an agency that is supposed to be impartial.
As a political appointee, the general counsel for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission could be fired more easily, making it more difficult to give impartial advice to the commission, unions and state agencies, said George Fleischli, a Madison lawyer and arbitrator who held the position when it was created in 1975.
"It puts this person is a very difficult position ethically," Fleischli said.
Walker, clearly, is bound and determined to rape the unions and the middle-class of as much as possible in the following few months. This is doubling down on the illegal move he already made, and while THAT law may be overturned because he didn't keep his mouth shut and said it was "fiscal" all while the vote was conducted under "non-fiscal" pretenses. But wait, there's more!
The commission administers the state's collective bargaining laws, including making rulings on unfair labor practices complaints, such as the one the Wisconsin State Employees Union filed Feb. 28 against Walker, claiming he was refusing to negotiate on a new contract.
For some 35,000 state employees who will be losing most of their bargaining authority this month under a measure Walker signed last week, it will be the final arbiter in disputes that were previously covered under contract provisions.
Walker said those employees will be protected by existing civil service protections, which include the right to appeal to the WERC. The agency also handles appeals filed by nonunion employees who dispute serious disciplinary actions.
The current general counsel, Peter Davis, has held the position as a career civil servant since 1981, which has enabled him to give impartial advice on highly controversial issues without fear of reprisals, said commission chair Judy Neumann.
So, yeah, he wants to appoint the guy who would rule on complaints filed against him, and unlike a judge, that guy wouldn't have job security, because as a political appointee, he/she could be dumped IMMEDIATELY by Walker. If you think those of us calling this guy a fascist are blowing it out of proportion, add up everything he's doing and see if you can come to a different decision. All power would flow through him regarding employment. The "protections" he supposedly left in place would be null and void because of the fact that he'd have power over the person making the decisions, and do you REALLY think Walker would let his appointee rule against him? Either that person commits career suicide by ruling against Walker, or they get to be a puppet. And not only could Walker fire the person for an unfavorable ruling, but since he already saw fit to ignore the law and sign a bill passed illegally by his buddies in the fascist cabal (the Fitzgeralds running the show in the Assembly), God knows he might even just refuse to follow an adverse ruling, and then what? It's not like his buddies will impeach him.
Walker is just like Bush, but worse. The Republican party has clearly been taking the tack of just ignoring the laws they find inconvenient, and it's incredible that people still keep electing them to office, when they have no respect for the Constitution they claim to love. The Constitution set in place the rule of law, but more and more across the nation, one party has been choosing to ignore the law when it inconveniences their power grab, and the power they already have is thoroughly corrupting them. Our Founders assumed that our representatives would respect the law, and would put state and country above personal, petty means. Sadly, true patriotism is all but gone for these Republicans. The nation they want is fascist, petty, cruel, and run by rich oligarchs, with the rest of us left to fend for scraps.
We cannot stop fighting. I never thought the day would come where we would be having a virtual second Civil War, but we have hit rock bottom. The patriotism that existed to impeach Nixon almost 40 years ago is gone. Back then, nation still came over party. Today, it's all but impossible to find that on the GOP side. Walker's newest power grab is just one more step towards the fascism they dream of.