WI Future - DNR Lawyer or Independent Thinker

[WhiskeyGirl]

I didn't know how or why Wisconsin's Supreme Court functioned.  This recent election is an eye opener.

Should the court add a DNR lawyer or continue on with an independent thinker?  A lawyer telling folks in advance how they will vote on issue?  Or an independent thinker willing to listen to facts?

What a scary thought that justice depends on outside influence, or insider decisions.  What happened to the facts?

There is an article here which discusses the recent law and Judge Sumi (apparently she has some high level union connections in her family)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/judge_sumis_war_on_wisconsin_r.html

Under Wisconsin's Code of Judicial Conduct, "a judge may not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor or fear of criticism." Also, "a judge may not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge's judicial conduct or judgment."

With the revelation of an apparent conflict of interest involving the judge's son and his activities with unions, Sumi's ruling may be called into question.

Arbitrary interference in the legislative process by activist judges is obviously a cause for concern for all Americans.  Judges could ultimately determine which state laws are enacted simply by blocking legislation they oppose.  With the advent of fugitive legislators that scurry across state lines and file civil lawsuits with sympathetic courts to sabotage the democratic process, judges and disgruntled lawmakers could easily work together to subvert the will of voters.

Elect a DNR lawyer who has an ideology about guns, property rights...or an independent thinker?

[WhiskeyGirl]

One point appears lost in this discussion of "rights" (even coming from some commentators who supported the bill's passage).  Neither the U.S. Constitution nor Wisconsin's Constitution identifies collective bargaining as a right.  One can argue for an amendment at the state level - -and some advocates have recently done so -- but you can't credibly maintain that the legal equivalent presently exists.

Therefore since collective bargaining is neither a natural, civil, nor political right, at best it is a right only in the colloquial sense of the term and merely a privilege in a purely constitutional sense.  It is a privilege in our view that has been badly abused in Wisconsin to the detriment of state taxpayers.  Collective bargaining actually denies the individual employee -- who might otherwise choose to decline a contract, or even decline the requirement to bargain collectively -- an ability to act independently, yet many continue to refer to this bargaining mechanism as a right.

While the recently enacted bill has caused much consternation, what it actually will do is replace collective bargaining with distributed bargaining and push down negotiations to the local school district levels -- where, in our view, they belonged in the first place.  We are bothered by the oft-used phrase of an "assault on the middle class" believing as we do, that it is not an assault on government employees who possess Cadillac health care benefits and retirement plans the rest of us only dream of.  Further, at 15% of the workforce (and even less of the populace), they hardly constitute the sweeping characterization we often hear as -- "Wisconsin's Middle Class."

read more here - http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_truth_about_wisconsins_col.html

[WhiskeyGirl]

The same article above also has the following and I agree...

The fact is, at the local level in many rural Wisconsin communities, public employment has become a fiefdom of privilege where, owing to binding interest arbitration based upon comparability, the never-ending spiral of wage and benefit improvements often results in local government compensation exceeding community "middle class" standards. The need to bargain virtually every operational issue makes implementing policy decisions and providing services a protracted struggle, often ending in grievance arbitration.

How many people without connections are ever hired by companies and communities run by unions?

How often are applications distributed through existing union members?

How many conflicting interests run our cities, state, and communities?