Today’s conflict-ridden world provides endless bizarre opportunities to reflect on the nature of how people attempt to manipulate the rules for their own selfish and partisan benefit. An example of that I have not focused on too much, but that has interested me, has been the continuing brouhaha in Madison, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is one of my favorite Midwestern states, and the one of which (along with Ohio) I know the best. The quirkiness of the inhabitants there is something I greatly appreciate and enjoy, being somewhat of an oddball myself.
Nonetheless, the recent political crisis there over the state unions has attracted a fair amount of negative press to Wisconsin. At this point the political theater is moving in a more ominous direction, though, thanks to the continued intransigence of Wisconsin Democrats in the state senate who are unwilling to accept defeat and who have fled the coop to avoid providing quorum.
How serious is it? Right now there are arrest warrants out for the fourteen fleeing state senators charging them with contempt and disorderly conduct and that may cause them, if found, to be brought in handcuffs to the state senate forcing them to vote (at least “present”), providing quorum for the passage of a law that would seek to break the power of the state employees’ unions in that state [1]. It seems very bizarre that state senators would have to be dragged by force to do their civic duty, that which they are elected and paid to do, to vote on the issues of the day. How can elected leaders justify their failure to perform their duties when they continually harp about the apathy of the electorate at large?
It is worthy of note, though, that this particular habit of seeking to skip town to avoid quorum is not unheard of in the state politics of the Midwest. Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln records that in his young adulthood as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Abraham Lincoln himself participated in a desperate attempt to break up a quorum that promised to enact painful laws by jumping out of the window of the state capital when that number had been reached. Of course, the quorum still counted, the laws were enacted, and he was embarrassed for his troubles.
One suspects that there will be a similar result here. You can run, but you can’t hide forever, and that enough state senators will be brought in by some fashion to meet quorum and pass the bills to break the state unions. Such games are not going to work, and will only bring shame and blame upon those state senators who have refused to perform their responsibilities to be present and voting, which is their minimum requirement. Some of them might even end up in jail, or removed from office for their actions. They would be worthy of losing their office, for if they will not perform their duties, let another take their office.
