Avlon: Wisconsin's Nuclear Option
John Avlon writes at The Daily Beast:
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has an un-played ace up his sleeve in the budget fights that have made Madison the focus of a national struggle between fiscal conservatives and public sector unions.
A little-noticed provision in the Wisconsin State Constitution—Article 8, Section 8—allows non-fiscal bills to be passed by a simple majority of state legislators, rather than the 3/5th threshold that drove Democratic state senators to Illinois in hopes of denying the Republican Governor the ability to go forward with collective bargaining reform as part of his proposed budget cut package.
This means that if the collective bargaining were delinked from the budget measures and put forward as a separate bill, it could be passed with 51 percent of the legislators—and without Democrats’ participation.
"In layman's terms, what Article 8, Section 8 says is that if you don't have a fiscal bill, then a quorum is a [simple] majority,” Robert Lang, Director of the State of Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, explained to me. “If the collective bargaining portion were delinked, I believe that could be accomplished."
"If he [Governor Walker] separated the collective bargaining issues into a stand-alone bill a simple majority would be sufficient for a quorum, which he would have with the Republicans," added Terry C. Anderson, director of the non-partisan Wisconsin Legislative Council. Anderson cautioned that if any fees or appropriations were included in the collective bargaining provision, they would need to be excised before moving forward with fewer than 20 senators present.
"This has dragged on so long and with all the continuing attention Wisconsin has received, I'm surprised this hasn't come up more in public," said Brett Healy, President of the Madison-based John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy. "[Because] Walker's administration hasn't talked about it publicly or actually begun the process of splitting the bill, it would suggest that they are making some progress in getting the missing Democratic senators to consider coming back to Madison. Senate Democrats need something to point to so they can tell their constituents, ‘we ran off and got this in return.’ I would guess Senators are trying to figure out what token gesture, maybe a procedural consideration, allows Democrats to save face."
Wisconsin is deep in uncharted territory with this budget battle—Democrats are in self-imposed exile and the Republican Party is in charge of a statehouse that has become a nationally televised street theater stage in recent days. I contacted the Republican Governor of the 1990s, welfare reform pioneer Tommy Thompson, to get his perspective on the budget impasse and collective bargaining reform.
“They should come home, lick their wounds and get back to business,” he said, referring to senate Democrats. “They can't remain out of state indefinitely. For the first part, they've got to come back and collect their paycheck.”
“I happen to support the governor in what he is doing,” Thompson offered. “Do I think I would have done this [constrict collective bargaining]? No. But then I never had to face a $3.6 billion budget gap.”
The fact that this obscure but powerful parliamentary maneuver has remained unused also suggests the political risks that could come with unleashing this nuclear option. ...
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