More slime from WI GOP: Call for "extraordinary session"

For only the tenth time (and the first since 1993), Wisconsin's Legislature will be meeting in "extraordinary session," this time to pass Walker's state budget.  Extraordinary session, according to the State Legislative Reference Bureau can be called by the Legislature to "focus its attention on specific legisltion it wants to expedite." 

And there's nothing the Republicans would love to do more than get this business-loving, people-hating budget passed (including, it now looks like, Walker's stripping of collective bargaining) before they could lose the Senate majority following this summer's recall elections.  In extraordinary session, regular rules can be suspended, and according to Rep. Mark Pocan (see Pocan's YouTube explanation in yesterday's post), debate and amendments can be limited, and Democracy, really, is stomped on.  Senate Chief Clerk Rob Marchant, however, says it would neither limit amendments or debate, but would allow quick preliminary approval from each house on the same day, and then only require a simple majority, instead of two-thirds, to advance the bill.  Regardless, this budget does not seem to require emergency-type passage.

 Assistant Assembly Minority Leader Donna Seidel (D-Wausau) said she was concerned about the use of the extraordinary session to pass the budget. “It appears to be part of their strategy that anything can happen and anything can be rushed through with little or no scrutiny,” she said (JS Online).

Yeah, it sure does look like that, doesn't it?

You can read a great summary of the "Budget Basics" from DefendWisconisn.org (thanks to Solidarity Wisconsin). Or, if you're well-versed in politispeak, you can review the entire budget here (thanks to Steve Hanson at Uppity Wisconsin).

Protestors will be out in force.  My union, WEAC, is calling for membership to join protests  (11AM on the Capitol Square and 5:30 PM at State Street corner) of a budget that includes severe cuts to education, local government, the environment, and the poor.

Oh, yeah, and collective bargaining.

Extraordinarily power-hungry, greedy, and compliant Republican legislators call for an extraodinary session.  Come to think of it, I guess that's not so extraordinary at all.

For an extraordinarily detailed and informative site about all things budgetary, check out the Wisconsin Budget Project (thanks to Becky and Mark for the link)