"Missing Wisconsin Dem speaks: We're MIA until GOP drops assault on workers rights"

[Clio the Leo]

Missing Wisconsin Dem speaks: We're MIA until GOP drops assault on workers rights
By Greg Sargent

I just got off the phone with Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson, one of the Democrats who has left the capitol in order to stall the GOP's plan to rolll back the bargaining rights of public employees. Speaking to me by cell phone from an undisclosed location, Larson said he and his fellow Democrats would not return until the GOP takes its assault on organizing rights "off the table."

"Each of us is in a secure location," he told me, confirming that they were not all together but were monitoring events on the Web and on Twitter. Larson refused to say whether he and his fellow Dems had left the state, as some have speculated.

"We're going to be staying away until we hear that they are taking the right to organize seriously," Larson continued, referring to Republicans. "They're going after 50 years of history in one week. Until they take that off the table, it's a non-starter."

Larson said Dems are not worried about law enforcement pursuing them and dragging them back to the capitol. Though the current proposal exempts state police, he said that individual officers had privately expressed solidarity with the Dems' and public employees' cause.

"They understand the importance of workers banded together to protect workers rights," Larson said, characterizing his conversations with officers. "They understand why we're here."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/02/missing_wisconsin_dem_speaks_w_1.html

[great white snark]

1. They were accused of being MIA before they were MIA.

:crazy:

Thank you Clio the Leo.

Stay strong Wisconsin Democrats!

[Very_Boring_Name]

2. How does leaving the capitol stall this?

I'm not familiar with the procedural side of this. Also, theoretically speaking, can law enforcement actually FORCE representatives to come back to the capitol to vote on legislation?

[geek tragedy]

3. There needs to be at least one member of the minority party present

for there to be a quorum.

[Very_Boring_Name]

4. What about the authority of the police

Can the police actually forcibly detain them and haul them back to the capitol to vote?

[former9thward]

5. Yes, if it came to that.

But I doubt that either side would want that.

[CTyankee]

7. This is why they went to another state. They are not in violation of the law there.

I don't think they want the repukes to say they are "in violation of the law." So they went to IL.

[quiller4]

10. Not across state lines and the Ds are in Illinois

[CTyankee]

6. Stand strong, WI dems! You are doing the lord's work here!

I am in awe of the people of Wisconsin!

[Bake]

8. Sounds like a filibuster to me!

:woohoo: :woohoo:

Bake

[a kennedy]

9. I'm kicking this......

:kick: