War on Taxpayers Moves to the Courts

War on Taxpayers Moves to the Courts
by John Hayward Posted 03/18/2011 ET

Developing news out of Wisconsin: the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the publication of the budget repair bill Governor Scott Walker signed last week.

Judge Sumi is reviewing the merits of a suit filed by Democrat Ismael Ozanne, the District Attorney of Dane County, which alleges the Walker bill was passed in defiance of the state’s open meetings law. She told the Journal-Sentinel the suit was “likely to succeed on the merits,” adding “it seems to me the public policy behind effective enforcement of the open meeting law is so strong that it does outweigh the interest, at least at this time, which may exist in favor of sustaining the validity of the (law).” She’ll make her final ruling sometime after March 28… when she returns from vacation.

In other words, the open meeting law is more important than last-ditch efforts to bring a bankrupt state government under control and resolve a gigantic budget deficit. So much for ObamaCare, I guess. That wasn’t exactly passed under any kind of “open meeting” standards. I doubt it would even pass the open meeting standards of Libya.

The judge’s order will block implementation of the Walker budget bill, until his administration completes an expected appeal, because only one politician in American history gets to ignore court orders he doesn’t like, and his name is not Scott Walker.

Thus does a court ignore the illegal flight of Democrats to shut down the state Senate, and defend the interests of the unions they represent by telling the people of Wisconsin they can’t have the legislation they voted for, because a convoluted case can be made that the people’s duly elected and responsible representatives violated some kind of arcane procedural requirement.

Ozanne’s original lawsuit complained that the Republicans didn’t give notice of a key committee meeting far enough in advance. That would be the meeting where they took out the fiscal provisions which required a super-quorum, so they could proceed on a vote for the rest of the bill without the fleebagger Democrats in attendance. That sounds like a good reason to keep that $3.6 billion budget gap right where it is, and preserve those gold-plated union benefits at taxpayer expense.