"This is a violation of law!"

The Wisconsin State Senate passed a stripped-down version of Governor Scott Walker's "budget-repair bill" earlier tonight. Having had all budget-related elements expunged from the bill in an earlier, makeshift committee with only one Democrat present — Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca — the nineteen Senate Republicans were able to vote on Walker's bill as a non-budgetary action in the Senate does not require a successful quorum — what the Senate Democrats had been blocking with their escape from state troopers to Illinois.

And it wasn't even legal. Wisconsin law requires a twenty-four hour notice before a public body — like the aforementioned makeshift committee — can meet and only two hours were given. This breach of conduct weighed not on the Republican's minds for a second nor did the incredulous protests of Barca. "This is a violation of law! It's not a rule!"

Two hours after the committee met, without debate, the Republican Senators voted 18-1 in favor of Walker's bill. The dissenter was Dale Schultz. Voting for the bill:

Robert Cowles
Alberta Darling
Michael Ellis
Scott Fitzgerald
Pam Galloway
Glenn Grothman
Sheila Harsdorf
Randy Hopper
Dan Kapanke
Neal Kedzie
Frank Lasee
Mary Lazich
Joe Liebham
Terry Moulton
Luther Olsen
Leah Vukmir
Van Wanggaard
Rich Zipperer

Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate Majority Leader: "We simply cannot have democracy be held hostage because the minority wants to prove a point."

Mary Lazich: "Our Democrat senators not only ran away from the state, they ran away from their responsibility.

The Senate Republicans were not a separate branch of government but an extension of Walker's reach. A body without a discrete will. A body that took its marching orders from Walker and offered not resistance but absolute compliance. A body which shutdown debate before the originally scheduled vote. A body which did not consider a single Senate Democrat's amendment. A body which parroted Walker's false claim that the election was a referendum on the matter, that the eradication of collective bargaining was what he always said he was going to do.  And the men and women of this body have the audacity to call Senate Democrats hostage takers. To call them enemies of democracy. That they ran away from their responsibilities.  Which is scarier?  That they're willing to say such things?  Or that they could actually believe them?

There is nothing cowardly or childish in leaving the state to stop a totalitarian regime from railroading a punitive, middle class-assaulting, union-busting bill through. To do so is not emblematic of an opposition to democracy but a valiant recourse in democracy's name. To do so is not in contradiction to their responsibilities and oath but an upholding of them. A declaration of intolerance for the unjust.

Each and every one of these Republican Senators not named Dale Schultz are intellectual midgets unable to see above an ideological barrier or reach the pedals of honest thought. Each and every one of these eighteen men and women are unrepentant threats to democracy. Their names link to their contact pages.  Let them hear it and don't stop — don't dare stop — until they are either recalled or ashamed of their actions.