After the Dane County District Attorney successfully pursued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the publication of the Union Busting Bill, the Republicans decided to pursue it to a higher court in order to have it overturned.
This decision caused a bit of disconcertion among the right, who, like Cindy Kilkenny, were left to speculate why the Republicans just didn't concede the court fight and take a second vote on the bill. I answered Cindy's puzzlement by pointing out that if they voted a second time, it might not pass, but she didn't believe me.
Well, if she won't believe me, maybe she'll believe Senator Scott Fitzgerald, who said pretty much the same thing.
So, if taking a vote was too risky, their only other option appeared to be in court. But this wasn't going swimmingly for them either.
This resorted to what Republicans do best: Turning an end around run into running into their own rounded rear ends.
In a bit of classic Walkeresque overreach, Scott Fitzgerald pushed the Legislative Reference Bureau into "publishing" the law that they had illegally passed. He and Walker claimed the law published and said that they would be putting it into effect tomorrow. Their rationale was because it was on the legislative web site, so that made it law.
Needless to say, many right wingers broke open the proverbial bubbly in what turned out to be premature acclamation.
As it turns out, and I need to point out that Illy-T led the way locally on this, the "publication" that Fitzgerald ordered was actually more of a printing of the law. In other words, Hissy Fits Fitz drove the LRB to the local Kinko's and had them print the law. Word is that Fitzgerald even had them attach a shiny gold ribbon to it so he could show it off.
But according to the Legislative Review Board itself, the law isn't a law until the Secretary of State actually publishes the bill. And, of course, Secretary Doug La Follette is under the Temporary Restraining Order which is preventing him from publishing it. Ergo, the job destruction that Walker and the Fitzgerald boys want to do will have to wait for another time, Of course, I would hope that they aware of the fact that if it ever does get successfully passed, then it will only be immediately stalled again as lawsuit after lawsuit is filed against it.
But one thing that hasn't been talked about a lot is the fact that the LRB is traditionally a strictly non-partisan entity which is highly respected by both Republicans and Democrats. Fitzgerald expended a lot of political capital in pushing this non-partisan board into printing a very partisan law. The ramifications from that could be rather interesting to watch. And Fitzgerald didn't even get a T-shirt for his troubles.
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