Via The Corner, a little common sense gets aired on Meet the Press by Lindsey Graham. Despite the nonsense on union placards in Madison, the budget-repair bill wasn’t some diktat from an entrenched governor; Scott Walker won the election less than four months ago with this specific plan on the agenda. Not only did Republicans win the top spot by putting this proposal in front of voters, the GOP won control of both chambers of the legislature as well. Elections have consequences, which everyone but the unions seem to acknowledge:
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In a democracy, when you run on something, you do have an obligation to fulfill your promise. He didn’t take anybody by surprise, he’s doing exactly what he said. There was a referendum on this issue and the unions lost, and the Democrats in Wisconsin should come back to Wisconsin to have votes.
In a democracy, the losing side in an election has an obligation to allow the legislature to conduct business by the rules. Filibusters in the US Senate are part of those rules, and both parties value the filibuster enough to keep it in place. Running out of the state to bring business to a halt isn’t giving the minority a voice, as Wisconsin Senate Democrats argued this week — it’s an illegitimate and immature attempt to deny a majority their ability to govern, a duty the voters entrusted to them. It’s a repudiation of democracy.
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