Sometime ago a young President wannabe uttered the fateful words:
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
In the spirit of that cooperation, I offer you my plan on dealing with the Wisconsin situation.
It would seem that the Wisconsin Constitution, along with Senate rules, requires that Senators appear, or that they can be compelled to appear.
Senate rules and the state constitution say absent members can be compelled to appear, but it does not say how.
“We left the state so we were out of the reach of the Wisconsin state patrol, which has the authority to round us up and bring us back to the legislature,” state Sen. Mark Miller told ABC’s “Good Morning America” from an undisclosed location Friday.
Given that the good Senators have left their jobs and their state, I would compel them to appear and if they failed, would find them in violation of their oath to office and remove them from office. At that time I would appoint another Senator and have the vote.
Further, with the teachers who are protesting while calling in sick, I would photograph them and verify if they did, in fact, call in sick. And if they did, I would fire them.
At the very least I would announce that I would do this. If only to give the good folks an opportunity to keep their jobs.
Both political parties take turns at being the party of “Just Say No”. I understand where the Senators are coming from. It is a political strategy. It may be a weaselly strategy, but it keeps their team from losing, at least for now. For this reason, I tolerate their behavior. They are politicians, and that is all they know. To the teachers, you are not politicians. You are not permitted to play those games. Your job is to be in the school. We can not make you teach, but we can make you be in the classroom. The teachers foolishly believe that they are safe in numbers. Do they not remember what happened to the air traffic controllers who failed to report for work in 1981?