Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Kudos to Rachel Maddow and her team for almost making me want to watch cable news again with this story about how Michigan Republicans are subverting the legislature to put laws into effect immediately rather than waiting until the next calendar year. The [...]

We all know how this turned out the first time, but for the record, Judge Maryann Sumi extended the temporary restraining order against the anti-union law which strips most collective bargaining rights from public employees, and warned of sanctions for any public official who continues to implement the law. The court hearing arose from the [...]

Plenty of people were quick to denounce Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald for announcing that Senate Democrats would not be allowed to participate in recorded committee votes. But if you read the letter he sent, he was saying more specifically that the contempt order, which the Republicans passed in the dark days of the [...]

Wisconsin’s anti-public employee bill is signed, but the Secretary of State will take the maximum 10 days to publish the legislation, which means it won’t officially become law until March 25 at the earliest, and probably not until the following Monday, March 28. So there are a couple weeks of legal efforts to go here [...]

By a 53-42 vote, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill that would strip collective bargaining rights from public employees, authorize the Governor to call a state of emergency and fire any public employee who participates in a strike or sit-in, allow the sale of state-owned power plants through no-bid contracts, give full authority over [...]

The vote in the Wisconsin Assembly on the anti-union bill jammed through last night should happen soon. The legal challenges will begin almost immediately. The Assembly Minority Leader, Peter Barca, has filed an official complaint that yesterday’s conference committee violated state open meetings laws. The complaint has a number of findings of fact, and then [...]

It shouldn’t be too long before the Wisconsin legislature finishes off a bill to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees. The State Assembly gaveled into session at 12:34pm CT. Peter Barca, the Assembly Minority Leader and the one who could be seen shouting about the illegality of last night’s conference committee, just offered a [...]

That video above is from last night’s 3-minute conference committee meeting, convened illegally under Wisconsin law, which passed a bill Democratic members of the committee didn’t have an opportunity to read. Rep. Peter Barca, the Assembly Minority Leader, pleads throughout the meeting that it violated Wisconsin’s very precise open meetings law. This stipulates that “Public [...]

If you’ve been following along in my last post, you know the news: the Wisconsin State Senate rushed through and passed a bill that strips collective bargaining rights from most public employees. The vote in the State Senate, entirely composed of Republicans, was 18-1; only moderate Dale Schultz voted no. The budget repair bill was [...]

This is quite a power play by the Wisconsin Republicans. Despite all the public opinion against them, despite weeks of protests, they have apparently decided to end the political careers of most of their colleagues. The Senate leader, Scott Fitzgerald, just called for a conference committee on the budget repair bill. The Senate, of course, [...]

What’s the latest from America’s Dairyland? Well, it’s the same back and forth. Scott Walker selectively released some emails yesterday designed to show he’s acting in good faith, but he’s still not really negotiating, and is unlikely to back down. On a conference call set up by the state AFL-CIO today, Rick Badger (really, the [...]