Guest commentary: Wisconsin's coup against its own citizens (Detroit Free Press)

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BY RICK HOROWITZ
DETROIT FREE PRESS GUEST WRITER

When the going gets tough, the tough just make up their own rules.

It was live on the local news, and it all happened so quickly, so bizarrely, that even the news anchors couldn't explain what they'd just seen: a special conference committee that hadn't existed just a few hours earlier called into session, and a brief statement from the Republican chairman that basically boiled down to "We're allowed to do what we're about to do."

What they were about to do: split Gov. Scott Walker's controversial "budget-repair" bill in two, set aside -- or so they claimed -- all the financial provisions in the bill, and ram the other provisions through. The union-busting provisions.

Since the union-busting provisions had no "fiscal impact" -- or so they claimed, which was precisely the opposite of what they and the governor had been claiming for weeks -- there was no need for the special "fiscal-impact" quorum that the 14 missing Democratic senators, still across the border in Illinois, had been denying them.

They could pass this new version all by their Republican selves.
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more: http://www.freep.com/article/20110311/OPINION05/103110322/0/SPORTS08/Guest-commentary-Wisconsin-s-coup-against-its-own-citizens?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Wisconsin Eye video: http://tinyurl.com/4jepypk.