The Wisconsin State Senate Democrats, 14 in total, have been staying away from the state capital in Madison in protest of Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to destroy collective bargaining for public employees in the state. Without them present, the legislation that Governor Walker wants to impose cannot be accomplished. There are those Republicans and conservatives who are outraged at what this band of 14 is doing, and some have called for them to have their seats declared vacant and hold new elections, or to have their paychecks suspended until they return.
At the same time, Republicans and conservatives have no issue with the Republican minority in the US Senate using the tactic of a threatened filibuster to stop action on legislation or nominations desired by President Obama and the Democratic majority in that body. They talk of the rights of the minority to express their voice, and to bottleneck action, as an element of democracy, even though never before has the use of the filibuster been so abused, as it has been by the Republicans over the past four years with a Democratic majority Senate.
This is all pure hypocrisy, and the Republicans and conservative interests cannot have it both ways–to bottleneck action in the US Senate, but protest and denounce Democrats for the same tactic in the state legislature of Wisconsin, and also for a while in Indiana, as well.
The old saying is: “What is good for the goose, is good for the gander!” When both parties, nationally and in the states, decide the rule of the majority should be honored, without blockage tactics by the minority, then government can best work, and the minority always has the right to try to reverse actions by appealing to the people to overturn the majority party in the next election. And if that does not happen, so be it!