Constitutional Rights in Action
All eyes are on Wisconsin these days. Governor Scott Walker unveiled details of his budget repair bill on February 11; the bill itself is 144 pages, but provisions that immediately captured attention were those that remove the collective bargaining rights of most state and local employees. By Monday, February 14, when the bill was introduced, protestors began to fill the Capitol building in Madison. As the week went on, more and more people descended on the Capitol to protest the passage of the bill, with Saturday’s crowd topping at an estimated 68,000, 60,000 of whom flooded the Capitol grounds and square, while another 8,000 filled the Capitol building itself. Even more were expected yesterday, which was a furlough day for many state employees.
What is happening in Madison, Wisconsin, is monumental, and I am not solely referring to the proposals contained in the bill. What is exceptionally important here is that we are able to see the expression of constitutional rights in a most obvious way, a fact that I think has received little attention.