{"id":12884,"date":"2011-02-22T11:50:48","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=12884"},"modified":"2011-02-22T11:51:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:51:14","slug":"constitutional-rights-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/02\/constitutional-rights-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Constitutional Rights in Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

All eyes are on Wisconsin these days.\u00a0 Governor Scott Walker unveiled details of his budget repair bill on February 11<\/a>; the bill itself is 144 pages<\/a>, but provisions that immediately captured attention were those that remove the collective bargaining rights of most state and local employees<\/a>.\u00a0 By Monday, February 14, when the bill was introduced, protestors<\/a> began to fill the Capitol building in Madison.\u00a0 As the week went on<\/a>, more and more people descended on the Capitol to protest the passage of the bill, with Saturday\u2019s crowd topping at an estimated 68,000<\/a>, 60,000 of whom flooded the Capitol grounds and square, while another 8,000 filled the Capitol building itself.\u00a0 Even more were expected yesterday, which was a furlough day for many state employees.<\/p>\n

What is happening in Madison, Wisconsin, is monumental, and I am not solely referring to the proposals contained in the bill.\u00a0 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. <\/p>\n

All last week (and undoubtedly continuing this week)<\/a>, protestors against the bill have flocked to the Capitol, bearing signs and chanting slogans, all of them exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and peaceful assembly.\u00a0 They want to be heard.\u00a0 Last Saturday, for the first time during the week of protests, there arrived opposition to the opposition.<\/a> Pro-bill supporters arrived in the Capitol for a rally at noon and many remained throughout the afternoon, stationed at various points on the Capitol square or walking in the protest crowd.\u00a0 And it was peaceful.\u00a0 On Saturday, the most crowded day on the square, there was not one protest-related arrest.\u00a0 In fact, during the course of all last week, ten people were ticketed for disorderly conduct,<\/a> a number lower than citations issued during some Badger football home game days.<\/p>\n

Whether the protests will have their intended effect remains to be seen.\u00a0 Voting on the bill has been stalled because, after all fourteen of the Democrat Senators left the state<\/a> on Thursday, the Senate lacks a quorum to call the vote.\u00a0 The Democrats say they\u2019ll return if Governor Walker will negotiate the bill\u2019s provisions, a prospect that does not appear likely<\/a>.\u00a0 More to the point here is that we are able to see a sustained non-violent opposition process at work.\u00a0 The state has long been a leader for progressive ideas.\u00a0 It would be nice to say that it is also leader in showing how peaceful opposition to government works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All eyes are on Wisconsin these days.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 By Monday, February 14, when the bill was introduced, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-amendment","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}