Bad week for Scott Walker is getting worse :blessed:

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Judge Strikes Down Scott Walker’s ‘Right To Work’ Law

BY RYAN KORONOWSKI APR 9, 2016 10:53 AM

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/BARBARA RODRIGUEZ

People stand in front of the Capital in Madison, Wis. on Saturday, March 10, 2012. Wisconsin unions are gathering for a rally to mark the one-year anniversary of the state Legislature passing a bill to end collective bargaining rights for most public workers in the state.

A judge declared late Friday that Wisconsin’s controversial “right-to-work” law violated the state’s constitution. The law had become a centerpiece in the state’s contentious battles over the role of unions and the conservative war on labor unions.

“Right-to-work” laws prevent unions from reaching agreements with employer that require all workers, not just union members, to pay union dues. So a worker can opt out of paying union fees even if they are represented by one in their workplace — meaning they gain the benefits of being in a union (such as collective bargaining for higher wages) without paying to support such efforts.

Last year, shortly after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed the legislation, a group of private-sector unions filed a lawsuit arguing that the law acted as an unconstitutional seizure of property because unions had to extend benefits to workers who do not pay dues.

Dane County Circuit Judge William Foust agreed, citing the state constitution’s provision that “the property of no person shall be taken for public use without just compensation.” The property in this case is the benefits and services unions must provide to non-members. And because the union “cannot decline exclusive representative status unless it declines to be voted in at a workplace to begin with,” they are essentially forced to bargain on behalf of non-members.

Foust wrote that the impact of the law “over time is threatening to the unions’ very economic viability.”

The state argued that the law was constitutional because they were not removing money currently in the unions’ accounts.

Last year, Foust rejected a request by three unions to grant a temporary injunction against the law while he was deciding the case.

Related Post
Here's What Will Likely Happen To Unions Now That Wisconsin Is A Right-To-Work State

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO chapter, Machinists Local Lodge 1061 in Milwaukee, and United Steelworkers District 2 in Menasha brought the lawsuit.

“Today, the courts put a needed check on Scott Walker’s attacks on working families by ruling that Wisconsin’s Right to Work law is in violation of our state constitution,” said Phil Neuenfeldt, president of Wisconsin AFL-CIO, in a statement. “Right to Work goes against the Wisconsin principles of fairness and democracy and hurts all of Wisconsin by eroding the strength of our middle class. Right to Work has always been unjust, now it’s proven unconstitutional.”

Half of the states in the country have similar laws on the books.

The law's champion, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) declared on Twitter Friday evening that the law would be upheld:



Dane County is the same county in which the state's controversial Act 10 law limiting collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions was struck down, before being reversed at the state level.

The state's Republican Attorney General promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident that the law would be upheld. He did not say whether he would seek to suspend the ruling in the meantime. The National Right to Work Foundation agreed, saying in a statement that Foust ruled against the law "on extremely questionable grounds."

They have reason to be hopeful that the law will get a different reception in Wisconsin's 5-2 conservative majority State Supreme Court.

Two years ago, the court upheld the state's voter ID law, which has made voting difficult for many Wisconsinites and could disenfranchise up to 300,000. Just this month, on the same day of the presidential primary election, Wisconsin voters elected conservative jurist Rebecca Bradley to a longer term. Bradley came under fire in recent months for expressing views about homosexuality that bordered on the genocidal and thoughts that some forms of birth control were similar to murder.

Judge Strikes Down Scott Walker’s ‘Right To Work’ Law

 

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Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law Is Back In Court Following Election Day Woes

BY ALICE OLLSTEIN APR 8, 2016 2:01 PM

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST

Wisconsin voters cast their ballots in the state's primary at the South Shore Park Pavilion on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, in Milwaukee.

In Tuesday’s primary election, Wisconsin saw its highest voter turnout in decades, leading Gov. Scott Walker (R) to boast that it’s “easy to vote” in his state. But many voters were burdened or disenfranchised by the state’s newly-implemented and poorly publicized voter ID law, which disproportionately impacts the state’s low-income voters of color.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union argued before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that people who face significant hardships should be able to vote without an ID. As in New Hampshire, Idaho, Texas, and several other states, such voters would be able to sign a legally-binding affadavit to prove their identity.

This accommodation could help voters like Dennis Hatten, a formerly homeless Marine Corps veteran who spent six months fighting with the DMV to obtain a voter ID — all because of a mistake a midwife made on his birth certificate — and Nefertiti Helem, a low-income woman with a disability who couldn’t obtain an ID despite having a Social Security card, an Illinois state ID, and proof of her Wisconsin residence.

Sean Young, the lead attorney on the case, previously argued that Wisconsin’s voter ID law should be struck down entirely. Some federal courts agreed, comparing the law to a poll tax, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the law to stand. Now, the ACLU is arguing that individual categories of people should be allowed to challenge the law and demand accommodations that enable them to vote.

estimated that up to 300,000 would be disenfranchised because they lacked the proper identification. Wisconsin Republicans argued the measure was stilll necessary because the state is “riddled” with voter fraud. Yet independent studies have found such fraud to be virtually non-existent in the state. After hearing the arguments for and against the law, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman wrote that “no rational person could be worried about” voter fraud, and held that the law presented an unconstitutional “denial or abridgment of the right to vote.”

Following Tuesday’s election, many Wisconsin voters sounded off on their struggles with the new requirements.

Jackie Russo, a 75-year-old voter from Brookfield, Wisconsin, told ThinkProgress she was turned away from the polls when she tried to vote early because she had misplaced her drivers license. Though she had her old, expired drivers’ license as well as a Social Security card, she was not permitted to cast a vote. She had to go to the DMV and pay $14 to replace her license in order to vote on Tuesday.

“I was livid and I am ashamed to say I swore,” she told ThinkProgress. “Does this make sense? Not that I can see. I have been a registered voter for 58 years. I still looked like the picture [on my expired license] and the address on it matched the voting sheet that they check you off on.”

Russo said that based on her experience, she is concerned the law will deter other elderly and low-income voters. “If I, who votes in every election, has a little apprehension about having to go again, just think what a less motivated person would do,” she said. “How many people do you think this will discourage? When you are elderly it is just too much work to fight to vote. I really felt discriminated against.”

Many students struggled on Tuesday as well, discovering at that the last minute that most student IDs are not accepted at the polls. Students also had to remember to bring a proof of enrollment in order to vote. Confusion around these requirements combined with high turnout led to some students waiting more than two hours to cast a ballot.

Non-partisan observers who monitored the college campus polling sites told ThinkProgress the wait times were driving some first-time voters away.

“To me, this is just the epitome of voter suppression and disenfranchisement,” said Martha Pincus with the League of Women Voters. “People have been walking away. I heard them say, ‘I skipped one class and I can’t skip another one.’ Then I heard other kids say, ‘I can’t believe this is what voting is about.’ But most of them were determined to vote and they stayed in line.”

The ACLU is hopeful that it can force the state to amend its voter ID law to better accommodate some of these voters, pointing to their previous lawsuit that pushed the state to add veterans’ ID cards to the list of allowed documents. “But it’s sad it took three years of litigation to force the legislature to allow people who risked their lives for this country to vote,” noted Young.

‘Souls to Polls’ trips on Sundays for their members, that option off the table now.”

Moynihan said he’s worried things will be much worse in November, when there will be higher turnout and when the state’s non-partisan elections agency will be dismantled this summer by another law recently signed by Gov. Walker.

“Why they did not delay [the change] until after the election is beyond me to understand,” he said. “We will have an entirely new group of officials arrive in the middle of the summer to administer the election, and a whole new group of people going to the polls, unaware of the laws.”

Moynihan expressed significant concern for the thousands of new students who will enroll in Wisconsin colleges this fall, just weeks before November’s general election. “We’ll have a new cohort of students arriving at the end of August, many coming from out of state, and they’ll face a dizzying array of requirements for the biggest election of their lifetimes,” he said. “They’re putting an additional layer of burdens on that group without justification.”

UPDATE APR 12, 2016 7:47 PM
The 7th Circuit Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday evening for the ACLU, sending the case back to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee for further consideration. The court agreed with the plaintiffs that it is "impossible" for some people -- especially the poor -- to acquire the kind of ID they need to vote, and said that allowing them to sign an affadavit instead would be a good "safety net." The state of Wisconsin is expected to appeal the ruling.


Wisconsin’s Voter ID Law Is Back In Court Following Election Day Woes