The Governor didn't dispute a single thing about the legal findings that resulted in the ruling; he only recited a list of ways that overturning Act 10 will spoil his plan. I'm sorry Gov, but the Constitution trumps legislation and gubernatorial signatures.

@Gary Tefft -

The flaws in the judge's decision will all be set-forth and argued, with legal support, within the appellate brief that will be filed in the Court of Appeals, which is a document of public record.

The question is, will you actually read the judge's decision and the brief filed upon appeal by the state, or will you just believe whatever the unions tell you to believe?

If you have knowledge of the law, a mere reading of judge's decision reveals the numerous mistakes it contains.

Sumi was effectively overturned by the higher courts because she was clearly wrong. The same fate awaits Colas' decision - it's only a matter of time.

I just love the online "attorneys" like Doofa rendering their opinions who have no idea of what they are posting other than the media feed they are regurgitating. Though I agree that this ruling is going nowhere, it still amuses me to see such amateurish posturing from individuals who have not a clue. Keep it up!

@$$andNonSense -

Hoffa provided his legal analysis of Colas' decision over on the other board that actually deals with the decision, as opposed to this board that deals with Walker's response to such decision.

If you'd care to point out where Hoffa is allegedly wrong in his performed legal analysis, Hoffa would be more than willing to debate the issue further.

Care to try again with your unfounded personal insults?

http://portwashington-wi.patch.com/articles/breaking-act-10-determined-unconstitutional#comment_4764971

James R Hoffa: " "Even if I am mistaken in that, it remains that the union-represented have no means whatsoever of negotiating an increase in the sum of base wages greater than the CPI (which you somehow glazed over). Those who are not union represented do. ergo, municipal employees cannot exercise their constitutional rights of association (in this case, with a legal union of others) unless they encumber themselves with that limitation."

This is your strongest argument - and Hoffa actually agrees with you on this point. The limit on wage increases that can be negotiated by the union is definitely unconstitutional IF the supporting foundation (legal support) of Colas' decision is wholly correct. Hoffa has some doubts about this, as Colas actually provided very little in the way of direct and on point precedent as support for his 'legal' position, and Hoffa hasn't had the time or the will to independently research the legal issues raised."

Since you didn't follow up in that thread, it follows that you didn't bother to research the legal issues that may have proved you wrong to yourself - despite the fact that doing so is absolutely critical to maintaining your position that Act 10 is constitutional.

Doesn't sound like you're searching for truth - just for excuses to keep believing that.

@Geoff Tolley -

If Colas had more convincing precedent than that which he used in his decision, don't you think he would have provided such in his decision? Sorry that Hoffa doesn't have the time to do Colas' job for him. Even under the precedent provided, Hoffa showed how Colas' interpretation of Act 10 is faulty and how his reasoning used to reach the conclusions he made were faulty.

Although Hoffa previously agreed with you concerning the matter of wages, he no longer does, as wages above and beyond the CPI could be negotiated individually and contained in the individual contract - remember merit based pay?

Act 10 will be fully restored from Colas' decision by the appellate level courts - of this Hoffa has very little doubt.

Except, Hoffa, consider:

(i) The rule regarding what base wages are (http://werc.wi.gov/DOAroot/proposed_emergency_rules_for_calculation_of_maximum_base_wage_increase_for_general_municipal_employees.pdf)
(ii) That this is an implementation of Option 1 in this memo by Nate Ristow, Walker's assistant legal counsel (http://www.scribd.com/doc/95341043/Base-Wage-Internal-Briefing-Memo)
(iii) That memo states "Option 1 effectively prevents all employees from receiving a wage equal to the increase in CPI over what they earned the previous year"

Ristow isn't exactly leaving the room for wage bargaining that you seem to believe is there.

@ Mr. Tolley -

Except that you're still conveniently forgetting that neither the Act or the administrative rules prevents a union employee from attempting to bargain for themselves for a wage increase above and beyond the CPI - a concept known a individually earned merit based pay.

Also, the administrative rule that you've linked to is merely the proposed rule. And the scope of this discussion does not entail whether or not the enacted administrative rules comply with the statutory scheme, but rather whether or not the statutory scheme as a whole is constitutional.

Let's avoid shifting the subject and only deal with discussing the issues as they arise in reality, shall we?

There's nothing "merely proposed" about Rule 90. It's an emergency rule, approved by the Governor. His own legal counsel said that this rule - made under the authority of Act 10's §111.70(4)(mb) - "effectively prevents all employees from receiving a wage equal to the increase in CPI over what they earned the previous year".

When Walker's own legal counsel claims that an in-force-at-the-time part of Act 10 will restrict unionized employees from receiving even a CPI increase, you'd better believe that I'll take his opinion over yours.

@Mr. Tolley -

You're right and wrong.

As Hoffa previously pointed out, you linked to the proposed rule, so in this regard, you were wrong and Hoffa was correct - check your link again.

However, you are right in that rule 90 exists. The correct link to the officially adopted form of Rule 90:

http://werc.wi.gov/DOAroot/base_wage_rules_redraft_re_local_3-26-12.pdf

You'll notice some differences between the proposed rule and the final rule.

And again, you're attempting to shift the subject away from constitutional law and into administrative law. The scope of this article/discussion is limited to the constitutionality of the statutory scheme - not whether or not administrative rules promulgated under the statutory scheme actually comply with the statutory scheme. While Hoffa would be more than willing to have that discussion with you, it's best left for another time.

The foray into administrative law is but an illustration of Ristow's memo advice that no matter which rule they chose (including option 3, "status quo"), Act 10 restricted the wage bargaining rights of those who were union-represented.

(Thanks for correcting the rule link).

@Mr. Tolley -

You mean that Act 10 restricted that which the union could negotiate for on behalf of their members - and such point was never in dispute, as that's exactly what Act 10 does.

It still doesn't prevent union members from negotiating individually everything that their union is now prevented from negotiating, under Hoffa's interpretation of the Act, when read together with existing statutory schemes and common law contracting precedent.

That's the issue in regards to constitutionality of the Act.

So you think Ristow got it wrong, that it is not the case that Act 10 "effectively prevents all employees from receiving a raise equal to the increase in CPI" ?

@Geoff Tolley -

Hoffa believes that Ritsow's letter was limited in scope to addressing changes in collective bargaining, wherein it's stated in the introductory "WERC has prepared three scope statements for rule-making related to the determination of base wages under Act 10 bargaining changes."

Accordingly, when Ritsow references "all employees" in the passage your quoted, he is clearly referring to activities solely within the scope of collective bargaining and the new limitations placed upon them by the Act, and not in regards to activity occurring outside the confines of collective bargaining.

Come on - you must have realized the limited scope of the letter, as you're a very intelligent and logical guy!

Well; what would you do if a burglar broke into your home and took your furniture while you and family were on vacation? A week after you get home, the police call and say they recovered your property; would you go to retrieve it? Damn right you would; in a minute. Could anyone justify saying you were in it for yourself? NO!!! That's how the teachers in Madison feel about their contracts. What belonged to them legally and gained by hardwork was stolen by manipulation and legal misrepresentation of the law. Their contracts were legal and binding. Even though the Republic needed to make some changes to lessen the economic burdens of the State, they had no right to steal the negotiated and legal benefits of their contracts.

@Wesley Smith -

In your analogy, is the furniture that was stolen from the home paid for with tax dollars? If so, then yes, the homeowner is clearly in it for themselves.

Your attempt to compare apples to oranges is comical at best.

The teachers are already represented in their employment via the pubic officials that they get to vote for, the same as everyone else. And as tax payers themselves, the teachers, via their union, are actually negotiating against their own interests as tax payers - there's an inherent conflict of interest.

Think about it and try again!

Wesley, I was being robbed by the teachers and their union year after year. Walker is the my sheriff sent in to recover my losses. If you feel they deserve more please post a picture of a canceled check written out to wea trust.

@Wesley -

Not trying to complicate - just trying to keep it apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Cheers!

@Joanne Brown -

There's just one problem with looking at the analogy in a literal sense, as opposed to a figurative sense - Act 10 didn't take anything away from the employee that they were legally entitled to in the first place.

If the analogy is meant to be taken literally, then the homeowner never would have had the furniture to begin with. It would have been more appropriate to use an example of a library book.

But to answer your question directly, of course the money that the employee rightfully earns, no matter the source of such earnings, rightfully belongs to the employee and not the employer.

Does Judge Juan Colas?

@William -

So, in order to have an opinion on legal matters, you need to have a degree in the legal discipline upon which a claim is being contested?

That's an interesting perspective, but not really sure it it's indicative of anything, as you can have judges and scholars that disagree with each other all the time. So, Hoffa really isn't sure of your point here.

The governor has a degree in being a criminal.

Except FDR actually endorsed them.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445

He didn't believe that public employees should *strike*, but he was down with the NFFE.

But don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.

@Geoff Tolley -

Irregardless of what FDR's position on public sector unions were, it is indisputable that there is an inherent conflict of interest with public sector unionization in that the public sector union employees are also taxpayers, thus they are in effect bargaining against their own self interests. Their compensation also derives from public funds which are collected from citizens by force via taxation, which the unions have no direct control over. Not to mention that the public sector union employees get to vote for the public officials that their unions are negotiating against, thus they effectively end up with representation on both sides of the bargaining table. However, non-union taxpayers are not permitted to vote for the union officials.

Public sector unionization is fundamentally inequitable.

Nothing in your argument there actually makes a distinction between unionized and non-unionized public employees (the non-unionized are also taxpayer-voters), so your conclusion is arbitrary and unsupported.

@Mr. Tolley -

Very interesting position. From Hoffa's perspective, the unionized employee votes twice - once for the publicly elected official and another time for union officials that supposedly represent the employee's interests at the bargaining table. The non-unionized employee only votes once - for the publicly elected official.

Is that not a distinguishable characteristic?

No it isn't.

They get representation at the bargaining table either via their union (if unionized) or personally (if not). If they choose to not have a union, their vote on who sits on the labor supply side of the table is by default for themselves.

The distinction you attempt to make about vote-doubling is meaningless (unless you mean to highlight the difference in what can be negotiated that is the subject of the court case in question, but something tells me you don't).

@Mr. Tolley -

You're presuming that the union elected representative always reflects the vote/choice of the individual union member. In reality, it doesn't work that way as it's a majority consensus as opposed to a unanimous consent system. Thus, where the non-union employee always has their own interests represented at the bargaining table, the union employee might not - especially if the union rep that the individual member voted for lost the union election.

This?:
"The posting quoted MPS’ budget manager as saying that in 2011-2012 (the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011), the average MPS teacher would receive total compensation of $101,091 -- $59,500 in salary and $41,591 in benefits."

We need to be even clearer about those teacher benefits - THEY ARE TAX-FREE.

Unlike the poor sod that pays the taxes that pays the teachers - they usually have to pay taxes FIRST on the money they invest for retirement, healthcare, vacation, or other. it is time to end the public employee gravy train of tens of thousands in TAX-FREE benefits - and begin taxing those bennies! Teachers have not, and are not, paying their fair share. It's time for ALL public employees to PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE and stop gouging their neighbor!

Richard, the little benefits you get according to you, are not taxed either, 401k and insurance premiums are always taken out before taxes for everybody.

@Menoparent -

You appear to be interpreting the analogy from a combined figurative and literal sense, which does not act to mirror the reality of the situation involved.

In the figurative sense, the furniture represents the general concept of CB privileges, which is how Hoffa first interpreted the analogy. Then Joanne applied a literal interpretation, seeing the furniture as compensation. In both cases, these are things that the employee were never legally entitled to in the first place. CB privileges are just that, a privilege, and compensation for a job is never guaranteed or fully dictatable, but rather fluctuating in accordance with market conditions - the true power always rested in the people/taxpayers.

As Hoffa suggested, perhaps the library book analogy would have been a more appropriate one!

It's highly deceptive to talk about compensation in terms of take home salary alone. The proper thing would be to compare the total cost on the district of the total compensation package offered, as Greg appropriately did. Teachers made the choice of deferring compensation now for a larger guaranteed pension later and a cadillac health care plan. No one forced that.

$101,091 in total annual compensation puts teachers in the top 12% of all wage earners, or what you call "okay pay for a college grad, not outrageous or too much in my opinion."

For 'public servants,' serving a public who's household median annual compensation is $46,326, Hoffa'd say that's stellar!

That's saying nothing. Half of the country is making 60 K or less. You're ok with cuting the pay of the people hired to educate your children ? The teaching profession requires continuing education to be able to teach. And do you think the state pays for that ?

@Dennis -

In case you didn't realize this, the taxpayers provide teachers with their total compensation packages. Less people are working, and those who are working are earning less, thus the tax base contracts and the state doesn't have as much money to pay teachers any more. You can either lay off a bunch of teachers, the teachers can take a cut to their compensation, or you can increase taxes on people that are already struggling. Governor Walker stood firmly against raising taxes on people who are already struggling with a sour economy. So, the choice was between mass layoffs or reduced compensation. Are you saying that you would have preferred mass layoffs?

If you don't like the system, no one is forcing you to work in it, are they? There are plenty of qualified teachers just waiting for a position to open up that would be thrilled with an average annual compensation package of $101,091, and being in the top 12% of income earners nationally.

By the way - a lot of professions have continue education requirements and the state doesn't pay their way either.

@Bren -

Maryann Sumi - Dane County Judge - overturned upon appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Richard Niess - Dane County Judge - will be overturned upon appeal.

David Flanagan - Dane County Judge - will be overturned upon appeal.

Juan Colas - Dane County Judge - will be overturned upon appeal.

The real embarrasment is in the Dane County Circuit Court. They get overturned upon appeal about as often as the infamous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals does on a federal level!

Your references to cases that "will be overturned on appeal" are clearly nothing but fluff opinion.

In the OML case before Judge Sumi, I'm not sure what you expected her to do differently. The Supreme Court, after all, did not disagree with any of her findings of fact, or her finding that the Open Meetings Law was violated. Her injunction against Act 10 was lifted by them only because they came up with the doctrine that the Law does not apply to the legislative process.

That is a *damn* sweeping thing, and it is most certainly not a Circuit Court's job to come up with such things. The Open Meetings Law was violated, and the Supreme Court /did not disagree with that assessment/. Sumi applied the law rather than coming up with a new, dangerous doctrine.

And this new doctrine is damn dangerous if you stop to think about it: what is now to stop a legislative majority that isn't unified on an issue from suddenly and without notice convening to pass a bill anyway? Such behavior is now condoned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

@Geoff Tolley -

1) You're correct in that Hoffa is merely speculating that higher courts will overturn many of the decisions made by Dane County Judges on Walker's initiatives.

2) The State Supreme Court did not create new doctrine out of thin air - they merely interpreted pre-existing law. If Sumi was a competent jurist, as opposed to a partisan, she would have come to the same conclusion under the same law and arguments made.

Top 12% of wage earners is what Wesley Smith qualifies as being "degraded to the point of low grade investments?!?!"

How are vacations compensated for that they are not taxed?

Governor Walker was elected by the good people of Wisconsin, TWICE in one term.

Governor Walker ballanced the state budget and cleaned up Doyle's mess.

Actually Greg, Walker built on Doyle's recession-based borrowing by restructuring existing debt and adding $20 million in new debt in the form of interest charges.

If you believe this is what budget balancing looks like I can recommend a solid financial advisor...

@Bren -

Yep, paying off the reciprocity bill with Minnesota and fully restoring the funding that was illegally raided by Doyle from segregated programs is definitely building "on Doyle's recession-based borrowing," isn't it?

Hoffa has already explained to you time and again about why the restructuring was necessary in the current biennium, but you refuse to accept the reality of the situation by refusing to name additional layoffs/budget cuts that you would have preferred seeing in order to avoid such restructuring.

You also fail to note that Doyle was borrowing like mad despite having received and spent one of the largest federal stimulus packages in the state's history and implementing large tax hikes against his express campaign promise not to raise taxes! In comparison, Walker has successfully avoided making any new public debt offerings on the state's credit card while receiving no out-of-the-ordinary federal funds and while holding the line on state taxation. And the state is projecting a budget surplus for the first time in a long time!

And Walker has previously committed any budget surplus realized to paying down the previously accrued structural debt, which will thereby save us much more than the restructuring will cost us in the overall big picture!

Doyle = failure
Walker = huge success

I can name what could have been cut in order to balance the 2012-13 budget: nothing at all.

See Table 1 on page 7 of Walker's budget proposal http://www.doa.state.wi.us/debf/pdf_files/bib1113.pdf which shows where his $3.6 billion figure comes from. Now note the starting point, the November 19th, 2010 DoA report's $1,489m shortfall.

That figure can be found in Table 4 of the report at http://www.doa.state.wi.us/docview.asp?docid=8371&locid=166 What you'll also notice from this report is that it is a dumb subtraction of the sum of agency requests for FY12-13 from the projected revenue. The two-year increase of those all funds agency requests from base is $3,944,820,400, which rather exceeds Walker's claimed deficit.

Now, some of that's from GPR and some from other revenue, and some of the latter sources of revenue are partly contingent upon some level of GPR funding, so you can't necessarily make all-GPR cuts to keep agency funding constant. But there's a ballast for that of almost $350m.

So I don't see any source cited by Walker that necessitated any agency take any budget cuts at all - and this is *after* allowing for all the things Walker's budget proposal highlighted like the raided funds repayment, the failure of the US House to extend the stimulus' extra medicaid dollars etc.

@Mr. Tolley -

If what you are saying is correct, and given the cuts that were in fact made, then shouldn't the projected budget surplus be much larger than it actually is?

No.

Some of the most significant biennial increases, over all funds base allocations:

- the DoA got $314m (17%) more funding
- the Department of Health services got $1,835m (11%) more (this is on an all funds basis, so this is the increase in excess of the replaced stimulus dollars).
- Program Supplements was $77m higher (225%) - to be fair this value tends to swing wildly from year to year.
- the Department of Regulation and Licensing got renamed to the Department of Safety and Professional Services and a $105m (381%) increase
- the Department of Transportation received a $67m (1%) increase
- the WEDC was created and given $161m to play with.

To be fair, some departments were eliminated and their responsibilities reassigned. But Walker and his legislative enablers picked winners and losers: the only reason Wisconsin education got the budget shaft as it did was because Walker wanted it to.

???? ???, ??? ??? ?? ?????.

Yep, you come across as a real genius too.

@Jerry -

Please ask one of the orderlies to provide you with your medication - you obviously forgot to take it again!

Mr. Hoffa, I know how attached you become to your catch phrase-of-the-day but this one is offensive.

@Bren -

Sorry to offend, as none was intended - it's merely a continuation of an inside 'running joke' with Jerry.

However, if it does offend, Hoffa will gladly retract such comment.

@Jason -

What does that prove? Last Hoffa checked, the state Attorney General's Office isn't allowed to ask partisan political affiliation when hiring subordinates. The fact that Colas used to work under Van Hollen doesn't prove that he isn't a liberal activist.

If you had any understanding of the law, and actually read Colas' decision, you'd see the errors in it right away - they are blaring and clearly intentional.

@Hermeine -

Since you asked, Hoffa has a BBA, a BS, a JD, and an LLM. Hoffa is also licensed to practice.

What of it?

And owns a restaurant! ; )

@Bren -

That's very nice of you to remember!

But please keep in mind that Hoffa is only a co-owner of the family restaurant, together with his father. As such, Hoffa's direct involvement in the day-to-day operations of the restaurant is limited, but still substantial. In fact, Hoffa is known to sometimes fill in for a non-appearing scheduled employee.

I couldn't agree more Hermeine.

You can't possibly fail to realize that everyone considers "liberal activist judge" to be a synonym for "I don't understand the reasoning behind this decision that I disagree with sufficiently in order to form a coherent argument against it so I'll call judges names instead"

No, judicial activism is when a judge will create entire new statutes themselves rather than measure the case before them against the law. See: Citizens United (the SCOTUS going far further than the case before them); Waukesha County's Judge Mac Davis extra-statutory ruling that shifted the costs of challenging recall signatures from the Scott Walker campaign onto taxpayers (later vacated by the Court of Appeals but not before taxpayer money had to be spent to accommodate it).

I've commented above about how some like to call Dane County's Judge Sumi a "liberal activist judge" for /failing/ to be sweepingly activist.

You are, however, correct that "there is something wrong with this". If Walker could have been bothered paying attention to the law and Constitution (or gotten better advice than Van Hollen's) before signing, he'd have a lot fewer problems now. Each section of Act 10 that was voided on Constitutional grounds would have been removed by between 3 and 5 different Democratic amendments. But it had to be Walker's way or the highway, and now suddenly no amount of taxpayer expenditure (on legal bills) is too much to support this hubris.

You set the bar low if dangling on strings is doing a "great job."