Bob Maistros

Teachers and other government employees lying to their supervisors, calling in sick to attend protests aimed at lining their nests at the expense of taxpayers?

Fire ‘em.  It’s a no-brainer.  Sure, you’ll probably have to jump through some hoops and work through union procedures.  At least suspend them.  That’s not even a hard question.

Time for the pink slips.

But at least the teachers and other employees can be excused to a certain extent for looking out for their own interests.  They want to keep the gravy train running.  I get it.

The public employees who should really be shown the door – not only in Wisconsin but in Indiana as well – are the senators who have taken it on the lam to deprive their bodies a quorum on votes to remove bargaining rights for state workers.

These hacks – they don’t even deserve the title “legislator” – are working directly to subvert the will of the people on behalf of a narrow special interest.  And that is inexcusable.

In Wisconsin, even more than in other states swept by Republicans last November, the citizenry has spoken.  They voted for a governor (not to mention a Senator) who said that things were not going to be “business-as-usual.”  And who expressly drew the line on rich public employee salaries and benefits.

Voters knew it was time to break up the big-time dance party thrown by Democratic legislators and public employees, replete with billions in party favors.  To wit: government unions provide massive financial and in-kind campaign support to Democrats.  Democrats expand the size of government to provide more jobs – and dues – to unions.  (It happens on the federal level too, of course – what do you think Obamacare is really about?)   Which in turn are invested in electing more Democrats.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

Union member and Democrats, with help from fellow travelers across the country, have tried their business-as-usual:  monkey business.  They’ve rolled out the tactics that we learned in law school:  when the law is on your side, pound the law; when the facts are on your side, pound the facts; when neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.

They’re pounding the table furiously.  Excoriating Republicans as balancing the budget on the backs of state workers.  As depriving various government wards of services.  And as subverting democracy.  Replete with likenesses of Governor Scott Walker as Hitler.

Even that didn’t work this time.  So Democrats in Indiana as well as Wisconsin went nuclear.  They bolted.  And in essence, revolted.  They have repudiated republican government and showed without a doubt that their allegiance is not to the public, but to public employees. In essence, they are attempting a coup.  At the very least, they are “dancin’ with the ones that brung ‘em,” and damn the consequences, and the taxpayers.

But consequences there must be.  Failing to show up for votes, and actually fleeing the state to deny the people’s legislature a quorum, is the ultimate dereliction of duty.  It’s a firing offense.

Unfortunately, senators, in Wisconsin at least, can’t be expelled without ethics procedures involving members of both parties.  Recall votes, if Wisconsin and Indiana laws allow for them, would be the most obvious remedy.

But failing that, if a large numbers of the state senators who failed to show up for work aren’t turned out of office by voters in the next election, the people, too, will be shirking their jobs as citizens.

It’s time for them – these Democratic Senators and their logrolling, back-scratching, damn-the-torpedoes payola politics – to go.

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