This is a very short diary, but I just wanted to make everyone aware of this possible tactic that the Republicans can use. It occurred to me as I was reading the DK diaries about by Chris Bowers, about how Democrats were not coming back, and by Jud Lounsbury about Republican State Senator Dale Schultz.
Schultz made the following ominous comment:
"That could happen. The problem with that approach is then you'd have to address that this collective bargaining issue really isn't related to the state budget... it would involve an embarassing admission..." (Answering a questiong about why the Senate doesn't call collective bargaining a non-budget issue and pass that part without Democratic senators presents.)
In other words, the reason the Republicans need the Democrats to be in the state capitol is that they have framed stripping the unions of collective bargaining rights as a budget bill.
But if they suck it up and admit the governor was lying, trying to sneak anti-union legislation into a budget bill, and that the anti-union legislation is not, in fact, budget legislation, then they don't need the Democrats in order to form a quorum.
That's because the rules for a quorum for budget bills is different from the rules for a quorum for non budget bills.
For a budget bill, the Senate needs a quorum of 20 Senators, meaning that the Democrats can deny them a quorum.
If they admit it's not a budget bill, the quorum for ordinary legislation is only 17 Senators, which they could have without the Democrats.
So the Republicans can admit they were trying to railroad the union stripping legislation through on a budget bill, claim now that it's not a budget matter, and pass it without the Democrats.
All they have to do is separate the anti-union legislation out from the budget bill.