Let us count the ways in which this Legislature has failed in its duty. We do not speak of any particular issue or any particular position which the Legislature took, because the truth is that it took few.
There were some good results from this session, such as the law which formalized a transportation authority to make progress on KRM commuter rail. But there is much that didn’t move — bills on regional transit, election reforms, and energy and jobs. We do not advocate for every clause of every one of those bills. We decry the lack of action. It is true that one function of a legislature is to let bad ideas expire quietly, but the overarching issues of transit and jobs and energy must not fail. They must be dealt with in some manner.
The Democratic leadership bears a large portion of the blame, for many major bills did not come to the floor until the closing days of the session, leaving members little time to digest, discuss and amend. But Republicans must also be held responsible for an amazing rigidity and intransigence that produced few constructive suggestions or compromises.
Mordecai Lee, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political science professor, labeled the Legislature’s inaction an example of what is wrong with modern lawmaking. That presumes the goal is to make laws or decisions.
The goal has everything to do with power. With the political atmosphere contentious, off-year congressional elections looming and the electorate restive, lawmakers are worried about retaining their seats and more broadly about their party either retaining a majority or achieving one. That is why Democrats are not acting and why Republicans are vigorously objecting to anything that does not conform precisely to their principles.
Divided legislative bodies can be good because they prevent the dominance of a single and perhaps extreme view. Compromise necessitates taking other interests into account even if the result only partially satisfies everyone. The current Legislature has abandoned any idea of this.
Come January we will have a new Legislature of some kind, but not necessarily that different from the present one, because the fact is that most incumbents win re-election. Perhaps we will have a group of people interested in making decisions. We could still have that this year.
The Legislature sets its own schedule. It has the power to not spend the next six months campaigning. It could amend its calendar, put itself back into regular session, act on some of the major issues facing Wisconsin and then go home to voters and talk about decisions instead of what it hopes to do at some indeterminate time. So, Legislature, what will you do? Does Wisconsin’s motto remain Forward, or is it Idle?
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