Process important to GOP if they don't want to get something done

Two issues that the GOP controlled state legislature dealt with in the last week illustrate that the legislative process is only important to them when they want to hide behind it. According to some in the GOP, ethics reformed didn't pass this session because the issue wasn't properly hashed out in hearings and debate. Amending the constitution, well, we don't need to have a full debate and legislative process for that.

When the GOP Assembly caucus voted not to send SB 1, an ethics reform bill, to the floor this session Rep. Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin) said this in a Wisconsin State Journal article:

"I truly believe that if this is going to be done, there needs to be a better process for putting it together. Like a commission or task force..."

How about a legislative committee holding hearings on the bill and getting input? Oh wait, that did happen.

However, when the Assembly Republicans wanted to pass something that looks like they are limiting government spending, process and debate was thrown out the window. The measure that ultimately passed the Assembly was not hashed out in public. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes what happened:

The measure did not go to committee for discussion. Not a single public hearing was held. But so desperate was Gard, a Republican from Peshtigo, to approve something, he ignored the public's interest and sent through a measure without appreciable public input.

In fact, it was passed in the middle of the night when few were watching at all.

The entire process for this amendment has been cloaked in secrecy. When Senator Glenn Grothman was setting up his version of an amendment to limit spending he included this line in the email invitation:

We do not plan on inviting the media, or members of the general public.

Every meeting that legislators have does not need to be a public hearing. But this meeting was one of numerous attempts to shield the legislators from having to listen to public comments about what they were doing and keep the press from asking too many questions. The attitude expressed by Grothman and others that it was ok to exclude the press and public from details about the constitutional amendment until the very end fed into the overall thinking that legislators could ultimately pass something that hasn't had one single public hearing.

Who has time for the open legislative process when you have campaign rhetoric to go home and write?