I got sick on Sunday standing out in the cold so I had to give Monday a miss. Here’s what happened, apparently:

After failing to get the Capitol closed on Sunday (see our updates for an indication of why; the crowd wasn’t with them to say the least), Walker’s Department of Administration decided to greatly restrict access to the building instead.

This brought a flurry of legal activity and threats, and forced activists to say outside. The policy was applied cruelly and without discretion:

A cancer patient needing a colostomy bag change — a medical emergency — was denied access to the Capitol building holding the patient’s medication due to a surprise lockdown that has lasted for hours past the scheduled and well-publicized 8:00 AM doors-open time Monday morning.

This patient was kept outside for 80 minutes in the cold while Walker flexed his political muscle and ordered DOA to close the Capitol during normally-open daytime business hours in order to gradually muffle the overwhelming dissent of his proposed legislation, which denies health care to many of our most vulnerable citizens, including many children, and strips unionized workers of collective bargaining rights for which people have fought and died for decades.

The ACLU stepped in, as they so often do:(earning my praise and really working for our membership dues)

“Prohibiting protestors on either side of the debate from entering the Capitol during normal business hours or during legislative hearings or sessions, while allowing others with ‘business’ in the Capitol to enter, is manifestly content-based and, hence presumptively unconstitutional.”

Combined with a push from labor, it seems to have paid off as a judge has issued a temporary restraining order today forcing the Capitol open again just in time for Walker’s no doubt vicious budget speech:

A judge has granted a temporary restraining order giving the public access to the state Capitol during business hours and while hearings and other state business are being heard.

The order appears to ease more restrictive policies outlined in a Monday night memo from Assembly Sergeant-at-Arms Anne Tonnon Byers but nothing had changed in terms of access as of 10:45 a.m.

…

The temporary restraining order by Dane County Judge Daniel R. Moeser was filed Tuesday morning in response to a lawsuit filed by three union groups: Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24 and the AFL-CIO.

Justice prevails, at least for the moment.

Stay tuned for more ZRC updates later today.

Tags: Madison Protests

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under ZRC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.