After a county judge ruled for the second time that Wisconsin’s controversial anti-union bill was not in fact law, Republican Governor Scott Walker and his administration agreed to suspend its implementation.
On March 18, Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order blocking the bill until a court decided if Republican legislators had violated a state open meetings law when they originally passed the measure. But the Walker administration went ahead with plans to enforce the law anyway, gearing up to start deducting more money from the paychecks of state workers mandated by the bill. The bill’s most controversial provisions, of course, ban collective bargaining rights on health care and pension benefits for most public-sector unions—provisions that have sparked nearly two months of protest in Madison, the state capital. More.