For Republicans, this is turning into the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week.
On Tuesday, they lost a House seat in upstate New York that they've held since time immemorial, a loss that can only be interpreted as a popular repudiation of House Republicans' proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher plan that would cover only a fraction of seniors' medical costs.
Today, their other signature initiative of 2011 -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's law that strips the state's public employees of collective-bargaining rights -- was struck down by Judge Maryann Sumi of the Dane County Circuit Court. The law, ruled the judge, was introduced and passed in such a rush that it violated Wisconsin's open-meeting law, which mandates at least two hours notice to the public before solons have the right to run amok.
Wisconsin's Supreme Court is supposed to hear arguments on June 6 on whether it should overrule Judge Sumi's ruling. As four Republicans sit on the seven-member court, there's a decent chance they'll overturn today's decision, even if that requires an opinion on the elasticity of time that draws on the theory of relativity, if not Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
But the real timing here -- forcing Wisconsin's judicial and legislative branches to reconsider a measure that galvanized tremendous opposition earlier this year -- is exquisite. Three recall elections of Republican state senators who voted for the measure have now been scheduled for July 12, and labor and Democratic activists are optimistic about the prospect of ousting the Republicans. The campaigns look likely to be climaxing just as the Court rules on the law, and quite possibly just when the Legislature takes up the measure again, this time with plenty of advance notice.
Having already placed their necks in an electoral noose by the supporting the measure the first time around, how would those three Republican state senators vote if it's brought up just a month or so before they face the voters? And what of the other Republican state senators who face recall but whose election dates have yet to be scheduled?
As Republicans inside the Beltway ponder whether to stick with their demonstrably politically suicidal Medicare plan, so the Republicans in Cheese-land ponder whether to stick with their equally chancy war on teachers and park rangers. A tough week for Republicans all around.
