Assembly passes Walker's anti-union budget.

[SirNitram]

It's over. The vote was done at 1AM. Voice vote, and the Dems were not recignized with their calls for it to stop. The vote was suddenly stopped when it reached the minimum for passage, 51. A majority of the Democrats there may have been present, and may have been pushing the NO button, but their votes were not recorded. The Assembly has passed it.

The Senate Dems remain in undisclosed locations, and have no intent on returning. The crowd of protestors thanked the Democrats, and did a round of 'Hell no we won't go'.

I'll try and find a source to cite, if I can before I fall asleep.

[frigidmagi]

The bill is not law, not until the State Senate passage passes it. If I was the protesters, I would really be pushing recall petitions right now.

[Dark Silver]

I would be pushing recall petitions and mass Impeachment petitions of all those involved in the creation and trying to pass that horrid idea for a bill.

One would think that the vote by the Wiss Senate itself wouldn't hold up in court, due to how it was done.

[The Minx]

CNN's story on this: Link

Madison, Wisconsin (CNN) -- The Wisconsin State Assembly passed a Republican bill Friday that would strip most state workers of the bulk of their collective-bargaining rights.

Among other things, the measure would require workers -- with the exception of police and firefighters -- to cover more of their health care premiums and pension contributions.

Collective bargaining would be limited to wages, though any pay increases beyond the inflation rate would be subject to voter approval.

The fight over the bill appears far from over. It still must clear the Wisconsin Senate, a step that is likely to prove far more contentious.

Fourteen Democratic senators have fled to neighboring Illinois to prevent a quorum from voting on the issue, and they remained absent early Friday.

Gov. Scott Walker on Friday reiterated his call for Democrats to return to the Legislature while defending the bill's provision that would curb public workers' rights to negotiate on all matters except salaries.

"Collective bargaining is a fiscal matter," Walker told reporters.

But Democrats said the proposal is tantamount to union-busting.

"The vote we took wasn't the easy thing to do, but it was the right thing to do," Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, a Republican, said early Friday. "I continue to urge my Democrat colleagues in the Senate to come back to Madison so that they can debate this bill and do their job for the taxpayers of Wisconsin."

Thousands have protested the legislation in recent days.

On Thursday, Walker also called on Democrats to come back to Madison "and do their job."

At a Thursday night news conference, Walker warned that if the Legislature does not pass his budget bill, state aid to local governments could be cut. He also discounted critics who said the legislation will destroy public employee unions in the state.

"Wisconsin state employees have the strongest civil protections in the country. That's not going to change in this bill," Walker said. "It's not about the union boss coming in from other parts of the country. It's about whether we protect the taxpayers and the workers."

One lawmaker who left the state, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller, said in a response from Rockford, Illinois, that Walker should "recognize that he got what he wants" in concessions on pension and health insurance contributions and relent on curbing collective-bargaining rights.

The confrontation reached a fever pitch after Walker was recorded during a prank phone call discussing the idea of duping absentee Democrats by luring them back to "talk, not negotiate," allow them to recess and then have the 19 Republican senators declare a quorum.

The Republican-led Senate presumably then would be able to move forward on the controversial legislation.

The state faces a deadline Friday to balance the budget. Wisconsin is confronted with a $137 million budget shortfall by June 30 and a $3.6 billion gap by 2013.

Something interesting from the comments section:

Sorry for making this long.....What’s happening in Wisconsin is, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.
1) The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim. Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.â€