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According to Reuters and The Washington Post:
Two of the Democratic Party’s biggest wins last month occurred in Wisconsin and Michigan, where their candidates won gubernatorial elections, unseating a well-known incumbent in the former and flipping the seat in the latter. In anticipation of having to work with a Democratic governor, state lawmakers are aiming to hurriedly pass legislation that would dilute the executives' powers.
The moves in both states have drawn comparisons to Republican efforts in NC in 2016, when lawmakers pushed through legislation limiting the authority of the state’s Democratic governor, after he defeated the incumbent Republican.
The proposals include preventing the incoming governor from withdrawing Wisconsin from a legal challenge to the federal Affordable Care Act, sidestepping the attorney general’s power to represent the state in litigation and rescheduling a 2020 election to boost the chances of a Republican state Supreme Court Justice, among others.
U.S. Republicans and Democrats have a history of using lame-duck sessions to advance priorities ahead of power shifts. Wisconsin Democrats in 2010 unsuccessfully tried to push through public union contracts after Walker won election while promising to get tough with organized labor.
Meanwhile, in Utah, lawmakers are getting ready to meet in a special lame-duck session on Monday (Dec 3rd) to rewrite a medical marijuana law that voters passed this November. Patient advocates are saying the move is an end run around voters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @02:08PM (14 children)
You're going to take this as apologist talk but decreasing the power of the Executive is rarely a bad thing, regardless of why. They currently have way, way too much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:18PM (2 children)
Too bad they're only ever doing this when it's the other guy that sits in the executive chair.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:29PM
Right but everybody is the other guy to someone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:24PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:41PM (1 child)
Ok. No arguments there. There are often situations of excessive power in government that us voters can do little to reign in except to hope for change that often doesn't happen the way we hoped.
Unfortunately, the real problem is that it was only when they no longer were they were able to retain control of such power, that they used the same power to limit the incoming administration ability to exercise the same controls that the incumbant party enjoyed.
That is wrong no matter what side of the aisle one is on.
The voters have to decide this. Not sore losers. And don't get me wrong. There are probably more Democrat party chuckleheads than Republican ones. But this is a major jerk move. If Republicans were truly for small government (at least in this specific case), they'd have done this to themselves previously and affected their ability to govern--and due to they being the ones to cut the strings shorter and tie the knots tighter, they'd have certainly done it in a positive and well-thought out fashion.
This is neither positive or well-thought out.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:38PM
Yup, which is a good argument for changing who's in power regularly. That way they're all constantly taking turns removing powers from the other side. Eventually regular old people might end up with a government lacking the power to screw them over too bad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @06:26PM (5 children)
The corrupt toad in the White House does illustrate your point. No one man should have that much power, because a really bad man was bound to come along and get the worst of us to vote for him.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @06:40PM (4 children)
It's not bad men you should be afraid of. Good men with the best of intentions are far more terrifying.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tibman on Tuesday December 04 2018, @09:26PM (3 children)
That's silly. A good person could be reasoned with and accept they screwed up. Could even attempt to undo damage. A bad person who intentionally does bad things really doesn't care. Will deny they did anything wrong. Will abuse power to cover up any visible damage.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:07PM (2 children)
When was the last time you tried to reason with someone who felt morally obligated to do something for your own good? I ask this because clearly you have not been paying attention to politics for the past several decades.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @11:36PM
Very few people have the same "everyone should literally have total freedom" attitude you do. Just so you know that makes you sound like a moron, psychopath, or whatever falls in between.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday December 05 2018, @12:51AM
You said:
Then you said:
The one is not like the other. People who feel "morally obligated" tend to be very bad, not good at all except perhaps in their own minds (IOW, characterizing one's self as "good" does not make it so.) Witness just about every "sin" law ever made. Made by people who were not good, but rather evil types with devastating intent and ability to control and meddle with the lives, agency, and independence of others.
So no: it is the bad people we have to worry about. The good ones don't interfere with anyone else until someone gets right in their faces, at which point, it's outright self-defense.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday December 04 2018, @06:46PM (2 children)
The problem here is that it's a zero sum power shift (as I understand it). I'm all for less government power, but in this case it's just executive power that is being usurped by the legislature. Now that may be a good thing, but it doesn't sound legitimate in context.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:09PM (1 child)
The legislature is less dangerous. They have built-in disagreeability within themselves. One man who knows what he wants is astoundingly more dangerous and should only be given the bare minimum necessary power.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 05 2018, @01:32AM
Not in WI they are not. We are so gerrymandered that the legislature is far less accountable than the AG or Gov. Those two (actually all state-wide GOP posts) flipped to the Dems, but the GOP is still 2:1 in the assembly.
Once again TMB's knee jerk ideological purity flounders on the shores of reality. Maybe one of these days you'll realize sometimes situations are different.