Collective Bargaining, Roger MacBride, Job Creation

Today in the News

Collective Bargaining

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has upheld Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining law, overturning a lower court decision.

Policy Analyst Ivan Osorio wrote previously about the lower court decision.

“Government employee unions and their allies have tried just about everything to stop the efforts by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Republicans in the legislature to curb their collective bargaining privileges. Senate Democrats fled the state. Union activists held loud protests for weeks in Madison. Then, after GOP collective bargaining measure passed, unions and their allies set out to replace a state Supreme Court judge with one likely to strike down the collective bargaining law, to no avail. Now a liberal activist judge has struck down the collective bargaining law. At first sight, this may seem like a major victory for Wisconsin’s unions, but in fact their quiver is running low. As The Washington Examiner‘s Philip Klein notes, ‘The ruling is likely moot, as the issue is expected to be decided by the state’s Supreme Court anyway.'”

 

Roger MacBride

John Hospers, who passed away this week, recieved an electoral vote in the 1972 presidential election as the first nominee of the Libertarian Party. Roger MacBride was the elector who cast that vote.

Distinguished Fellow R.J. Smith responds to claims that MacBride was a faithless elector, since he was allegedly commited to voting for Nixon.

“Roger would argue that he was neither a faithless nor renegade elector. He was an expert on the history of the Constitution and the thinking of the Founding Fathers, and once even did a research paper/thesis on the history of the Electoral College. In fact, he may have known more about it than any other person, since he literally wrote the book on it: The American Electoral College, which was published by Caxton Printers in 1963. Roger believed that there was no binding requirement for electors to uphold the popular vote, but that they were free to vote their conscience. He was doing his duty.”

 

Job Creation

The EPA is boasting that new emissions standards will create nearly 360,000 jobs.

Vice President Iain Murray points out how absurd this line of reasoning is.

“There are thousands of door-related accidents each year. The Consumer Product Safety Commission should do its bit by requiring that a professionally trained doorman open and shut all doors for door-users. That would create millions of jobs not just as doormen but as Doorman trainers (they’d have to be properly certified so that people aren’t exposed to the horrors of “cowboy” doormen) and also in the apparel industry as doormen need to look smart, with epaulettes and caps.”