Want special interests less involved in politics? Thank Walker.

Just about everyone who cares about politics argues fervently (and rightly so) against special interests dominating our political structures.  They want something done to loosen their influence on elected officials and return control of those officials back to their constituents.

What I don't get is why every one of those people isn't praising Gov. Scott Walker to high heaven for being the first politician in living memory who actually DID that?

Collective bargaining in public employment was nothing more than a formalized method of not only giving special interest groups unparalled ACCESS to politicians, but forcing those politicians to sit down and acquiesce to the special interest's demands or face arbitration and even potential lawsuits.

Can you imagine if there were laws saying the politicians HAD to sit down and listen to business groups' demands?  And if they didn't meet those demands, the business groups could force the politicians in front of a business-friendly arbitrator?  And the arbitrator would look at all the business-friendly stuff being done for business groups in nearby communities and force the same to be done here? And that every time the politicians wanted to change something that was in any way detrimental to business, they would have to give up something favorable to business in return?

Would anybody think that would be a good idea? What's so special about a public union it deserves such special treatment?  A public union is no different than any other interest group trying to receive favorable treatment of its constituents from government.

Collective bargaining is horrible for the democratic process.  Not only does it give union special interests unparalled access to (and control of) government officials, it gives public employees two votes on every issue subject to collective bargaining - they, unlike the rest of the public, can vote for representatives on both sides of the bargaining table.  Isn't "one person, one vote" a foundational principle of our democracy?

We should all be incredibly thankful to Governor Walker for taking such a meaningful step towards getting special interest out of politics.