Wisconsin voters carried the day for Governor Scott Walker back on April 5th when they returned Justice David Prosser to the Wisconsin Supreme Court over the union favored Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg. The Wisconsin high court quickly upheld Walker's bill, which put limits on government employee unions' collective bargaining.
Madison - Acting with unusual speed, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated Gov. Scott Walker's plan to all but end collective bargaining for tens of thousands of public workers.
The court found a committee of lawmakers was not subject to the state's open meetings law, and so did not violate that law when they hastily approved the measure and made it possible for the Senate to take it up. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled a Dane County judge who had struck down the legislation, ending one challenge to the law even as new challenges are likely to emerge.
The majority opinion was by Justices Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. The other three justices - Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and N. Patrick Crooks - concurred in part and dissented in part.
The opinion voided all orders in the case from the lower court. It came just before 5 p.m., sparing Republicans who control the Legislature from taking up the contentious issue of collective bargaining again.
You may recall the Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issued a restraining order forbidding implementation of the law, saying that the legislature failed to abide by the state's open meetings law.
The court ruled that Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi's ruling, which had held up implementation of the collective bargaining law, was void ab initio, or invalid from the outset.
In its decision, the state's high court concluded that "choices about what laws represent wise public policy for the state of Wisconsin are not within the constitutional purview of the courts."
The court concluded that Sumi exceeded her jurisdiction, "invaded" the Legislature's constitutional powers and erred in halting the publication and implementation of the collective bargaining law.
The court added that its role is limited to determining whether the Legislature employed a "constitutionally violative process in the enactment of the act. We conclude that the Legislature did not violate the Wisconsin Constitution by the process it used."
The way is now clear for Wisconsin to attack the underlying issue to the collective bargaining legislation, which is to get its fiscal house in order.
Update: Legal Insurrection spikes the football.
Okay, analysis done, now I spike the football by referencing my prior posts:
- Judge Sumi's Mess ("Judge Maryann Sumi preemptively issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which she thought ... would stop the publication of the budget repair bill, and therefore prevent the bill from becoming law. This was an unprecedented move, and none of the legal arguments which attacked the validity of the law necessitated such interference in the legislative process.")
- Judge Sumi Throws Out Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Law ("It is one thing for a court to rule on the validity of a law, but quite another thing for a court to stop the legislature from making law. Judge Sumi gives short shrift (at pp. 13-14) to the key Wisconsin case which says courts must await a law coming into effect before ruling on the law, Goodland v. Zimmerman. Judge Sumi summarily dismisses the import of Goodland by stating that it was a pre-Open Meetings law ruling. Well, chronologically yes, but the principle is the same; courts rule on legislation, courts do not stop legislation from being made.")
From the lefty blog Crooks and Liars, one Karoli claims to have discovered partisan language in the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision.
Some examples from the decision -- no partisan language here, oh no:
This court has granted the petition for an original action because one of the courts that we are charged with supervising has usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the legislature.
...the legislature did not employ a process that violated Article IV, Section 10 of the Wisconsin Constitution, which provides in relevant part: “The doors of each house shall be kept open except when the public welfare shall require secrecy.” The doors of the senate and assembly were kept open to the press and members of the public during the enactment of the Act. The doors of the senate parlor, where the joint committee on conference met, were open to the press and members of the public. WisconsinEye broadcast the proceedings live. Access was not denied.
I don't get what's partisan about the language in the decision, unless in Karoli's view any language in disagreement with progressive dogma is by definition partisan.
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