A judge in Wisconsin has temporarily blocked the implementation of a law that would strip public employees of their collective-bargaining rights. Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi issued the order in response to a lawsuit filed by the local district attorney.
The lawsuit alleges that a Senate conference committee violated Wisconsin's open-meetings law by failing to give 24 hours' notice before convening to approve a modified "non-fiscal" version of the bill. The Senate Republicans hastily passed the bill that evening without a quorum, while their Democratic colleagues were still in exile in Illinois.
As I reported at the time, the conference committee almost certainly violated the open-meetings law. At the time, the Senate Republicans tried to change the subject by insisting, irrelevantly, that they didn't violate the Senate's procedural rules.
According to The New York Times, "The judge's order is a major setback for new Republican Gov. Scott Walker and puts the future of the law in question."
Assistant Attorney General Steven Means says the state will appeal the ruling, but he didn't say when. The law was scheduled to be officially published on March 25.
The skirmish over the open-meetings law could be prelude to a more far-reaching legal challenge. Ultimately, even if the law is struck down over the open-meetings violation, the Republicans could probably just re-pass it with adequate notice. If we assume that this is a non-fiscal bill, the Democrats wouldn't be able to stall passage by skipping town.
So, the deeper and potentially more far-reaching legal issue is whether this was a fiscal bill, and therefore, whether the state Senate had the authority to pass it without a quorum. Recall that there was a stalemate in the Wisconsin Senate because the Democratic senators had fled the state to deny the Republicans quorum. So, the Republicans hastily tweaked the bill, declared it "non-fiscal," and passed it anyway.
Was it really a non-fiscal bill? Among other things, the law gives the Walker administration sweeping powers over Medicaid, the joint state/federal health insurance for the poor.
According to a Feb. 14 memo by Bob Lang, director of the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, provisions that "affect state program eligibility" don't qualify as non-fiscal items in his estimation.
To add to the drama, Wisconsin has a state Supreme Court election coming up on April 5. Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg is trying to unseat conservative incumbent David Prosser. If she wins, she could shift the balance of power on the court.
