Wisconsin Update

Two things.

First and as already covered here, Judge Sumi issued an amended TRO (PDF) which, like the first one, purports to halt implementation of the budget repair bill.

Unfortunately for Judge Sumi, this injunction only orders the Wisconsin Secretary of State not to publish or implement the law. It suffers from at least two fatal flaws: (1) this law has already been published and (2) the Secretary of State does not "implement" the law in the sense that his office does not deal with withholding of union dues, setting pensions withholdings, etc. The Wisconsin AG says implementation is ongoing and will continue.

Second, though election day is next week for Justice Prosser's seat, he will continue on the Supreme Court until August. His term does not end until July 31, which means that no matter what happens next week, he will still be on the court when the TRO is considered. He will also likely still be on the bench when the merits of the Open Meetings argument are ruled on, though that will depend more on how much the liberal Chief Justice can drag her feet if Prosser isn't reelected. Keep in mind that there won't be a drawn-out appeals process here because the appellate court already took a pass on the case.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 07:35 AM

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