Wisconsin Republicans' Destruction of Ad Law Dismantles Public Protection

Madison, Wisconisn — In Wisconsin, Republicans have been busily working since 2011 to ensure that any proceeding, hearing, deliberation and election arrives at an orderly pre-determined result favorable to Republicans' special interest.

To the extent Republicans may face adjudicative or electoral defeat, then the respective system must be rigged, gerrymandered, and programmed, with Constitutional rights vacated.

This radical destruction of Equal Protection and Due Process accomplished over six years is vastly under-reported in Wisconsin by a corporate press.

David Strifling at the Marquette Law School takes a shot at chronicling some major results of the statutory changes and corruption in administrative law in Wisconsin.

Writes Striflin:

In Wisconsin, the past five years have seen an unprecedented makeover in longstanding principles of state-level administrative law. These changes shift power away from agencies and toward courts, the legislature, and the governor. In this post, I divide the changes into three categories: 1) reductions in agency authority; 2) additions to the rulemaking process that, among other things, allow the Legislature to indefinitely block new rules; and, perhaps most importantly, 3) fundamental revisions to the doctrine of judicial deference to agency interpretations of law. Taken together, these developments deeply change the balance of power between agencies and the three branches of Wisconsin government.

Of course, Republicans cannot exactly write a statute explicitly reading that quasi-judiciary hearings arrive at pre-determined results. But they try.

So, like the statutory mandates for Wisconsin municipal, (kangaroo), court, Republicans have engineered statutory language mandating agencies rule in favor of a class of litigants when competing interests litigate a claim.

Notes Striflin:

In 2016, the Wisconsin Legislature changed that approach by enacting Wis. Stat. § 227.57(11). The statute provides that a 'court shall accord no deference to the agency’s interpretation of law if the agency action or decision restricts the property owner’s free use of the property owner’s property.' The contours of this exception aren’t clear; the terms 'restricts' and 'free use' will no doubt provide ample fodder for disputes in the years to come.

No, the statutory contours are not clear.

But the desired certainty for favored interests that exists in societies lacking the rule of law and Constitutional protections for all is an affront to American democratic traditions, which is what Republicans want.