Wisconsin GOP Justices Seen as Corrupt, Litigation Is Pending

Wisconsin Supreme Court entrance at state capitol

Update: In Jere Fabick v. Andrea Palm, Appeal Number 2020AP000828, A May 18 state DoJ legal filing reads in part: "As a result of this Court's decision in Legislature v Palm, the petitioners' motion for an injunction and petition for an original action challenge an order that no longer exists. If this Court doe not sua sponte deny the petitioners' motion for an injunction and decline to take jurisdiction of the petition for an original action because the claims are moot, then the State Respondents respectfully request that the Court issue a schedule for supplemental briefings on the issue of mootness," (Wheeler Report).
  
Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Supreme Court republicans deciding questions through fidelity to law is as likely as Republican legislators using empirical investigation and scientific findings to inform public policy.

It's not the way it is here.

Impartial processes are often mission-critical barriers to Republican Party aims of achieving corporatist demands and fundamentalist taboo-morality dogma.

Democratic foundations such as law, rights and empirical reality are rejected by Republicans, in conception.

All proceedings, hearings, deliberation and elections should arrive at orderly, pro-Party results. Law and citizen input must be minimized because the rule of law and rights-laden democracy can be powerful opposing forces to Republican Party autocracy.

It is in through this perspective that we can understand the work of Wisconsin Republican justices reaching preordained, nakedly corrupt decisions to serve Republican Party interests.

Noone was surprised by the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision to block Gov Tony Evers administration's safer-at-home Emergency Order 28, (Wisconsin Executive Orders), (Treleven, Wisconsin State Journal).

That legal case is entitled Wisconsin Legislature v. Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm, Julie Willems Van Dijk and Nicole Safar, In Their Official Capacities As Executives of Wisconsin Department of Health Services Respondents. (Appeal Number 2020AP000765), (Case History).

Another case now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court is the so-called second safer/stay-at-home litigation, Jere Fabick v. Andrea Palm, Appeal Number 2020AP000828.
 
Fabick appears part of the Republican Party effort to dismantle targeted statutory law protecting public health and safety without the introduction of legislation. No need for a bill when hyper-activist justices stand ready to accomplish Party aims.

"Final briefs have been filed in a second lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's 'Safer at Home' order, this one arguing the order violated peoples' rights to freedom of worship, speech and travel under the Wisconsin Constitution," reports Wisconsin Public Radio.

Fabick is pending before the state Supreme Court. A decision whether the Court will hear the case is expected soon.

As local public health officials issue local orders to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in the wake of Palm, the state DoJ issued an advisory opinion on May 15 affirming the authority of local officials because they are empowered by a different statute than the governor and Health secretary.

The non-binding DoJ opinion states in part:

4. First,  the supreme court’s  decision  addressed  only  DHS’s  authority found in Wis. Stat. § 252.02. That statute does not govern the authority of local health officers, which is separately set out in Wis. Stat. § 252.03. That separate grant of local authority  provides,  among  other  things,  powers  to  'prevent,  suppress  and  control  communicable  diseases'  and 'forbid  public  gatherings  when  deemed  necessary  to  control  outbreaks  or  epidemics.'  Wis.  Stat.  §  252.03(1)–(2).1  Because the  court  decision addressed a different statute applicable to a state agency, and not the statute applicable to local authorities, the Palm decision is not directly controlling on powers under the latter statute.

More litigation is expected by some observers.