Governor Walker To Experience “A Tsunami Of Litigation”
No one thought the collective bargaining law was just going to slide into home plate with ease due to the LRB action late Friday afternoon….not even in the empty recesses of Governor Walker’s mind could he have thought success was his when it came to assaulting state workers and public employees.
But I wonder if Governor Walker has any idea what is about to be unleashed as a legal response to the brazen actions by his administration? There seems to be no line that Walker will not cross when it comes to getting his way.
I strongly suspect the courts and the law will soon be putting the brakes on Walker and Company.
“This bill has been under a cloud of suspicion since day one,” said State Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha. “Today’s actions and statements are only perpetuating the problem.”
After he was ordered not to publish the law, La Follette sent the Reference Bureau a letter March 18 rescinding his instructions setting Friday as the publication date.
But Fitzgerald said attorneys have told him the letter has no standing.
“Every attorney I have consulted said this will now be law,” Fitzgerald said. “It wasn’t a secret. I think they left the door open for this.”
Still, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi’s March 18 order appears broadly aimed at stopping the law from taking effect until questions about its passage could be addressed.
“I do, therefore, restrain and enjoin the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10,” Sumi said, according to a transcript. “The next step in implementation of that law would be the publication of that law by the secretary of state. He is restrained and enjoined from such publication until further order of this court.”
If the bureau’s action did constitute publication, it could make moot the state’s appeal of Sumi’s order, now before the state Supreme Court.
That could actually simplify the case that District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is seeking to make on the alleged open meetings violation if he doesn’t have to worry about whether a judge has the authority to stop legislation before it takes effect, said Madison lawyer Lester Pines.
“I suspect that if Judge Sumi was willing to take up a (temporary restraining order) against publication I suspect she’d do the same thing on enforcement” of the new law, Pines said.
Pines said it would also open up legal channels for other groups who have been waiting to challenge the law but had to wait until it was enacted.
“This is going to unleash a tsunami of litigation,” Pines said.
