Thursday, May 16, 2019

Strict Constructionist Conservative Activist Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices ignore Constitution? Yup!

This was easy, at least for the radical left wing justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who seem focused on...the actual "constructionist" written language of the State Constitution. Go figure...:
Two of the liberal-backed justices on the court, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet, welcomed the plaintiffs’ argument the Legislature did not convene legally because no law existed giving them such authority. Dallet contended the only law that governs when the Legislature may meet refers to regular sessions, not extraordinary sessions. “Where is the law that tells us you can call this extraordinary session?” Dallet said. “And if you wanted such a law, why can’t the Legislature pass one?”

The state constitution says lawmakers can meet only when called into a special session by the governor or as "provided by law." State law does not explicitly describe extraordinary sessions.
Not a law. Pretty simple.

Still, Republicans seem to think legislative "scheduling," or being in a "non-stop meeting," or "they can hold meetings at anytime," or "have the power to establish a schedule that is 'broad and amorphous' if they want," is just like having a law:
Legislators are allowed to hold extraordinary sessions ... they can hold meetings at any time ... lawmakers effectively were in a nonstop meeting for two years, with the lame-duck session an extension of a meeting that began in January 2017.
Strict Constructionist Activist Conservative Justice Exposed, and now confused? Constructionist's always argue they aren't political. So why don't supposed liberal judges claimed they're strict constructionists? Put another way, our conservative activist Justices, who wouldn't think twice about overturning decades of settled law, are now whining that after so many years it would seem crazy to declare extraordinary sessions unconstitutional...you can't make this stuff up:
As League of Women Voters attorney Jeffrey Mandell stood to begin his arguments in the case, he was cut off immediately by conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley. "You are asking this court to rule that the Wisconsin Legislature has been acting unconstitutionally for over four decades," Bradley told Mandell. "How can that be? Don't you find it extraordinary that nobody has raised this issue before this court in over four decades?"
Real strict constructionist thinking there huh? Also, I found it extraordinary and not so "constructionist" to overturn a century of Second Amendment law and giving corporations First Amendment speech and religious rights, but that's me.

1 comment:

  1. Have a look at this amicus brief filed by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign on May 6.

    It's a devastating rebuttal to the "continuous session" theory advanced by attorney
    Misha Tseytlin, counsel for the Republican-led Wisconsin Legislature.

    Taking Tseytlin's theory at face value, the brief leads to absurd results, rendering a whole slate of statutes devoid of meaning.

    https://acefiling.wicourts.gov/documents/show_any_doc?appId=wscca&docSource=EFile&p%5bcaseNo%5d=2019AP000559&p%5bdocId%5d=240430&p%5beventSeqNo%5d=94&p%5bsectionNo%5d=1

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