"It's the wild west!" Wisconsin repeals public health protections, only State Supreme Court stacked with Republicans to do that!!!

The state's highest court curbed the Evers administration's power to act unilaterally during public health emergencies. 

Wisconsin has gotten rid of public health protections. With the most extreme Republican controlled activist State Supreme Court in the country, we have finally gutted the office of the Governor, and left the protection of public health up to the slow political whims of our gerrymandered Republican legislature. If you want to go out to shop or work, no rules! How does that feel? Any uncertainty now? I wish I was making this up:

JSOnline: The Wisconsin Supreme Court, 4-3, has struck down Gov. Tony Evers' order shutting down daily life to limit the spread of coronavirus — marking the first time a statewide order of its kind has been knocked down by a court of last resort.

The ruling, for now, immediately throws out the administration's tool to control the disease for which there is no vaccine and comes at a time when Evers has already begun lifting some restrictions as the spread of the virus slows down for now.

That's not all folks:

With no COVID-19 policies in place, bars, restaurants and concert halls are allowed to reopen – unless local officials put in their own restrictions. That raises the prospect of a patchwork of policies, with rules varying significantly from one county to the next.

Turning a pandemic into a never so orderly process of making law, well, no other state courts have seen it this way.

In the majority opinion, Roggesack determined Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm should have issued such state restrictions through a process known as rule making, which gives lawmakers veto power over agency policies. Without legislative review, “an unelected official could create law applicable to all people during the course of COVID-19 and subject people to imprisonment when they disobeyed her order,” the majority wrote. 

For now, here's Gov. Evers comment with out embed, as long as it lasts. I'll have link soon;



Well, gotta wonder if federal dollars, like unemployment and local aid, is tied to the safe-at-home orders or not

Death-panel Justices!!!

In an emailed newsletter, the Wisconsin Counties Association said the local health orders placing restrictions on businesses and gatherings are made under the same set of state laws the governor's now-defunct order used as its basis.

"As a result, it is unclear whether a local health order would, in the Court’s view, suffer from the same deficiencies that caused the Court to invalidate the Safer at Home Order," the group told county officials.

Which brings us to one of the most relevant statements, made by the only dissenting conservative Justice:

Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in dissent, "We are a court of law. We are not here to do freewheeling constitutional theory. We are not here to step in and referee every intractable political stalemate. In striking down most of (the order), this court has strayed from its charge and turned this case into something quite different than the case brought to us.

To make matters worse, it has failed to provide almost any guidance for what the relevant laws mean, and how our state is to govern through this crisis moving forward."

Even more hypocritical...Vos and Fitzgerald will meet Evers by PHONE:

Remember when Republicans said a "patchwork" of  local laws were too confusing, as they wiped out local control? So a helter-skelter approach to the pandemic is better?:

The governor said the leaders seemed uninterested in a new statewide plan, as counties across Wisconsin have adopted a patchwork of stay-at-home orders in the wake of Wednesday’s court ruling.

"They’re unconcerned about what I believe will be massive confusion that will exist without a statewide approach," Evers said. "Apparently, they believe that different rules are OK ... essentially mile-by-mile there may be different rules."

The details...

The decision was written by four of the court’s conservatives – Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justices Rebecca Bradley, Daniel Kelly and Annette Ziegler. The court’s fifth conservative, Brian Hagedorn, wrote a dissent joined by the court’s two liberals, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet. 

GOP lawmakers who brought the lawsuit have said the legal challenge was necessary to get a seat at the table where Evers and state health officials make decisions about how to respond to the outbreak, which has killed 418 people in the state in two months.

Republican Rep. Deuy Stroebel gave us this completely detached comment that ignore all the demonstrations of total irresponsibility of protesters and crowded drive-in restaurants etc...I've got an idea, let's just run ourselves and not have any regulations, I trust everyone will do the right thing:

“Regardless of state regulations, I have watched my neighbors and constituents exercise reasonable care and caution as they have gone about their lives. I believe we can fully reopen our state by relying upon the judgement and discretion of our citizens to navigate the challenges of COVID-19 while resuming our day-to-day lives. If it is necessary to set statewide policies through the administrative rule process, I look forward to being a voice for targeted policies to protect our vulnerable population rather than the broad policies advanced by Governor Evers that have had disastrous consequences for so many Wisconsinites.”