Bricker, I’m not a professional law-talking guy. This means I don’t have access to Lexis-Nexis. So no. Now, if you can toss it up for me, I’ll read it.
That being said, it’s your statement that the government official was referring to that case, not his. I’m not convinced. Nor am I convinced it is still good or applicable law. You just pulled it out of nowhere, as far as I can tell.
Yes, it’s my conjecture. I have no idea if he was relying on that case or not.
BUT – what does “you pulled it out of nowhere” mean? I pulled it out of Westlaw, which in turn pulled it out of the tenth volume of the Northwestern Reporter, Second Series, beginning on page 180, which in turn pulled it out of the decisions issued by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1943. So far as I can tell, it’s not available in any publicy-accessible page.
Which seems like a good place to get authoritive caselaw for Wisconsin.
Nor are you convinced it’s still good or applicable law?? Then it’s up to you to provide some citation showing it’s not. How would you propose I prove to you a case hasn’t been overruled?
That’s an absolutely absurd objection. I cited a case. If you bellieve it’s not on point, tell me why. If you believe it’s been overruled or is otherwise not good law, show me where that’s happened.
I don’t have an article yet (she ruled less than an hour ago), but reading the liveblog on Daily Kos about the hearing before Judge Sumi today, it appears that she is continuing the proceedings while maintaining the TRO against enforcement.
She noted that she wanted to rule today and get this settled, but the Republican defendants, who have immunity from civil process until at least 15 days after a legislative session has ended, refused to waive that immunity and therefore couldn’t be served to appear in court, which means she has only one side’s testimony about the violation of open meeting laws. Since she can’t make a ruling on only one side’s testimony, the TRO is still in effect until the immunity expires and the defendants can be served.
Because of that (and, I assume, scheduling issues), the hearing won’t be resumed until May. The TRO against enforcement is in effect until that time.
ETA: It appears that almost all of the testimony from plaintiff’s witnesses was about the near-impossibility of getting into the hastily-called meeting in which the so-called “strip-out” of fiscal issues was done, prior to the quorumless Senate vote.
Bricker, it doesn’t matter if it’s applicable law or not. You’re the one who said that it was what the… I believe it was the asst atty general, was referring to.
Now, how you knew that was what he was referring to, is what I call pulling it out of nowhere. You’re the first person to bring that specific case up, as far as I can tell, and you sure as shootin ain’t in Wisconsin. So how do you know he’s referring to it?
Well, what I said was:
And quite literally, that was it. Goodland is the Wisconsin law on enjoining publication of a law, so I imagined he was relying on it. I suppose he could have simply made his mind up without knowing about the law, and happened to be correct.
And I doubt I’m the only person able to do the requisite research to come up with this case.
That’s exactly what you said, all right. Now, how sure are you that a case from 1943 is still controlling law? And why?
Sorry, Bricker, I do have to rely on you for this. Because, as I said, clearly the judge is sure she has this power, and if the case is as you said, she clearly does not. In fact, if the case is as you said, no judge has the power to enjoin a law from publication.
Am I correct here, or missing something?
Thank you.
I can appreciate your comments here. While I’d prefer it if there were greater accountability (e.g. for the promises one makes in order to be elected) and transparency - and that goes just as much for the Democrats as it does for the Republicans - I do appreciate that we have these safeguards against mob rule, etc, with our democratic republic.
My opinion on the actions of the Republican leadership in Wisconsin is that it is essentially an unconstitutional power grab (that may or may not turn out to be an exaggeration). They are acting like an oligarchy or plutocracy, which doesn’t fit very well in the definition of a democratic republic.
The fact that this is happening at all is, I believe, largely due to the apathy of the voters, which is a weakness in any democracy. Many people in Wisconsin have been awakened from their complacency, and are attempting to take responsibility for their government. I just hope that we can remain awake…
Because I asked a guy named Frank Shepard.
You’re mssing the judge’s modification of her order. She’s no longer trying to enjoin publication – she’s trying (and succeeding!) to enjoin enforcement now. THAT, she can do.
Now, about Frank Shepard. Way back in mists of history, the problem you instinctively suss out here became apparent: with more and more decisions coming out of more and more courts, how might an advocate determine that the case he was relying upon hadn’t been overturned, either in full or in part, either explicitly or by implication by some newer case, or by a higher court.
Earlier I said that I pulled the case from the Northwestern Reporter. Alongside the Northwestern Reporter is a publication called Shepard’s Northwwestern Reporter Citations. This tracks cases reported by the Northwestern Reporter to determine if they’ve been cited by other courts, and if they’ve been overturned in whole or part. These days I can do this electronically; when I was in law school, this involved actually finding the hardback volums and soft-cpver supplements that covered everything since the last hardback was issued, the “cumulative” supplements and the advance sheets for that reporter series.
I describe all this to explain the process and counter the impression you seem to have that I simply flipped open a 1943 book, found a case that seemed to fit, and tossed it up there. There is a process to check whether a case you’re citing is still good law. I don’t say it’s perfect, but its misses are most often when a case is being cited across jurisdictions or in dicta. In this case, it’s a Wisconsin Supreme Court case, and that makes it controlling law unless there’s another, later Wisconsin Supreme Court case that says otherwise.
Now, that’s not to say that the ultimate decision is made here. The case is analgous, but this case involves the open meetings law, which didn’t exist in 1943; a court could find that the previous decisions saying that the law must be interpreted liberally trump the more pedestrian procedural issues discussed in Goodland. I think Goodland is strongly persusasive, but it’s not the precise issue in play right now.
But you can’t simply sit here and dismiss the argument by saying, “Well, I don’t know how you foudn the case or howyou know it’s still good law, so I’m going to disbelieve you.” That’s not how debate works – you counter a cite with a cite, not a hand-wave.
Is that the same guy who is referred to in Shepardizing? (checks) Yep, it is. I know a few things, Bricker. I’m grateful for your patience, here, because I know that I know a few things, and the things I know may not fully add up here and there.
And I was not dismissing the argument. I was poking at a hole I seem to have found, and asking why it was or was not so. Now, if you’ll give me a little patience, I seem to recall the judge’s last order saying that it was not published. Lemme go check.
http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/March11/0331/0331sumi.pdf
Now, how can she do that?
Further, I don’t think this guy is referring to Goodland at all.
http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=231799
He’s just saying he wasn’t a party, so ha ha ha, screw you Judge. Which is a much simpler statement.
Wait, no. Here’s the one I was looking for.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/118839999.html
There’s the Goodland reference. Good eye, Bricker.
Okay. So the .pdf link, is the one that seems to be holding, and will be in place for about two months. So how can she do that, if Goodland is in force?
The judge has hit the “moot” button, and this one is over. She may very well have saved the very bacon of the WI Republicans. As she noted, if the Republicans found her ruling odious, all they needed to do was go back and pass the thing under corrected procedures. They did not, they decided to pretend they didn’t need to, and barrelled on ahaad. They were within hours of putting the legislation into effect and taking a cut from the paychecks of state employees. They had stuffed a political hand grenade up their collective Nixon, and were prepared to pull the pin. She saved their asses.
Why didn’t they go back inside and re-pass the legislation? Suspicious, skeptical minds, lacking in necessary objectivity, suggest that they could not. That the recall movement had them in a hair-on-fire panic, desperate for some means to reassure their base but blunt the movement to throw their sorry asses out.
The miracle. This thing is on hold for months, letting some the urgency out of the tires. With ths monstrosity no longer descending, perhaps the recall movement will lose steam. So, on the one hand, the Pubbies get so say “Hey, we’re with you, but an activitst liberal judge got in the way”, while at the same time denying the left something to rally around.
(I trust I haven’t been too tedious in hi-jacking this thread to the original subject, and drawing attention away from the truly important issues, the arcana of case law and its implications.)
Because they want her to, because she is saving their sorry butts. If you walked into the room with a legal brief that would tear her opinion to shreds and allow the Pubbies to proceed with their foot-shooting experiment, they would tie you up, gag you and stuff you into a closet.
They don’t *want *to win this. They want to lose and blame it on her.
Good question. My opinion is that she cannot legally do that.
But she has, which means that if I’m right, at some point a higher court will say that she erred. If I’m wrong, some higher court will explain how she was correct.
Given her complete failure to even address the issue raised by Goodland (as opposed to addressing it and explaining why it doesn’t apply) I’d say she is just doing something she knows will eventually be overturned, and is willing to take the minor hit of being overturn for the greater benefit (in her eyes) of stopping the law’s enforcement.
Because I’m not a Wisconsin lawyer, and even if I were I’m not an administrative procedures lawyer, I can’t say with certainty that there’s no other contravening law or decision that may be in play. I’ve looked, and haven’t seen anything that might apply, nor have any commentators I have read made any suggestion about what legal basis might allow the judge’s ruling to stand.