Gov. Scott Walker appears seriously intimidated by the idea of a showdown with Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers. But it will happen this fall, whether Walker likes it or not.
There’s also a chance the two will end up facing off in the race for governor, but Democratic voters will make that decision on Tuesday, Aug. 14. This other battle has been nearly seven years in the making and will be in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. It may even coincide with the general election season.
The court fight is looming because Walker was told he does not get control over Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and its independently elected leader. Superintendent Tony Evers holds the only other job of a constitutional executive officer with executive power in Wisconsin. Of course, that has not stopped Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature from attempting to give the governor the ability to veto—not once but twice, at two separate stages—actions taken by DPI and Evers known as “administrative rules.” It’s yet another attempt by Walker to grab control over one of the few places where he does not have a willing puppet—the DPI.
Republicans Forcing Their Agenda
In fairness, it didn’t start with Walker and Evers. Republicans have long tried to find ways to force their privatization agenda on Wisconsin’s educational system by usurping DPI’s powers so they can control the pesky educators, experts and policy wonks there. Wisconsin voters showed last April just how sick they are of Walker’s power grabs by overwhelmingly shooting down his attempt to eliminate the State Treasurer’s office and usurp its power.
In general, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a realm in which Walker seems comfortable. He can stay out of sight and avoid questions while his lawyers, including his bagman attorney general, Brad Schimel, do his dirty work in front of the majority of the court’s conservative judges whom Walker has either appointed or backed. Friendly GOP territory, indeed.
But, even having all that ammunition on his side was not enough for Walker against Evers this time around. Walker doesn’t want to take any chances, because he already fought nearly this same battle in front of the conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court two years ago—and he lost. So, Walker took the outrageous step of attempting to deny Evers his own legal representation, assigning Evers to be represented by Schimel, who said his so-called defense would boil down to this: Gov. Walker is right.
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Walker Always the Loser
Walker and Evers have faced off in Wisconsin courts repeatedly over the former’s desperate attempts to undermine Evers’ oversight of Wisconsin education, an area in which the latter has decades of experience at every level. (Walker has none—unless you count slashing public school budgets and giveaways to unaccountable private schools.) These cases have at least one thing in common: Walker has been the loser every time.
This saga started in 2011 when Walker wanted authority over every administrative rule made—even those made by a separately elected constitutional office like the DPI. The people of Wisconsin have trusted elected officials who support and believe in their public schools to actually run them, as opposed to Republicans who want to shift taxpayer dollars away from public education to fund private voucher schools.
He lost in circuit court, the appeals court and even the Wisconsin Supreme Court where, in May 2016, Walker’s attempt to control DPI’s administrative rules was ruled unconstitutional. This case, Coyne v. Walker, was decided on a four-to-three vote and determined that the governor cannot control the elected head of the DPI, who is a constitutional officer with rights and responsibilities of his own. Case closed, right? Nope.
Fast-forward to Nov. 2017. As the race for governor was taking shape, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) entered the fray. WILL is a nonprofit, right-wing law firm with close ties to Walker that soaked in money from the Bradley Foundation. By this point, Justice David Prosser—who, though a conservative had sided with the majority in Coyne—had been replaced by Walker-appointee and WILL-advisor Daniel Kelly. Thus, WILL went straight to the Supreme Court—asking it to reconsider what they admitted was essentially the same case as Coyne v. Walker. The Supreme Court agreed to take the case, and Justice Kelly, despite having worked with WILL, decided to not recuse himself.
Another Power Grab
Evers faced down Walker and labeled the case what it was. “Politics are at the core of this decision,” he told the Wisconsin State Journal when the court agreed to hear the new version of the old case again in mid-May this year. “We had our own in-house counsel argue for us in [Coyne v. Walker]. The fact that this turnaround happened because I’m running for governor would lead me to believe that it’s clear that it’s a political decision at this point, and we’ll take him on.”
Ironically, it was an even more outrageous power over-reach that got the attention Walker apparently hoped to avoid. Walker and Schimel decided it wasn’t enough to tilt the field in their favor: That was when they sought to take away Evers’ right to fair representation and install Schimel, who publicly disagrees with Evers.
The alarming new backdrop to these legal battles is this: Walker, Schimel and WILL-Bradley Foundation joining forces around education issues is something that should concern everyone in Wisconsin who cares about public education and believes it is the best path to becoming part of the middle class for all Wisconsinites. This is a trio hellbent on implementing U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ model of privatizing public education. In fact, Evers has pointed out that the DPI is currently writing administrative rules related to the private voucher school system. Apparently humiliated by his multiple losses to Evers, Walker also asked in this same May case that his name be taken off as a party to the lawsuit, letting others do the dirty work of usurping control on his behalf.
A Win for Wisconsin
Scott Walker has never much liked a fair fight. He preferred “dropping a bomb” and “dividing and conquering,” like he did with the infamous Act 10. During his short-lived, clownish campaign for president, he even declared that, if elected, he was prepared to fight ISIS because he stood up to teachers, firefighters and other union members. Fact: During the Act 10 era, he actually hid in his office, took underground tunnels and never had the courage to look his opponents in the eye and talk to them.
He has cast aside Wisconsin’s historic way of resolving differences: listening to public opinion and working together. This case over administrative rules seems minor compared to some of the other power grabs and plots to destroy opponents, such as making it far more cumbersome to vote, rigging political maps, packing courts and consolidating power all across state government by replacing public servants with political cronies, often with few qualifications.
As Walker’s most recent case against DPI and Evers was argued before the Supreme Court last month, Walker was, again, nowhere to be seen. In contrast, Evers sat in the front row of the court with his wife, watching the proceedings, silently looking his opponents in the eye. His public statements afterward showed a focus on protecting students, schools, his agency and its professionals. In the end, Evers won again, even before this new court, albeit with a very narrow ruling that allowed him to have his own attorney.
When asked about this personal win, Tony Evers noted that it was also a win for the people of Wisconsin and for fairness, adding, “I don’t think anybody in the state could believe that they would go to court and have the prosecutor also be the defense attorney. I mean, how could you possibly expect to win?”
Walker, meanwhile, got a much smaller victory: His name was removed as party to the lawsuit, so regardless of what happens in the case this fall, he can stay safely hidden behind the scenes, never having to look Evers in the eye—at least not on this particular case. That may be something he won’t be able to avoid if the two end up facing off at podiums in a general election this fall, however.
