Photo courtesy of WisEye.org
The politically corrupt majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court graduated from a state embarrassment to a national embarrassment as the only state court in the nation to abolish every measure by the state’s governor and health officials to protect lives during the deadliest public health pandemic in a century.
The shameless court decision also exposed the fundamental dishonesty of the radical extremists seizing control of the Republican Party nationally under Donald Trump and in states like Wisconsin with gerrymandered legislatures that no longer represent the voters in their states.
Remember when people calling themselves conservative Republicans used to support law and order? Forget it. They don’t anymore. They now support a financially corrupt president hiding his tax returns so no one can see how he’s used the presidency to expand his wealth, a corrupt U.S. Attorney General releasing convicted administration felons and Supreme Court justices who ignore clearly written laws and constitutional principles instead of enforcing them
There was nothing remotely conservative about the sweeping 4-3 decision by the so-called Republican-leaning conservative majority on the Wisconsin court preventing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers literally from doing anything at all to stop the spread of the most highly contagious, deadly U.S. pandemic in our lifetimes. It’s certainly not a conservative reading of the U.S or Wisconsin Constitutions or the laws of Wisconsin.
The Law is Clear
Here is Chapter 252 of Wisconsin Statutes on the powers of the governor’s Department of Health Services to control communicable diseases: “(2) The department may close schools and forbid public gatherings in schools, churches and other places to control outbreaks and epidemics.” “(6) The department may authorize and implement all emergency measures necessary to control communicable diseases.”
A conservative reading of that law updated by the legislature in 1981 during the AIDS crisis is Evers and his health department have whatever powers they need to control deadly epidemics. A totally lawless reading of that statute by corrupt, politically partisan justices is the governor doesn’t have any powers if he happens to be a Democrat.
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The Wisconsin court decision cited no recognizable principles of either the Constitution or conservatism. It’s merely a continuation of the corrupt political biases the justices previously expressed in upholding laws Republicans passed in a lame-duck legislative session reducing the powers of Evers and state Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul after Democrats won every statewide election in the 2018 midterms. Because that election preceded the coronavirus, Republican legislators neglected to do anything to prevent the governor from protecting public health.
Lame Duck Court
It took a lame-duck action by the court itself to prevent Evers from acting to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Madison Judge Jill Karofsky defeated Justice Daniel Kelly in the controversial April 7 Wisconsin election ordered by the court in the midst of a pandemic that resulted in 71 coronavirus infections of voters and poll workers. Because Karofsky won’t replace Kelly until August, Kelly cast the deciding vote eliminating Evers’ public health protections.
Justice Brian Hagedorn, former legal counsel to Republican Gov. Scott Walker, usually votes with the court’s rightwing, but instead he wrote a stinging dissent. “We are a court of law,” Hagedorn wrote. “The legislature may have buyer’s remorse for the breadth of discretion it gave to (the governor’s health department). But those are the laws it drafted; we must read them faithfully whether we like them or not.”
If Hagedorn were sincere, the Wisconsin Supreme Court could have a new majority in August. The winners of the last three court elections—Karofsky, Hagedorn and Justice Rebecca Dallet—could join Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the only remaining member of Wisconsin’s last progressive Supreme Court that ended in 2008. Those recalling Hagedorn’s homophobic campaign rhetoric may consider him an unlikely savior, but he could be less likely to rewrite legal precedents than they thought.
One thing is clear. The overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites aren’t nearly as reckless as their Supreme Court made them look. The day before the court ended all health protections, Marquette University Law School’s statewide poll showed 69% considered it appropriate to close schools and businesses and restrict public gatherings and only 26% thought it was an overreaction. Those measures were supported by 90% of Democrats, 69% of independents and 49% of Republicans.
Trump is frantic to ignore all the health warnings of medical experts and pretend the pandemic is going away in the foolish belief it will boost his reelection. It could easily do just the opposite. Throwing off all health protections with the U.S. death toll rapidly rising, Wisconsin’s rightwing justices could be assuring an even more deadly resurgence just before the election.
Wisconsin became the adult version of Florida’s spring break when the Wisconsin Tavern League threw open their doors to celebrate the night of the court decision with revelers jamming bars shoulder-to-shoulder. Anyone who’s ever been there knows how bad that feels the next day. Fatal is even worse.
