Ruling that Republicans in the State Senate had violated the
state’s open meetings law, a judge in Wisconsin dealt a blow to them and to
Gov. Scott Walker
on Thursday by granting a permanent injunction
striking down a new law curbing collective bargaining rights for many state and
local employees. Judge Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court said the
Senate vote on March 9, coming after 13 Democratic state senators had fled the
state, failed to comply with an open meetings law requiring at least two hours
notice to the public. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is scheduled to hear
arguments in the case on June 6 , and Republican lawmakers are hoping that the
court overturns Judge Sumi’s ruling and reinstates the law. The State Senate
could choose simply to pass the bill again while assuring proper notice. But
some political experts say there might be some obstacles to re-enacting the
vote because some Democrats could conceivably flee the state again, and some Republican
Senators are frightened about pending recall elections. The law, which
generated huge protests in Madison, the state capital, bars public-sector
unions, except for police officers and firefighters, from bargaining over
health benefits and pensions. The law allows bargaining over wages alone, but
does not allow raises higher than the inflation rate unless they are approved
in a public referendum. The Senate’s 19 Republicans approved the measure, 18
to 1, in less than half an hour, without any debate on the floor or a single
Democrat in the room. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican who is the Senate majority
leader, attacked Judge Sumi’s decision.
“There’s still a much larger separation-of-powers issue:
whether one Madison judge can stand in the way of the other two democratically
elected branches of government,” he said in a statement. “The Supreme Court
is going to have the ultimate ruling.”
Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association
Council, the state’s largest teachers union, applauded the judge’s
decision, saying the law was always intended to “bust unions.” “In the
wake of this ruling, state lawmakers should back down and not take another run
at this divisive legislation,” she said in a statement. “It is not in the
best interest of students, schools or Wisconsin’s future to take the voices
of educators out of our classrooms.” Republican senators asserted that they
had enacted the collective bargaining law under emergency conditions, obviating
the need to comply with the open meetings law. But Judge Sumi said she found no
official evidence of emergency conditions or notice. “This case is the
example of values protected by the open meetings law: transparency in
government, the right of citizens to participate in their government and
respect for the rule of law,” Judge Sumi wrote in her conclusion. She said
the evidence demonstrated a failure to obey even the two-hour notice allowed
for good cause if a 24-hour notice was impossible or impractical. A Republican
spokesman said party leaders were studying Judge Sumi’s ruling and were not
yet ready to issue a statement. Cullen Werwie, a spokesman for Mr. Walker,
declined comment, saying the Senate vote did not directly involve the governor.
Judge Sumi rejected the Republicans’ claims that the open meetings law did
not allow bills passed by the State Legislature to be struck down, asserting
that only laws by lesser bodies can be overturned under that law. She also
rejected the idea that the law was so important that it should stand despite
the open meetings violation.
Quoting a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision from last year, Judge
Sumi wrote, “The right of the people to monitor the people’s business is
one of the core principles of democracy.”
May 26, 2011