Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Overturns Low Court Ruling.

Yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against the law that decertified the state unions. You may remember back in early spring the Democrats legislators fled to Michigan to block a vote to pass a law ending collective bargaining for most of its public employees. Because it was tied to the state budget bill, Wisconsin law says that to pass legislation containing budgetary matters you need a quorum. When the Democrats fled the Senate did not have a quorum. So the Republicans in order to get around the law, they stripped the collective bargaining part out of the budget and passed it separately. However, Wisconsin open meeting law says that the legislature must give 48 hours’ notice, which the Republicans did not do. A lower court judge blocked the collective bargaining law, saying the vote was not valid because proper notice was not given.

So that brings us up yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, the vote was 4 – 3 with Justice David Prosse casting the deciding vote. You might remember Justice David Prosse from this spring where he was in a tight election with his Democratic opponent JoAnne Kloppenburg. Ms Kloppenburg was at first ruled the victor, but it was later overturned by a recount where,

At first, it appeared Ms. Kloppenburg had pulled off the upset. Initial results showed she had defeated Justice Prosser by about 200 votes, and she declared herself the winner the day after the election.

The next day, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced she had failed to report 14,000 votes. The new votes gave Justice Prosser a 7,316 vote lead.

Ms. Nickolaus's revelation sparked questions about fraud in Waukesha County. Ms. Nickolaus worked for Justice Prosser when he was in the Assembly, and the county board had criticized her handling of past elections and a lack of oversight in her operations. Spurred by the election results, the state Government Accountability Board has launched an investigation into her practices.
Wall Street Journal

Now because of that election, Justice Prosse cast the deciding vote yesterday. That is why I am against the elections of judges, they are behooving to their party and to their campaign donors and which results in bad decisions.

So what about yesterday’s decision?

Wis top court rules for Walker against unions
Politico
By Reid J. Epstein
6/15/11

State Democrats and the dissenting court justices were angry.

“At first glance, the order appears to provide some support for broad conclusions reached on fundamental and complex issues of law,” Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote. “But on even casual reading, the explanations are clearly disingenuous, based on disinformation.”

The assembly’s minority leader released a statement saying the court’s ruling has left state legislators “above the law.”

“It’s now clear that unless the constitution is amended, the Legislature is free to ignore any laws on the books,” Democrat Peter Barca said.

Forbes goes even farther in their condemnation of the ruling…

The Wisconsin Supreme Court Crisis – Far More Serious Than The Ruling On Walker’s Anti-Collective Bargaining Law
Forbes
Rick Ungar
June 15, 2011

However, the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court revealed something far more shocking than the ruling which went against the supporters of collective bargaining. It revealed, by way of written opinion, a now ‘out in the open’ battle between the members of the court wherein the minority opinion bluntly and directly accused the majority of fudging the facts to reach the decision they had already determined they wanted to reach. The minority opinion further alleged that the majority was driven by political motives rather that the desire to deliver a fair and judicious opinion.
[…]
The notion that a minority opinion would level a charge of judicial cheating against brother and sister members of the court, in an opinion that will now become part of the Wisconsin judicial body of legal authority, is positively remarkable. I’ve read more cases in my life than I could possibly count and never-and I mean never- has anything I’ve seen so much as approached what I read in this case.

And the fact that the these charges were leveled in an opinion concurring with the minority written by the Chief Justice of the Court just makes this all the more astounding.

In a fiery dissent, Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote that justices hastily reached the decision and the majority “set forth their own version of facts without evidence. They should not engage in this disinformation.”

Abrahamson also said a concurring opinion written by Justice David Prosser, a former Republican speaker of the Assembly, was “long on rhetoric and long on story-telling that appears to have a partisan slant.”

Via Huffington Post

[…]
However, when the Chief Justice of the State’s highest court accuses the majority of highly unethical behavior and political motives when making law, and does so in the writings found in a decision of the court, there is no court in the state – nor citizen seeking to follow the laws of the state – who can give credence and credibility to the high court’s rulings. Every ruling of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, so long as it is composed of its current Justices, will result in precedents that are instantly suspect due to the charges that have been levied by members of the court.

Judges should be appointed and not elected. In Iowa, the Supreme Court judges that ruled that banning same-sex marriage violated the Constitution of Iowa were not reelected. Instead Christian right wing judges were elected. Elected judges equal bad judges, they worry about reelection not the law.