Jun

19

Unoriginal Thoughts on Appellate Procedure

Posted by: | June 19, 2011 | 6 Comments

Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its decision in State ex rel. Ozanne v. Fitzgerald and State ex rel. Huebsch v. Circuit Court for Dane County.  The decision has rightly generated a good bit of commentary about open government, separation of powers, etc.  My goal here is to clarify a very limited but [...]

Apr

11

SCOTUS to Consider Scope of Ministerial Exception

Posted by: | April 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Coulee Catholic Schools v. LIRC, 2009 WI 88 , Professor Esenberg and I both took to this blog to praise Justice Gableman’s majority decision. The decision is undoubtedly the most important religious liberty case in Wisconsin since Jackson v. Benson (1998) and State v. Miller (1996). It concerned the [...]

Mar

20

The Unitary Governor

Posted by: | March 20, 2011 | 5 Comments

“The executive power shall be vested in a governor” proclaims Article V, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Over the course of the past two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of legal scholarship about the “unitary executive theory,” based on the executive vesting clause of Article 3, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “The executive Power shall be vested [...]

Jan

15

Wisconsin’s First RNC Chairman

Posted by: | January 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

On the seventh ballot of their meeting yesterday, the members of the Republican National Committee elected Wisconsin state party chairman Reince Priebus as their new chairman.  Contrary to some reports, Priebus is not the first national party chairman from Wisconsin.  That designation belongs to Henry Clay Payne, who chaired the RNC for a brief time [...]

Oct

14

A New Approach to Interpreting the Wisconsin Constitution?

Posted by: | October 14, 2010 | 8 Comments

In the most recent edition of the Yale Law Journal, Professor Abbe Gluck observes a phenomenon unique to state supreme courts: precedents that bind courts’ interpretive methods. At the U.S. Supreme Court, justices constantly argue about the proper method for interpreting contractual, regulatory, statutory, and constitutional texts. Prof. Gluck observes that in some state courts, [...]

Aug

25

Who Cares If No One Cares About the Wisconsin Supreme Court?

Posted by: | August 25, 2010 | 9 Comments

On the website of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), former Journal Sentinel columnist Mike Nichols asks: “Does anyone still care about the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court?” He believes the answer is not really, and his evidence for this position is that the number of petitions for review of Court of Appeals decisions has dropped by [...]

Jun

11

What’s Good for the Goose . . .

Posted by: | June 11, 2010 | 5 Comments

Earlier this week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in In Re Sherwin-Williams Co. The court upheld Judge Lynn Adelman’s decision not to recuse himself from a case pending before him in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Burton v. American Cyandamid, et al.  Sherwin-Williams is currently [...]

May

17

When a Justice’s Spouse Engages in Political Activity

Posted by: | May 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

When Mrs. Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, launched a new non-profit organization called Liberty Central earlier this spring, the announcement prompted a firestorm of media coverage. The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and numerous other news outlets ran stories discussing the possible ethical issues that may arise. The stories focused on [...]

Apr

19

Being Fair to Church Autonomy After Smith

Posted by: | April 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Stuart McPhail makes an interesting observation in his short essay “Being FAIR to Religion: Rumsfeld v. FAIR’s Impact on the Associational Rights of Religious Organizations,” 3 Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. 221 (2009), which was recently brought to my attention by the Alliance Defense Fund’s excellent “Alliance Alert” daily email (a must-read for scholars and activists [...]

Mar

19

Judging Friday’s SCOWIS Decisions

Posted by: | March 19, 2010 | 8 Comments

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court released two opinions that reflect the court’s new jurisprudential direction. Allow me to focus on the opinion with a much greater discussion of jurisprudence. (The other is State v. Wood, a due process challenge to forced administration of medication in a state-administered facility to a person who had been [...]

Dec

17

Accurate & Balanced Reporting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Posted by: | December 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has received a fair bit of coverage from the news and editorial desks of the state’s media outlets over the past five years. Sometimes the editorial writers have criticized particular decisions in cases, sometimes particular campaign statements, and sometimes the overall structure of the court. This morning’s news story by the [...]

Oct

22

Merit Selection Amendment Introduced

Posted by: | October 22, 2009 | 8 Comments

Yesterday, State Representative Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington) announced that he is drafting a constitutional amendment to replace Wisconsin’s current method of judicial elections with “merit selection.” Rep. Gottlieb is a former speaker pro tem of the Assembly, and he is widely regarded as one of the top policy gurus within the Republican caucus. Currently, the [...]

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