The Unitary Governor

“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 in a President of the United States of America.” Thus far, this scholarship and its accompanying cases (see especially Justice Scalia’s dissent in Morrison v. Olson) has focused entirely on the presidency, but the legal principles are virtually identical.

All of this bears on two recent news stories: first, regarding Governor Walker’s bill requiring executive review of administrative rulemaking, and second, the budget repair bill’s adjustment of several positions in the executive branch from civil service to gubernatorial appointment.  The February bill on administrative rules requires that all regulations from state agencies be reviewed by the governor’s office before entering into force. Democrats opposed this bill on the grounds that it violates the “separation of powers,” the proper relationship between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. State Senator Lena Taylor objected that the bill “breaks down the wall of independence around independent agencies.”  More recently, this week Democrats slammed the budget repair bill’s reclassification of several positions from civil service to gubernatorial appointment.

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The Morning After: Lessons From the Wisconsin Budget Battle

At last the end game has arrived for the budget bill, after more than three weeks of deadlock in Madison.  Indeed, it was obvious to everyone that the impasse could not persist, and that the only two options available were either a compromise (unlikely) or the eventual adoption of Governor Walker’s bill intact.

Wisconsin’s largest newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has largely failed to take a coherent editorial position on the budget debate.  In fact, the entire local media, both print and television, seem to have bent over backwards in order to appear sympathetic to the arguments of both sides.  In this regard, the local media seems to see its role as something akin to the role of an arms dealer during a civil war: issue statements generally supportive of both sides and hope to sell your product to the widest possible audience. 

However, I believe that there are larger lessons to be learned from the budget battle, and that the issues raised over the last three weeks transcend partisanship. 

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Interstate Travel and Marriage

As Professor Idleman alerted our Constitutional Law course last year, there’s nothing like the posture of a criminal defendant challenging a law’s constitutionality. Compare Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) (plaintiff who was charged but not indicted under Texas’ sodomy laws unsuccessfully sues attorney general in action seeking to declare laws unconstitutional) with Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) (criminal defendants’ charges expunged when sodomy laws declared unconstitutional). Sure the passage of time had more than a little to do with the diverging outcomes in Bowers and Lawrence — but the criminal defense posture didn’t hurt.

A criminal defendant and a plaintiff encounter necessarily inconsistent judicial receptions. Put simply, the claim of one who faces the cruel stigma of criminality — where his or her prospective jail time flows in part from a voter-initiated constitutional amendment — will receive a more exacting hearing than a civil complaint filed by an unjailed plaintiff, disgruntled on the losing side of that same amendment’s enactment.

Because Lawrence declared unconstitutional all sodomy laws, however, how could a gay American be criminalized?

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