{"id":13014,"date":"2011-03-20T11:57:36","date_gmt":"2011-03-20T16:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13014"},"modified":"2011-03-20T11:57:36","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T16:57:36","slug":"the-unitary-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/03\/the-unitary-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unitary Governor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe executive power shall be vested in a governor\u201d proclaims Article\u00a0V, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution<\/a>. Over the\u00a0course of the past two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of\u00a0legal scholarship about the \u201cunitary executive theory<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0based on the\u00a0executive vesting clause of Article 3, Section 1 of the U.S.\u00a0Constitution: \u201cThe executive Power shall be vested in a President of\u00a0the United States of America.\u201d Thus far, this scholarship and its\u00a0accompanying cases (see especially Justice Scalia\u2019s dissent in\u00a0Morrison v. Olson<\/a>) <\/em>has focused entirely on the presidency, but the legal principles are\u00a0virtually identical.<\/p>\n

All of this bears on two recent news stories: first, regarding\u00a0Governor Walker\u2019s bill requiring executive review of administrative\u00a0rulemaking, and second, the budget repair bill\u2019s adjustment of several\u00a0positions in the executive branch from civil service to gubernatorial\u00a0appointment. \u00a0The February bill on administrative rules requires that all\u00a0regulations from state agencies be reviewed by the governor\u2019s office\u00a0before entering into force. Democrats opposed this bill on the\u00a0grounds that it violates the \u201cseparation of powers,\u201d the proper\u00a0relationship between the executive, legislative, and judicial\u00a0branches. State Senator Lena Taylor objected<\/a> that the bill \u201cbreaks\u00a0down the wall of independence around independent agencies.\u201d \u00a0More recently, this week Democrats slammed the budget repair bill\u2019s\u00a0reclassification of several positions from civil service to\u00a0gubernatorial appointment.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For instance, Assembly Minority Leader\u00a0Peter Barca issued a release<\/a> focused on the bill\u2019s reclassification of the legal counsel at the\u00a0Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission \u2013 the release characterized\u00a0WERC as an \u201cimpartial,\u201d \u201cindependent,\u201d and \u201cnonpartisan agency\u201d at\u00a0various points. The release closes with a quote attacking\u00a0\u201cself-declared CEO Walker.\u201d The Journal Sentinel<\/a> <\/em>and\u00a0Wisconsin Outdoor News<\/a> <\/em>also ran stories criticizing the \u201cpoliticization\u201d of these top\u00a0positions at state agencies: chief legal counsel, spokesman, and\u00a0legislative liaison.<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Constitution only creates three branches of government \u2013\u00a0legislative, judicial, and executive. There is no fourth branch\u00a0called \u201cindependent agencies.\u201d All executive power resides in the\u00a0Governor (there are interesting wrinkles on the state level with\u00a0elected cabinet officers, something that doesn\u2019t exist at the federal\u00a0level). The governor IS the CEO of Wisconsin government. And all\u00a0officials in executive agencies are responsible for implementing the\u00a0agenda which the people of Wisconsin elected the governor to advance.<\/p>\n

It especially makes sense that policy-making and advocacy positions\u00a0like legal counsel, spokesman, and legislative liaison are personally\u00a0in line with the Governor\u2019s policy agenda. The Governor\u2019s executive\u00a0power is specified in the Constitution \u2013 the civil service and\u00a0independent agencies are nowhere to be found in that document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe executive power shall be vested in a governor\u201d proclaims Article\u00a0V, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Over the\u00a0course of the past two decades, there has been a tremendous amount of\u00a0legal scholarship about the \u201cunitary executive theory,\u201d\u00a0based on the\u00a0executive vesting clause of Article 3, Section 1 of the U.S.\u00a0Constitution: \u201cThe executive Power shall be vested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,27,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-interpretation","category-presidency-executive-branch","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}