Could We Clarify What The Wisconsin Supreme Court Actually Did?
OK - - I'm not a lawyer, but here's my legal question:
I keep reading, as in this AP story from The Chicago Tribune, that (emphasis added):
Gableman was in the majority in the 4-3 ruling earlier this year that upheld the law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public workers.Didn't the State Supreme Court rule only that the State Senate complied with its meeting rules when it voted on the bill, overturning Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi's ruling that the Senate's procedure did not meet requirements of the State Open Meetings stature?
Remember that it was a pressure-packed meeting of Senators in a small room, where State Sen. Peter Barca, (D-Kenosha), waived a meeting notice at Senate Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and said the session was out of compliance with the open meeting law.
Isn't it incorrect to say the Court "upheld the [collective bargaining] law" - - as if the merits of the law had been argued and upheld - - even though the law did take effect as a consequence of the Court's 4-3 approval of the Senate's meeting process?
Maybe the reporting is a form of shorthand, but is it accurate? It suggests the Court said the content of the law passed muster and I don't that has happened.
Lawyers, fire away...
And if I've got it wrong, well that's more reason it was a good decision to bypass law school for the English Master's program.
4 comments:
"Gableman was in the majority in the 4-3 ruling earlier this year that upheld the law pushed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public workers. "
The court ruled I thought that the law was Inacted because in their oppinion the Republicons followed the open meetings rules. The Trib didn't look at it close enough. But I'm not a lawyer.
The Trib ran what AP wrote, and what I have seen often, elsewhere. This was just an example I happened to see this evening.
I think it means it upheld the law in a sequence of events type of situation. The open meetings law was (in their opinion) NOT violated as previously decided THEREFORE the collective bargaining law was (by extension) upheld,as opposed to being knocked down by a legal technicality. Which is all our rights as citizens have become these days- legal technicalities.
IMO the style of writing/word choice reflects hurried obsession on outcomes and blow-by-blow accounts of the team sport we call our democracy. Rather than a careful analysis of the PROCESS by which we as a society come to our conclusions, and an emphasis on logical progression of thought based on sound ethical judgments.
my credentials:
I am an arrogant blowhard rambling Internet Troll with one class in Business Law from MATC. I did get an A and lovely compliments from the teacher. So my never-wrongness is clearly upheld. Ask me anything.
I agree wholeheartedly with the incorrect wording. It is also incorrect for the media and others to say that Walker is being recalled.
Walker is only recalled if he LOSES the election. Obtaining enough signatures only triggers a recall election.
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