Wis. AG Seeks Unusual Supervisory Writ, Asks State Supremes to Toss Union Law Challenge
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has asked the state supreme court to take jurisdiction of a challenge to the state’s controversial collective bargaining law.
Acting on behalf of the state department of administration, Van Hollen asked the court on Wednesday to vacate a judge’s temporary restraining order that had blocked the bill from taking effect, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bloomberg and Courthouse News Service. Van Hollen is asking the supreme court to dismiss the case, filed by the Dane County district attorney. The DA had claimed that legislators violated the open meetings law when they pushed through the union legislation.
The lower court judge had barred Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law, the final step before implementation. La Follette had sued Van Hollen on Tuesday in the state supreme court, saying he did not want to be represented by the attorney general in the open meetings suit, according to the Courthouse News Service account.
It was Van Hollen’s turn on Wednesday, when he asked the supreme court to issue an unusual supervisory writ on the ground that the lower court judge exceeded her authority. Also named as defendants are La Follette and the state legislature.
“If a court can issue an injunction preventing an act from becoming effective,” Van Hollen wrote, “there is no logical distinction between the Circuit Court’s TROs purportedly enjoining the Secretary of State from publishing Act 10 and an injunction directed at the governor enjoining him from signing the underlying bill in the first instance.”
