Early yesterday morning the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a ruling on the laws that were put into place during an extraordinary legislative at the end of last year. State Senator Andre Jacque was on the WCUB Breakfast Club this morning, and he gave us the short version. “Basically…the Supreme Court has upheld the extraordinary session actions the legislature took at the end of last year,” Jacque explained. “That’s something that they already kinda foreshadowed in terms of their preliminary injunctions or stopping some of Governor Toney Evers actions, where he tried to take advantage of some of the lower courts’ rulings.”
Jacque went on to explain that the lawsuit was rather strange given the history of the extraordinary session. He stated that extraordinary session have been used by both Democrats and Republicans throughout history, “without any real challenges to their validity.”
One of the major changes made during the session was to a practice known as “Sue and Settle.” Basically, “the Governor and Attorney General could decide to settle any case in a way that was advantageous to their thinking rather than the existing laws of the land. The existing state statutes.” Jacque went on to say this change ensures that all changes to state statutes are required to go through the legislature, as opposed to being mandated by one or two people. While the timing of the change seemed suspect to those in favor of Governor Tony Evers, Jacque said that that kind of power should not exist, regardless of political affiliation.
