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Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

188 points by hanging 6y ago

hanging 6y ago
The jsonline link moved to: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/13/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-tony-evers-coronavirus-orders/5179205002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/13/wisc... I emailed the mods address. Another: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-co...
- dang 6y ago
  Changed from https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/wisconsin-supreme-court-overturns-stay-home-order-tony-evers-coronavirus-covid-19-public-reacts/51878560 https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/wisconsin-sup.... Thanks!
Grakel 6y ago
What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.
- vmception 6y ago
  Doesn't look like the Wisconsin Supreme Court really ruled on that, according to its purpose in Wisconsin, if you read the article. But it doesn't matter since overruling those kinds of courts is almost impossible, so yes if you wish for a court to overturn such an order that is what happened here!
- arkades 6y ago
  There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises. The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    I was under the impression that the federal circuit only really looks at cases impacting federal law. Is there a place to escalate to?
    - zaroth 6y ago
      TFA says they are the court of last resort.
    - arkades 6y ago
      You are correct, there is not. I didn't attend to which circuit had issued the landmark-stupid ruling.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        Why is the ruling stupid? It seems like an entirely reasonable check on the power of the governor. The health department and governor can order a binding shelter in place, but the elected state representatives have the power to overrule it. Shouldn't the majority be able to revoke such an order if they want?
        arkades 6y ago
        Of course they can. Public health agencies' powers derive from founding statutes. A legislative body can always undertake an act of legislation to change the founding statute and, in so doing, change the powers of the public health agency as they see fit. They didn't do that here. They wanted a direct check on the agency's decision, rather than executing the power they actually had. To quote my other response, on why this was a stupid ruling: >Which is literally the court's excuse for the "rulemaking" ruling - that they should have gone through the 12mo+ tradition of regulation-development that legislatively-empowered agencies utilize. Which isn't how public health powers usually work - the public health powers are delineated in empowering statutes and regulations ahead of time, and allow leewey to do things like "order quarantine" within broadly-worded statutes+regs. > Which is why this was phenomenally stupid. Besides ignoring context, this was a ruling that basically boiled down to "agencies cannot exercise the powers developed in the scope of their founding statutes and regulations unless those (edit: specific manifestations) have been very explicitly laid out ahead of time, otherwise, they need to go to rulemaking for every application of their powers." It effectively guts the ability of agencies to do things they are supposed to do, have been doing, and prevents them from acting in time-frames <12months. All in the context of a legislative body that had a legal remedy afforded to them, but that would have been too slow. So for political purposes, they've now gutted the ability of emergency agencies to respond to emergencies, so that legislatures don't have to legislate changes to legislation.
- organsnyder 6y ago
  When our actions can harm others, the government absolutely has the right—and the obligation—to step in.
  - denkmoon 6y ago
    Not at the expense of individual liberty. This principle is well established in the USA at least, given the continuing presence of 2A.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Frondo 6y ago
      Yes, at the expense of individual liberty. Traffic laws are an obvious and rights-restraining example of this. I may or may not cause harm by running a red light in the middle of the night, or speeding on a freeway -- in fact, I know a guy who habitually runs reds at night, "just because" -- yet the constitutionality of ticketing people for running reds or speeding is not, as far as I know, in dispute. How this maps onto public health in a pandemic, I don't know.
  - daenz 6y ago
    >can harm others Can you be more specific? It's the nebulousness of what "can harm" that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Taken to one extreme, there's almost nothing you can do that doesn't potentially harm others. For example, I could leave my stove burner on and burn down the entire apartment building. So many things come with risks to others, and those things are just part of existing in society.
    - TylerE 6y ago
      Does the Bill of Rights give the police the right to arrest you for driving drunk?
      - daenz 6y ago
- jb775 6y ago
  Exactly! So many people are missing that simple point and ok with giving up civil liberties the USA was founded on.
- mikekchar 6y ago
  They can make you pay your taxes, but can't restrict your movements in a disease outbreak. I live in Japan, and the government here also does not have the power to legally lock us down (which is why there are only recommendations here -- luckily most people seem to be following them). It strikes me odd, though. There are so many things that the government can legally make you do, many of which seem much less important to me than this. I'm sure there are many people who disagree, but having a conversation over whether or not the government should have this power is not unreasonable IMHO.
  - zebrafish 6y ago
    It’s more about having your representative government voice the voters concern than anything. Not that this is important or that the government doesn’t have the power to implement this. It’s just the branch of government which has the power to implement is in question.
    - Grakel 6y ago
      Yes, the legislature would have to pass a law. But in the US this would be unconstitutional due to the right to assemble. A good government is a secretary / janitor, not A CEO.
      - zebrafish 6y ago
        Seems like there is a consensus in this thread that shelter in place is legal, though stay at home may not be.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    Like they could suspend rent, mortgages, interest of any kind. In the UK, people get 80% of their pre-layoff wages. In the United States, the Payroll Protection Program ran out in days! If America is going to close the State, it also has to freeze the economy and give people ideas, goals and hope. The American government, at all levels Federal and State, and failed at doing this to a tragic degree. I wrote more about this: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-honor#politicians https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Shivetya 6y ago
  A government cannot violate its own rules by declaring an event unprecedented and that is what many officials have been doing. I am all for lawful precautions but you have to give the people some credit. The lock downs and restrictions are incredibly arbitrary and in many cases nonsensical. you can have similar businesses and one is non essential or one has rules applied that don't apply to the other. this is what frustrates people the most, the vast majority know what to do. those who don't have always been there and always been a problem but it was easy to ignore them prior
vmception 6y ago
> The legislature may have buyer's remorse for the breadth of discretion it gave to (the Department of Health Services). But those are the laws it drafted So although every state is different, Wisconsin isn't that different and its Supreme Court did not rule on the law and only on feelings. The majority opinion was across the ideological spectrum, the dissenting opinion was across the ideological spectrum as well. 4-3 decision One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination Interesting, Wisconsin
- npongratz 6y ago
  > One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.
    - vxNsr 6y ago
      I'm more confused about a court that has an even number of members... what do they do in ties?
      - throwawayjava 6y ago
        In this case, lower court ruling would stand
      - albntomat0 6y ago
        They have 7. 1 will be replaced by another in August, based on a recent election.
charred_toast 6y ago
Can I get some more down votes, please? This isn't absurd enough yet. You'd have to be a buffoon to not take safety for yourself and others seriously. That being said, it's about time people in positions of power woke-up and smelled the Constitution. Downvote me all you want, it doesn't make you right: "An agency cannot confer on itself the power to dictate the lives of law-abiding individuals as comprehensively as the order does without reaching beyond the executive branch's authority," the justices wrote in their decision Wednesday.
- duxup 6y ago
  "smelled the Constitution" What constitution do you feel they need to be paying attention to? I have a suspicion that you're thinking of one thing and they were ruling on another.
  - ibejoeb 6y ago
    The decision does not hinge on any constitutional arguments, Wisconsin or USA. It's mostly procedure. Full text here: https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=260868 https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?cont...
    - zaroth 6y ago
      I think as a general rule a court will never make a ruling on constitutional grounds when a ruling on procedural grounds will suffice. The natural law argument is I think always one of last resort.
      - duxup 6y ago
        I think it is just how you ask questions too. If (not debating the one in Wisc here just generally) a government tries to enforce a power they don't have or didn't go through the actual process to use it ... there's not much sense in debating it's constitutionality as that's sort of moot as the context is all lost at that point. I imagine if you didn't stop there it would just be constitutional precedent setting left and right for things you didn't need to do that for. Granted there are exceptions, I have seen decisions in extreme cases where the decision does say "even if you had gone through the process... you probably still couldn't do that".
aegis4244 6y ago
The Republicans who brought the lawsuit argue that, in part, continuing the lock down isn't appropriate because deaths from covid19 are going down. They don't connect the declining deaths to being locked down. You would think they would notice.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The question is, if deaths going down isn't the end condition, what is? Surely there has to be some point soon where the legislature gets to determine the laws of the state again.
  - jptoor 6y ago
    I can tell you're a smart guy, but it reads like you're buying into the politicization of an apolitical problem. The end condition is a therapeutic/vaccine, and since that is not available yet, the next option is a national testing and contract tracing plan. Every successful country has a good one, every country that's seeing mass casualties doesn't have one. There is no political aspect to this. The science is pretty clear here (like climate change clear, meaning there's always a few contrarians for the sake of being contrarian, everyone else agrees). Herd immunity is not feasible, and millions will die. I'm ignoring politicians, every annoying tech bro (always dudes...) who led "Growth" for a SaaS startup and therefore a are an expert in "virality" and "k-factor". Ignore Elon, this isn't his zone. Everyone is bitching about the stay-at-home. IF THERE IS A CONTACT TRACING PROGRAM, HEALTHY UNEXPOSED PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO LIVE THEIR LIVES. This point seems lost on the people protesting. There's an exit strategy that their leader (protesters are largely Republican) doesn't want to do because testing reduces his re-election chances (?!??!?!). However, they have a testing and contract tracing program FOR THE WHITE HOUSE RIGHT THIS SECOND. I've spoken to American friends in Hong Kong and they're so happy they live in a functioning autocracy. They're going out normally and enjoying their lives. Getting dinner with friends, going to beach, going out in LKF. (With occasional issues like the Seoul club superspreader). The only reason we are not having fun right now is because of the lack of testing and tracing. It's expensive, intrusive, and people who get sick will be pissed and not follow the rules - but I don't see another option on the table, and none of the experts I've read or listened to (Fauci, Yaneer's team below) have another solution. This is not a poltical problem. Yaneer Bar-Yam has been doing great work on supporting countries figure out the best plan, as well as preparing societies for the inevitable fallout of all of this. You hedge for risk. https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam In the playbook left by the previous admin, the 3rd (5th in the domestic part) question in every stage of pandemic response, after "How bad is the virus and how quickly is it spreading?" is "Does the government have tracing and testing set up?". When it was a credible threat (January if not earlier), according to the extremely clear and again, NONPARTISAN, document below, we should have started setting up a testing/tracing program. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-... Caveat is that 15% of our nation lacks empathy and is completely detached from reality, and think wearing a mask is communism, so we'll never get to full compliance. However, 90% in a testing/contact tracing environment is better than what we have now. In summary - if you want to end stay-at-home, you should hope the Trump admin magically becomes competent. Blue states will try to do it, but because of interstate commerce and conservative governments who think they're invincible for some reason, it's 100x harder. Otherwise we'll be like this for what feels like forever and ~200k disproportionately lower-income, older and minority people will die. If he's re-elected in November, I'd put significant money on 500k+ deaths in the next 4 years. It won't go away completely and anti-vaxxers will feel vindicated by his re-election.
DenisM 6y ago
[...] In the majority opinion, Roggensack determined Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm should have issued regulations through a process known as rulemaking, which gives lawmakers veto power over agency policies. [...] GOP lawmakers who brought the lawsuit have said the legal challenge was necessary to get a seat at the table where Evers and state health officials make decisions about how to respond to the outbreak [...] This is a fairly narrow decision, it only says the legislative must be involved into this. Alas it did not address the question I had hoped it would - do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights?
- duxup 6y ago
  >do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights? Is an outstanding question about that? There have been other pandemics, government actions to enforce health standards and etc. I don't think they've been ruled to be unconstitutional.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Quarantine for people who are sick or known to be exposed is definitely legal. But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.
    - DenisM 6y ago
      Hence my question. I also want to know where are all the other people asking the same question?
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        There's been widespread misinformation that similar orders were implemented during the Spanish Flu, which I think has defused a lot of the curiosity about it.
        DenisM 6y ago
        Our society is not lacking in people who are either well-informed or resourceful enough to explore the subject, or both. Where are they? I don't think they are dead, or threatened. Did they just agree to stay quiet?
noodlesUK 6y ago
What is up with this website? I loaded it on my phone, it requested location permission, which I denied, redirected, requested location again, and then crashed.
- martimarkov 6y ago
  I don’t even get the text of the article but I suspect it’s because I have adblocker on
hindsightbias 6y ago
I guess we’ll see if the US Constitution is a suicide pact.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sterlind 6y ago
Both sides: courts are supposed to apply the law to the facts. Lawyers guide judges in their arguments, and the court weighs each one, resolving conflicts through tests and precedent. Read the text of the decision before bringing politics into it. IANAL, but browsing the text: - The ruling cites the Wisconsin constitution. - Governors can issue emergency orders (and maybe rules?) effective for 150 days. - There's a distinction drawn between orders and rules. It doesn't matter if it's declared as an order, if it invokes the powers reserved for rules, it's a rule. - Some reasons the court found it to be a rule: it applies to a general class (all residents), and defines new crimes (non-compliance) - Criminal penalties can only be invoked for properly-promulgated rules. - Therefore, it's a rule, not an order. - Can it be a valid emergency rule? The court cites an example of a forest fire, there's no time for deliberation. - The end date is ambiguous and this emergency is long-lived, therefore it could be brought for deliberation like a normal rule. Then there's lots of handwringing about "an unelected official imprisoning whoever she sees fit", which is very handwavey and makes me suspect: - The emergency rulemaking machinery of Wisconsin is vaguely defined, so there's not a specific rebuttal. - There might have been some judicial activism here. Ideally, the court would grant a stay on the enforcement of the decision, to give her time to properly promulgate the rule. If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. It may be a boneheaded decision, but there's no legal recourse for bad policy correctly followed.
- asabjorn 6y ago
  > If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. This assertion needs a citation. If this should be true either hospitalization must be so high that it overwhelms the health system, which was the original justification for the lockdown, or death rate must be high. The 1.5 week old CDC report [1] shows same hospitalization rate as the flu for the vulnerable 65+ population, and less for the vulnerable <18 year population. Stanford study [2] shows same death rate as flu. At this point most states have partially reopened [3] and we are not seeing a surge in COVID cases. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/pdf/covidview-05-01-2020.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/pdf/cov... [2] https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-reports-of-low-fatality-rate-for-covid-19/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-report... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-ma...
stock_toaster 6y ago
Color me unsurprised. Politics in Wisconsin is incredibly broken[1] (and purposefully so). [1]: https://www.wpr.org/us-supreme-court-ruling-effectively-ends-wisconsin-gerrymandering-challenge https://www.wpr.org/us-supreme-court-ruling-effectively-ends...
- bduerst 6y ago
  As someone who grew up in WI, I can say it's disgusting to watch the state get ransacked, from the gerrymandering to the pillaging of the UW system, to the rejection of universal collective bargaining rights and evicting of citizens off their own land for a Foxconn factory. It makes me ashamed.
  - cjslep 6y ago
    Hey don't feel bad, you're in great company. In NC we've also got the gerrymandering, anti-trans bathroom-bill, state-legislature-hates-the-governor partisanship (state R's would rather burn the state constitution than let the D's participate), and pro-Republican election fraud to top it off. Just think how many other states can still join in!
mchusma 6y ago
“If a forest fire breaks out, there is no time for debate. Action is needed. The governor could declare an emergency and respond accordingly. But in the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, the governor cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely,” Roggensack wrote for the majority. Refreshing to see some pressure for democracy to resume.
- Narkov 6y ago
  Democracy to resume?? By striking down a democratically elected officials order?
  - cryptonector 6y ago
    Yes. Courts do that a lot in case you've not noticed (EDIT: Though not in this case! From the opinion: "This case is about the assertion of power by one unelected official, Andrea Palm, ..."[0].) But in this case the issue is that a governor cannot impose law without the legislature. Wisconsin's legislature still sits -- if not in session, perhaps the governor could call it into session -- and can pass legislation. [0] https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=260868 https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?cont...
  - lainga 6y ago
    This line of thinking is very close to Bonapartism as interpreted by Napoleon III. I am the democratically elected emperor; my mandate comes from the people having elected me; I may do whatever I deem in the interest of the people who have elected me.
  - Digory 6y ago
    Democratically elected to enforce the laws, not make them, except in truly limited circumstances.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Yes, in a dispute filed by the democratically elected members of the legislature? With the end result being that a democratically elected legislature with more than one person will have the opportunity to talk about the tradeoffs involved, make the case for constituents, and decide things like whether the response must be uniform between the dense cities and the rural countryside. This is a strict increase in democracy.
sandworm101 6y ago
This is where culture really matters. Almost every jurisdiction in the western world has faced this issue. Governments are issuing orders that, when push comes to shove, might not be 100% legitimate in the eyes of a court. In most countries that hasn't mattered. People acknowledge the covid problem and are obeying the "orders" despite them, perhaps, not having legal teeth. This requires trust. Like the current politicians or not, most populations respect their governments and are willing to support emergency measures in the short term. Whether they voted for them or not, they trust that their leaders are not evil. But what about the US? If all government is corrupt, if all taxes are sin, if all leaders on the other side are traitors to the cause, the people will never respect those in charge. The people don't obey the "orders" nor follow advice. Then they wrap themselves in the flag and actively work against the measures in the name of freedom. That cultural chicken has now come home to roost. This state supreme court could have delayed. Cases take years to get to state supreme courts. They could easily have pushed this case until after this disease has come and gone. Instead they pushed this through in order to get a quick victory over a governor with whom they disagree politically.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  Nonsense. You say that as if the 50 States' legislatures have been wiped out by covid-19 and can't convene (or be convened, as the case may be) and pass laws. In the U.S. executive orders simply don't and can't have the force of law without the support of statutory law, not relative to civilians[0]. If you want a law, it needs to be passed as a statute by the appropriate legislature and must become law via all the usual mechanisms. It's not that hard to pass emergency laws with sunsets in the very near future. So even if a given State's legislature is skeptical of covid-19's severity, they might nonetheless be amenable to a brief grant of emergency powers and see what happens. Governors or the President acting alone to impose emergency statute-like law? That's not well received in the U.S., whether by people or courts, and there are very strong precedents in this regard[0]. That has nothing to do with corruption or taxes, and everything to do with long-established, well-thought-out, constitutional law. Yes, we're talking about constitutional law based on past skepticism of government, but that does not imply current skepticism (though it's true there's plenty of it). Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican almost certainly extends the constraints on the President's EO power to the States' Governors. (Though, admittedly, the Supreme Court has ruled the Republican Government Guarantee clause non-justiciable, that was during the 19th century in a case that was clearly for Congress to decide, and the Court erred in saying that the clause was simply non-justiciable as opposed to certain cases not being justiciable. In a case about the validity and enforcability of gubernatorial EOs, the Court might well rule that the clause does mean that Governors cannot impose emergency rules without statutory support. Certainly that seems like a reasonable interpretation.) > ... the people will never respect those in charge. ... This was a decision by a court, not a question of whether the people support their governments. This state high court decision tells you practically nothing about how the people of Wisconsin feel about the measures that the Court struck down. [0] E.g., the Truman era steel cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._v._Sawyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._... https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-stone/the-distribution-of-national-powers/youngstown-sheet-tube-co-v-sawyer-2/ https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/const...
BooneJS 6y ago
I got one will continue to work from home in Wisconsin and let all of the lab rats head to the bars.
avs733 6y ago
If you are. Curious about the actual hearing that led to this, which I read as more intellectually honeston the part of the jurists than the ruling, slate has a nice summary with extensive quotes. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/wisconsin-supreme-court-lift-covid-restrictions-fox-news.amp https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/wisconsin-suprem...
LatteLazy 6y ago
Given that the stay at home order is unlawful and democracy has now been restored, I am sure the court will be open today, all judges present and hearing arguments in front of a packed public gallery. I also look forwards to the republicans who brought the case attending the senate building and sitting for extended hours to sort out this issue.
thrower123 6y ago
There seems to be a deep unawareness on the part of some of these officials that stupid draconian restrictions undermine their credibility and activate the latent "fuck you, buddy" attitude that is a core part of the American psyche. We're already seeing just how much enforcement of any of these decrees ultimately relies on the consent of the people to go along with it. Deploying jackboots over closing beaches or not letting people buy seeds at Walmart chews up legitimacy that will be needed as this thing goes on.
BrooklynDocks 6y ago
As someone who lives in New York right now, I can tell you that this is a terribly dangerous decision.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  is there some secret info only New Yorkers are privy to? In case it wasn't obvious, Wisconsin is not New York. People drive cars rather than packing onto crowded subways. The transmission rate for the virus is going to be much lower there. The curve is naturally flatter.
wonderwonder 6y ago
The way the United States has handled this has been awe inspiring in its incompetence. We had our first identified case on the same day as S. Korea. Our death rate is currently 254 / million vs S. Korea's rate of 5. Our federal leadership is saying that we should both open up and not open up at the same time. Its encouraging protesters that are protesting for the disobedience of the guidelines that it released. We refused functioning tests from other nations that worked in order to produce our own. This cost valuable time and resulted in a first round of testing that did not work, costing more time. Businesses are shuttered by government edict forcing them to furlough or lay people off. Those people are now forced to sit at home without income or any job prospects while the government that required it continues to get paid and states that no further stimulus or funds to individuals is really needed while stating that the $1,200 some limited subset of people got should last 10 weeks. At the same time this government is actively working to reduce food subsidies and health care options not tied to employment. We have state governments using their national guard to protect their ppe from seizure by the federal government. The federal governments response has been rife with cronyism and self enrichment. State level unemployment has been a massive failure. We now have the federal government stating that citizens are warriors and encouraging us to willingly fight and die with a virus? Scientists whose job it is to provide public information and policy are actively derided. Talking heads are actively calling the number of deaths a hoax and panning a reasonable response. We could have just shut down in the beginning, the government could have use the DPA to mass produce PPE and the existing tests while providing people with at least a minimum UBI. They could have quickly reached a point where we are able to test people each day as they walk into the office if in person work is required. If the test is failed the individual must self isolate for x days and can return to work once they test negative. Federal government guarantees the persons job while they are sick and pays the salary so the employer does not suffer. We could have had this thing fully contained and been back up and running in a couple of months. Instead we appear to have seen the stock market fall, thrown our hands up in the air and cried that it is too hard. Rant over. I am just very frustrated that it appears we may have endured all of this for nothing due to terrible management.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  actually people are sitting at home getting paid more to sit than they were to work, and the government is not getting paid --- it's losing massive tax revenue.
anoraca 6y ago
It is shocking to me that someone like this could be appointed to and then elected to a state Supreme Court: Bradley's homophobic writings that she wrote in the Marquette University student newspaper in 1992 while an undergraduate stirred controversy during the race.[8][9] She had written letters to the editor and a column for the Marquette Tribune, in which she stated she held no sympathy for AIDS patients because they were "degenerates" who had effectively chosen to kill themselves. She also referred to gays as "queers".[10][11] She called the plurality of Americans who voted for Clinton "either totally stupid or entirely evil".[12] She blasted supporters of abortion as murderers, and compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery.[10] She attacked feminists as "angry, militant, man-hating lesbians who abhor the traditional family" and defended Camille Paglia, who had written in a 1991 column that "women who get drunk at frat parties are 'fools' and women who go upstairs with frat brothers are 'idiots'."[13] Bradley wrote that Paglia had "legitimately suggested that women play a role in date rape."[13] Bradley apologized for her student writings in 2016, shortly after they had stirred controversy.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Bradley_(judge) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Bradley_(judge)
- dopamean 6y ago
  Less shocking when you know Scott Walker picked her.
_curious_ 6y ago
"Without legislative review, “an unelected official could create law applicable to all people during the course of COVID-19 and subject people to imprisonment when they disobeyed her order,” the majority wrote. " Sounds like legitimate reasoning for their decision, no?

188 points by hanging 6y ago

The jsonline link moved to: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/13/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-tony-evers-coronavirus-orders/5179205002/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/13/wisc... I emailed the mods address. Another: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-strikes-down-stay-at-home-order/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-co...

dang 6y ago
Changed from https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/wisconsin-supreme-court-overturns-stay-home-order-tony-evers-coronavirus-covid-19-public-reacts/51878560 https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/wisconsin-sup.... Thanks!

Grakel 6y ago

What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.

vmception 6y ago
Doesn't look like the Wisconsin Supreme Court really ruled on that, according to its purpose in Wisconsin, if you read the article. But it doesn't matter since overruling those kinds of courts is almost impossible, so yes if you wish for a court to overturn such an order that is what happened here!
arkades 6y ago
There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises. The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  I was under the impression that the federal circuit only really looks at cases impacting federal law. Is there a place to escalate to?
  - zaroth 6y ago
    TFA says they are the court of last resort.
  - arkades 6y ago
    You are correct, there is not. I didn't attend to which circuit had issued the landmark-stupid ruling.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      Why is the ruling stupid? It seems like an entirely reasonable check on the power of the governor. The health department and governor can order a binding shelter in place, but the elected state representatives have the power to overrule it. Shouldn't the majority be able to revoke such an order if they want?
      - arkades 6y ago
        Of course they can. Public health agencies' powers derive from founding statutes. A legislative body can always undertake an act of legislation to change the founding statute and, in so doing, change the powers of the public health agency as they see fit. They didn't do that here. They wanted a direct check on the agency's decision, rather than executing the power they actually had. To quote my other response, on why this was a stupid ruling: >Which is literally the court's excuse for the "rulemaking" ruling - that they should have gone through the 12mo+ tradition of regulation-development that legislatively-empowered agencies utilize. Which isn't how public health powers usually work - the public health powers are delineated in empowering statutes and regulations ahead of time, and allow leewey to do things like "order quarantine" within broadly-worded statutes+regs. > Which is why this was phenomenally stupid. Besides ignoring context, this was a ruling that basically boiled down to "agencies cannot exercise the powers developed in the scope of their founding statutes and regulations unless those (edit: specific manifestations) have been very explicitly laid out ahead of time, otherwise, they need to go to rulemaking for every application of their powers." It effectively guts the ability of agencies to do things they are supposed to do, have been doing, and prevents them from acting in time-frames <12months. All in the context of a legislative body that had a legal remedy afforded to them, but that would have been too slow. So for political purposes, they've now gutted the ability of emergency agencies to respond to emergencies, so that legislatures don't have to legislate changes to legislation.
organsnyder 6y ago
When our actions can harm others, the government absolutely has the right—and the obligation—to step in.
- denkmoon 6y ago
  Not at the expense of individual liberty. This principle is well established in the USA at least, given the continuing presence of 2A.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Frondo 6y ago
    Yes, at the expense of individual liberty. Traffic laws are an obvious and rights-restraining example of this. I may or may not cause harm by running a red light in the middle of the night, or speeding on a freeway -- in fact, I know a guy who habitually runs reds at night, "just because" -- yet the constitutionality of ticketing people for running reds or speeding is not, as far as I know, in dispute. How this maps onto public health in a pandemic, I don't know.
- daenz 6y ago
  >can harm others Can you be more specific? It's the nebulousness of what "can harm" that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Taken to one extreme, there's almost nothing you can do that doesn't potentially harm others. For example, I could leave my stove burner on and burn down the entire apartment building. So many things come with risks to others, and those things are just part of existing in society.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    Does the Bill of Rights give the police the right to arrest you for driving drunk?
    - daenz 6y ago
jb775 6y ago
Exactly! So many people are missing that simple point and ok with giving up civil liberties the USA was founded on.
mikekchar 6y ago
They can make you pay your taxes, but can't restrict your movements in a disease outbreak. I live in Japan, and the government here also does not have the power to legally lock us down (which is why there are only recommendations here -- luckily most people seem to be following them). It strikes me odd, though. There are so many things that the government can legally make you do, many of which seem much less important to me than this. I'm sure there are many people who disagree, but having a conversation over whether or not the government should have this power is not unreasonable IMHO.
- zebrafish 6y ago
  It’s more about having your representative government voice the voters concern than anything. Not that this is important or that the government doesn’t have the power to implement this. It’s just the branch of government which has the power to implement is in question.
  - Grakel 6y ago
    Yes, the legislature would have to pass a law. But in the US this would be unconstitutional due to the right to assemble. A good government is a secretary / janitor, not A CEO.
    - zebrafish 6y ago
      Seems like there is a consensus in this thread that shelter in place is legal, though stay at home may not be.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  Like they could suspend rent, mortgages, interest of any kind. In the UK, people get 80% of their pre-layoff wages. In the United States, the Payroll Protection Program ran out in days! If America is going to close the State, it also has to freeze the economy and give people ideas, goals and hope. The American government, at all levels Federal and State, and failed at doing this to a tragic degree. I wrote more about this: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-honor#politicians https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...
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Shivetya 6y ago
A government cannot violate its own rules by declaring an event unprecedented and that is what many officials have been doing. I am all for lawful precautions but you have to give the people some credit. The lock downs and restrictions are incredibly arbitrary and in many cases nonsensical. you can have similar businesses and one is non essential or one has rules applied that don't apply to the other. this is what frustrates people the most, the vast majority know what to do. those who don't have always been there and always been a problem but it was easy to ignore them prior

vmception 6y ago

> The legislature may have buyer's remorse for the breadth of discretion it gave to (the Department of Health Services). But those are the laws it drafted So although every state is different, Wisconsin isn't that different and its Supreme Court did not rule on the law and only on feelings. The majority opinion was across the ideological spectrum, the dissenting opinion was across the ideological spectrum as well. 4-3 decision One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination Interesting, Wisconsin

npongratz 6y ago
> One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    I'm more confused about a court that has an even number of members... what do they do in ties?
    - throwawayjava 6y ago
      In this case, lower court ruling would stand
    - albntomat0 6y ago
      They have 7. 1 will be replaced by another in August, based on a recent election.

charred_toast 6y ago

Can I get some more down votes, please? This isn't absurd enough yet. You'd have to be a buffoon to not take safety for yourself and others seriously. That being said, it's about time people in positions of power woke-up and smelled the Constitution. Downvote me all you want, it doesn't make you right: "An agency cannot confer on itself the power to dictate the lives of law-abiding individuals as comprehensively as the order does without reaching beyond the executive branch's authority," the justices wrote in their decision Wednesday.

duxup 6y ago
"smelled the Constitution" What constitution do you feel they need to be paying attention to? I have a suspicion that you're thinking of one thing and they were ruling on another.
- ibejoeb 6y ago
  The decision does not hinge on any constitutional arguments, Wisconsin or USA. It's mostly procedure. Full text here: https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=260868 https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?cont...
  - zaroth 6y ago
    I think as a general rule a court will never make a ruling on constitutional grounds when a ruling on procedural grounds will suffice. The natural law argument is I think always one of last resort.
    - duxup 6y ago
      I think it is just how you ask questions too. If (not debating the one in Wisc here just generally) a government tries to enforce a power they don't have or didn't go through the actual process to use it ... there's not much sense in debating it's constitutionality as that's sort of moot as the context is all lost at that point. I imagine if you didn't stop there it would just be constitutional precedent setting left and right for things you didn't need to do that for. Granted there are exceptions, I have seen decisions in extreme cases where the decision does say "even if you had gone through the process... you probably still couldn't do that".

aegis4244 6y ago

The Republicans who brought the lawsuit argue that, in part, continuing the lock down isn't appropriate because deaths from covid19 are going down. They don't connect the declining deaths to being locked down. You would think they would notice.

deleted 6y ago
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SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The question is, if deaths going down isn't the end condition, what is? Surely there has to be some point soon where the legislature gets to determine the laws of the state again.
- jptoor 6y ago
  I can tell you're a smart guy, but it reads like you're buying into the politicization of an apolitical problem. The end condition is a therapeutic/vaccine, and since that is not available yet, the next option is a national testing and contract tracing plan. Every successful country has a good one, every country that's seeing mass casualties doesn't have one. There is no political aspect to this. The science is pretty clear here (like climate change clear, meaning there's always a few contrarians for the sake of being contrarian, everyone else agrees). Herd immunity is not feasible, and millions will die. I'm ignoring politicians, every annoying tech bro (always dudes...) who led "Growth" for a SaaS startup and therefore a are an expert in "virality" and "k-factor". Ignore Elon, this isn't his zone. Everyone is bitching about the stay-at-home. IF THERE IS A CONTACT TRACING PROGRAM, HEALTHY UNEXPOSED PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO LIVE THEIR LIVES. This point seems lost on the people protesting. There's an exit strategy that their leader (protesters are largely Republican) doesn't want to do because testing reduces his re-election chances (?!??!?!). However, they have a testing and contract tracing program FOR THE WHITE HOUSE RIGHT THIS SECOND. I've spoken to American friends in Hong Kong and they're so happy they live in a functioning autocracy. They're going out normally and enjoying their lives. Getting dinner with friends, going to beach, going out in LKF. (With occasional issues like the Seoul club superspreader). The only reason we are not having fun right now is because of the lack of testing and tracing. It's expensive, intrusive, and people who get sick will be pissed and not follow the rules - but I don't see another option on the table, and none of the experts I've read or listened to (Fauci, Yaneer's team below) have another solution. This is not a poltical problem. Yaneer Bar-Yam has been doing great work on supporting countries figure out the best plan, as well as preparing societies for the inevitable fallout of all of this. You hedge for risk. https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam In the playbook left by the previous admin, the 3rd (5th in the domestic part) question in every stage of pandemic response, after "How bad is the virus and how quickly is it spreading?" is "Does the government have tracing and testing set up?". When it was a credible threat (January if not earlier), according to the extremely clear and again, NONPARTISAN, document below, we should have started setting up a testing/tracing program. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-... Caveat is that 15% of our nation lacks empathy and is completely detached from reality, and think wearing a mask is communism, so we'll never get to full compliance. However, 90% in a testing/contact tracing environment is better than what we have now. In summary - if you want to end stay-at-home, you should hope the Trump admin magically becomes competent. Blue states will try to do it, but because of interstate commerce and conservative governments who think they're invincible for some reason, it's 100x harder. Otherwise we'll be like this for what feels like forever and ~200k disproportionately lower-income, older and minority people will die. If he's re-elected in November, I'd put significant money on 500k+ deaths in the next 4 years. It won't go away completely and anti-vaxxers will feel vindicated by his re-election.

DenisM 6y ago

[...] In the majority opinion, Roggensack determined Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm should have issued regulations through a process known as rulemaking, which gives lawmakers veto power over agency policies. [...] GOP lawmakers who brought the lawsuit have said the legal challenge was necessary to get a seat at the table where Evers and state health officials make decisions about how to respond to the outbreak [...] This is a fairly narrow decision, it only says the legislative must be involved into this. Alas it did not address the question I had hoped it would - do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights?

duxup 6y ago
>do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights? Is an outstanding question about that? There have been other pandemics, government actions to enforce health standards and etc. I don't think they've been ruled to be unconstitutional.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Quarantine for people who are sick or known to be exposed is definitely legal. But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.
  - DenisM 6y ago
    Hence my question. I also want to know where are all the other people asking the same question?
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      There's been widespread misinformation that similar orders were implemented during the Spanish Flu, which I think has defused a lot of the curiosity about it.
      - DenisM 6y ago
        Our society is not lacking in people who are either well-informed or resourceful enough to explore the subject, or both. Where are they? I don't think they are dead, or threatened. Did they just agree to stay quiet?

noodlesUK 6y ago

What is up with this website? I loaded it on my phone, it requested location permission, which I denied, redirected, requested location again, and then crashed.

martimarkov 6y ago
I don’t even get the text of the article but I suspect it’s because I have adblocker on

hindsightbias 6y ago

I guess we’ll see if the US Constitution is a suicide pact.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

sterlind 6y ago

Both sides: courts are supposed to apply the law to the facts. Lawyers guide judges in their arguments, and the court weighs each one, resolving conflicts through tests and precedent. Read the text of the decision before bringing politics into it. IANAL, but browsing the text: - The ruling cites the Wisconsin constitution. - Governors can issue emergency orders (and maybe rules?) effective for 150 days. - There's a distinction drawn between orders and rules. It doesn't matter if it's declared as an order, if it invokes the powers reserved for rules, it's a rule. - Some reasons the court found it to be a rule: it applies to a general class (all residents), and defines new crimes (non-compliance) - Criminal penalties can only be invoked for properly-promulgated rules. - Therefore, it's a rule, not an order. - Can it be a valid emergency rule? The court cites an example of a forest fire, there's no time for deliberation. - The end date is ambiguous and this emergency is long-lived, therefore it could be brought for deliberation like a normal rule. Then there's lots of handwringing about "an unelected official imprisoning whoever she sees fit", which is very handwavey and makes me suspect: - The emergency rulemaking machinery of Wisconsin is vaguely defined, so there's not a specific rebuttal. - There might have been some judicial activism here. Ideally, the court would grant a stay on the enforcement of the decision, to give her time to properly promulgate the rule. If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. It may be a boneheaded decision, but there's no legal recourse for bad policy correctly followed.

asabjorn 6y ago
> If the legislature resists, or the court doesn't grant the stay, that sucks, the bars and restaurants will open, people will get sick and die. Or maybe the Republicans will turn out correct and everything is fine. This assertion needs a citation. If this should be true either hospitalization must be so high that it overwhelms the health system, which was the original justification for the lockdown, or death rate must be high. The 1.5 week old CDC report [1] shows same hospitalization rate as the flu for the vulnerable 65+ population, and less for the vulnerable <18 year population. Stanford study [2] shows same death rate as flu. At this point most states have partially reopened [3] and we are not seeing a surge in COVID cases. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/pdf/covidview-05-01-2020.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/pdf/cov... [2] https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-reports-of-low-fatality-rate-for-covid-19/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/04/24/study-challenges-report... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-ma...

stock_toaster 6y ago

Color me unsurprised. Politics in Wisconsin is incredibly broken[1] (and purposefully so). [1]: https://www.wpr.org/us-supreme-court-ruling-effectively-ends-wisconsin-gerrymandering-challenge https://www.wpr.org/us-supreme-court-ruling-effectively-ends...

bduerst 6y ago
As someone who grew up in WI, I can say it's disgusting to watch the state get ransacked, from the gerrymandering to the pillaging of the UW system, to the rejection of universal collective bargaining rights and evicting of citizens off their own land for a Foxconn factory. It makes me ashamed.
- cjslep 6y ago
  Hey don't feel bad, you're in great company. In NC we've also got the gerrymandering, anti-trans bathroom-bill, state-legislature-hates-the-governor partisanship (state R's would rather burn the state constitution than let the D's participate), and pro-Republican election fraud to top it off. Just think how many other states can still join in!

mchusma 6y ago

“If a forest fire breaks out, there is no time for debate. Action is needed. The governor could declare an emergency and respond accordingly. But in the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, the governor cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely,” Roggensack wrote for the majority. Refreshing to see some pressure for democracy to resume.

Narkov 6y ago
Democracy to resume?? By striking down a democratically elected officials order?
- cryptonector 6y ago
  Yes. Courts do that a lot in case you've not noticed (EDIT: Though not in this case! From the opinion: "This case is about the assertion of power by one unelected official, Andrea Palm, ..."[0].) But in this case the issue is that a governor cannot impose law without the legislature. Wisconsin's legislature still sits -- if not in session, perhaps the governor could call it into session -- and can pass legislation. [0] https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=260868 https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?cont...
- lainga 6y ago
  This line of thinking is very close to Bonapartism as interpreted by Napoleon III. I am the democratically elected emperor; my mandate comes from the people having elected me; I may do whatever I deem in the interest of the people who have elected me.
- Digory 6y ago
  Democratically elected to enforce the laws, not make them, except in truly limited circumstances.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  Yes, in a dispute filed by the democratically elected members of the legislature? With the end result being that a democratically elected legislature with more than one person will have the opportunity to talk about the tradeoffs involved, make the case for constituents, and decide things like whether the response must be uniform between the dense cities and the rural countryside. This is a strict increase in democracy.

sandworm101 6y ago

This is where culture really matters. Almost every jurisdiction in the western world has faced this issue. Governments are issuing orders that, when push comes to shove, might not be 100% legitimate in the eyes of a court. In most countries that hasn't mattered. People acknowledge the covid problem and are obeying the "orders" despite them, perhaps, not having legal teeth. This requires trust. Like the current politicians or not, most populations respect their governments and are willing to support emergency measures in the short term. Whether they voted for them or not, they trust that their leaders are not evil. But what about the US? If all government is corrupt, if all taxes are sin, if all leaders on the other side are traitors to the cause, the people will never respect those in charge. The people don't obey the "orders" nor follow advice. Then they wrap themselves in the flag and actively work against the measures in the name of freedom. That cultural chicken has now come home to roost. This state supreme court could have delayed. Cases take years to get to state supreme courts. They could easily have pushed this case until after this disease has come and gone. Instead they pushed this through in order to get a quick victory over a governor with whom they disagree politically.

cryptonector 6y ago
Nonsense. You say that as if the 50 States' legislatures have been wiped out by covid-19 and can't convene (or be convened, as the case may be) and pass laws. In the U.S. executive orders simply don't and can't have the force of law without the support of statutory law, not relative to civilians[0]. If you want a law, it needs to be passed as a statute by the appropriate legislature and must become law via all the usual mechanisms. It's not that hard to pass emergency laws with sunsets in the very near future. So even if a given State's legislature is skeptical of covid-19's severity, they might nonetheless be amenable to a brief grant of emergency powers and see what happens. Governors or the President acting alone to impose emergency statute-like law? That's not well received in the U.S., whether by people or courts, and there are very strong precedents in this regard[0]. That has nothing to do with corruption or taxes, and everything to do with long-established, well-thought-out, constitutional law. Yes, we're talking about constitutional law based on past skepticism of government, but that does not imply current skepticism (though it's true there's plenty of it). Also, the U.S. Constitution's requirement that State governments be (small-r) republican almost certainly extends the constraints on the President's EO power to the States' Governors. (Though, admittedly, the Supreme Court has ruled the Republican Government Guarantee clause non-justiciable, that was during the 19th century in a case that was clearly for Congress to decide, and the Court erred in saying that the clause was simply non-justiciable as opposed to certain cases not being justiciable. In a case about the validity and enforcability of gubernatorial EOs, the Court might well rule that the clause does mean that Governors cannot impose emergency rules without statutory support. Certainly that seems like a reasonable interpretation.) > ... the people will never respect those in charge. ... This was a decision by a court, not a question of whether the people support their governments. This state high court decision tells you practically nothing about how the people of Wisconsin feel about the measures that the Court struck down. [0] E.g., the Truman era steel cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._v._Sawyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._... https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/constitutional-law-keyed-to-stone/the-distribution-of-national-powers/youngstown-sheet-tube-co-v-sawyer-2/ https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/constitutional-law/const...

BooneJS 6y ago

I got one will continue to work from home in Wisconsin and let all of the lab rats head to the bars.

avs733 6y ago

If you are. Curious about the actual hearing that led to this, which I read as more intellectually honeston the part of the jurists than the ruling, slate has a nice summary with extensive quotes. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/wisconsin-supreme-court-lift-covid-restrictions-fox-news.amp https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/wisconsin-suprem...

LatteLazy 6y ago

Given that the stay at home order is unlawful and democracy has now been restored, I am sure the court will be open today, all judges present and hearing arguments in front of a packed public gallery. I also look forwards to the republicans who brought the case attending the senate building and sitting for extended hours to sort out this issue.

thrower123 6y ago

There seems to be a deep unawareness on the part of some of these officials that stupid draconian restrictions undermine their credibility and activate the latent "fuck you, buddy" attitude that is a core part of the American psyche. We're already seeing just how much enforcement of any of these decrees ultimately relies on the consent of the people to go along with it. Deploying jackboots over closing beaches or not letting people buy seeds at Walmart chews up legitimacy that will be needed as this thing goes on.

BrooklynDocks 6y ago

As someone who lives in New York right now, I can tell you that this is a terribly dangerous decision.

bagacrap 6y ago
is there some secret info only New Yorkers are privy to? In case it wasn't obvious, Wisconsin is not New York. People drive cars rather than packing onto crowded subways. The transmission rate for the virus is going to be much lower there. The curve is naturally flatter.

wonderwonder 6y ago

The way the United States has handled this has been awe inspiring in its incompetence. We had our first identified case on the same day as S. Korea. Our death rate is currently 254 / million vs S. Korea's rate of 5. Our federal leadership is saying that we should both open up and not open up at the same time. Its encouraging protesters that are protesting for the disobedience of the guidelines that it released. We refused functioning tests from other nations that worked in order to produce our own. This cost valuable time and resulted in a first round of testing that did not work, costing more time. Businesses are shuttered by government edict forcing them to furlough or lay people off. Those people are now forced to sit at home without income or any job prospects while the government that required it continues to get paid and states that no further stimulus or funds to individuals is really needed while stating that the $1,200 some limited subset of people got should last 10 weeks. At the same time this government is actively working to reduce food subsidies and health care options not tied to employment. We have state governments using their national guard to protect their ppe from seizure by the federal government. The federal governments response has been rife with cronyism and self enrichment. State level unemployment has been a massive failure. We now have the federal government stating that citizens are warriors and encouraging us to willingly fight and die with a virus? Scientists whose job it is to provide public information and policy are actively derided. Talking heads are actively calling the number of deaths a hoax and panning a reasonable response. We could have just shut down in the beginning, the government could have use the DPA to mass produce PPE and the existing tests while providing people with at least a minimum UBI. They could have quickly reached a point where we are able to test people each day as they walk into the office if in person work is required. If the test is failed the individual must self isolate for x days and can return to work once they test negative. Federal government guarantees the persons job while they are sick and pays the salary so the employer does not suffer. We could have had this thing fully contained and been back up and running in a couple of months. Instead we appear to have seen the stock market fall, thrown our hands up in the air and cried that it is too hard. Rant over. I am just very frustrated that it appears we may have endured all of this for nothing due to terrible management.

bagacrap 6y ago
actually people are sitting at home getting paid more to sit than they were to work, and the government is not getting paid --- it's losing massive tax revenue.

anoraca 6y ago

It is shocking to me that someone like this could be appointed to and then elected to a state Supreme Court: Bradley's homophobic writings that she wrote in the Marquette University student newspaper in 1992 while an undergraduate stirred controversy during the race.[8][9] She had written letters to the editor and a column for the Marquette Tribune, in which she stated she held no sympathy for AIDS patients because they were "degenerates" who had effectively chosen to kill themselves. She also referred to gays as "queers".[10][11] She called the plurality of Americans who voted for Clinton "either totally stupid or entirely evil".[12] She blasted supporters of abortion as murderers, and compared abortion to the Holocaust and slavery.[10] She attacked feminists as "angry, militant, man-hating lesbians who abhor the traditional family" and defended Camille Paglia, who had written in a 1991 column that "women who get drunk at frat parties are 'fools' and women who go upstairs with frat brothers are 'idiots'."[13] Bradley wrote that Paglia had "legitimately suggested that women play a role in date rape."[13] Bradley apologized for her student writings in 2016, shortly after they had stirred controversy.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Bradley_(judge) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Bradley_(judge)

dopamean 6y ago
Less shocking when you know Scott Walker picked her.

_curious_ 6y ago

"Without legislative review, “an unelected official could create law applicable to all people during the course of COVID-19 and subject people to imprisonment when they disobeyed her order,” the majority wrote. " Sounds like legitimate reasoning for their decision, no?