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Federal judge dismisses Abrahamson lawsuit

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//July 31, 2015//

Federal judge dismisses Abrahamson lawsuit

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//July 31, 2015//

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A federal judge has dismissed Justice Shirley Abrahamson’s lawsuit alleging that her removal from the position of chief justice was a violation of her right to due process.

Abrahamson filed suit April 8, a day after voters had approved a constitutional amendment to change how the chief justice was elected to a majority vote among the justices every two years. For more than a century, the position of chief justice went to the justice with the most seniority.

“The court concludes that Wisconsin’s new method of selecting its chief justice was effective on April 29, 2015, when the referendum was certified, and that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was authorized to implement that method and to elect a new chief justice on that day,” wrote Judge James Peterson in Friday’s decision.

Abrahamson, who filed suit against the state and her fellow justices, contended that the change should not have been applied until after her term ended in 2019. The day before the vote on the referendum was certified by the Government Accountability Board, Justice Michael Gableman convened a vote via email to elect Justice Pat Roggensack as chief justice. Four justices voted in favor of Roggensack while three argued that the vote would be premature given Abrahamson’s pending lawsuit.

Abrahamson also argued that the amendment, because it did not give a date for when it would be implemented, did not give adequate notice to herself or voters.

But Friday’s decision gave deference to the justices’ interpretation of the statute.

“The court has some misgivings about whether this election actually reflects a judicial interpretation of the amendment, because the issue was not presented to the court in the usual manner with advocates presenting the competing positions,” Peterson wrote. “Nor was it resolved in the usual manner, which typically involves at least some measure of deliberation in which all the justices participate. But the down-and-dirty interpretation (which defendants dignify with the term “de facto”) will do for the purposes of this case.”

The interpretation, Peterson said, is a matter for the state courts to decide, not the federal courts and that the state has the authority to restructure itself without the federal government intervening.

“This federal court does not have to guess what that interpretation would be, because on April 29, 2015, the day that the referendum was certified, four justices voted to elect Justice Roggensack as the new chief,” he wrote.

In a May 15 hearing, Peterson had promised to rule on the matter quickly, emphasizing that the pertinent questions of the case were: 1) whether there was a federal constitutional violation and 2) whether Abrahamson was deprived of due process with the enactment of the constitutional amendment.

The five state Supreme Court justices who are defendants in the lawsuit filed a motion July 20 stating that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a decision in two workers’ compensation cases from Illinois that supports their contention that Abrahamson’s right to due process was not violated by the constitutional amendment.

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