Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down GOP lawsuit law

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided unanimously sided with the state’s Democratic attorney general Tuesday in a long-running battle over a law passed by Republicans who wanted to weaken the office in a lame duck legislative session more than six years ago.

The court ruled 7-0 that requiring the attorney general to get permission from a Republican-controlled legislative committee to settle certain civil lawsuits was unconstitutional. The law is a separation of powers violation, the court said.

The Republican-controlled Legislature convened a session in December 2018 after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul defeated Republican incumbents. The laws signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker on his way out the door weakened powers of both offices.

At issue in the case decided Tuesday was the attorney general’s power to settle civil lawsuits involving environmental and consumer protection cases and cases involving the governor’s office and executive branch. The new law required the Legislature’s budget committee, which is controlled by Republicans, to sign off on those settlements.

“There is no constitutional justification for requiring the [Joint Finance Committee] to sign-off on settlement agreements within these categories of cases. The statute as applied to these cases violates the Wisconsin Constitution’s separation of powers,” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the court.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, when controlled by conservatives, upheld all the lame duck laws and ruled they did not violate the separation of powers principle. But the ruling left the door open to future challenges on how the laws are applied.

Kaul sued that year, arguing that having to seek approval for those lawsuit settlements violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The Legislature argued that lawmakers have an interest in overseeing the settlement of lawsuits and that the court’s earlier ruling saying there was no separation of powers violation should stand.

Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, who won election to the state Supreme Court in April and will be joining the court in August, ruled in favor of Kaul in 2022 saying the law was unconstitutional. A state appeals court overturned her ruling later that year, saying there was no separation of powers violation because both the executive and legislative branches of government share the powers in question.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Legislature cannot “assume for itself the power to execute a law it wrote.”

In a statement Tuesday, Kaul celebrating the decision, saying it will allow his office to “more efficiently” resolve cases, including those enforcing the state’s consumer and environmental protection laws. Some settlement signoffs in Wisconsin have been delayed in the past while his office waited on the Legislature’s budget committee to act.

“This unanimous ruling finally puts an end to the legislature’s unconstitutional involvement in the resolution of key categories of cases,” Kaul said.