When a state supreme court rules accordingly, all I can do is call approving attention.
In a 4-3 decision released Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Governor Tony Evers’ cannot use successive emergency orders to tackle the same Covid-19 crisis.It matters not whether the ukases are of Platonic perfection or are arbitrary and capricious. The legislative branch is coequal with the executive.
“The plain language of the statute explains that the governor may, for 60 days, act with expanded powers to address a particular emergency,” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the majority. “Beyond 60 days, however, the legislature reserves for itself the power to determine the policies that govern the state’s response to an ongoing problem. Similarly, when the legislature revokes a state of emergency, a governor may not simply reissue another one on the same basis.”
“Some may wish our analysis would focus on ensuring the Governor has sufficient power to fight COVID-19; others may be more concerned about expansive executive power,” Hagedorn wrote. “But outside of a constitutional violation, these policy concerns are not relevant to this court’s task in construing the statute. Whether the policy choices reflected in the law give the governor too much or too little authority to respond to the present health crisis does not guide our analysis. Our inquiry is simply whether the law gives the governor the authority to successively declare states of emergency in this circumstance.”No. Next question?
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty have released a position paper spelling out what steps the legislature ought take once the pandemic is past to codify emergency powers in future pandemics (and there will be future pandemics.) " If the Wisconsin Legislature chooses to adopt these policies, then our civil liberties and the separation of powers will be more secure when we confront the next emergency." Good.
Where is the similar lawsuit for Illinois?
No comments:
Post a Comment