Wisconsin Supreme Court rules legislative committee can’t block rules

MADISON, Wis. (CIVIC MEDIA) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that a legislative committee can’t block administrative rules made by state agencies.

State agencies like the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Safety and Professional Services, and other divisions often make their own rules. 

They’re sometimes blocked from executing those rules by the legislature’s administrative rules committee, the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR). Republicans are in charge of the legislature, and they’re in charge of the committee. 

The JCRAR has halted agency rules on things like vaccine requirements, environmental protections and professional conduct.  Governor Tony Evers filed a lawsuit, arguing that the committee was acting like a legislative veto by blocking action from his executive branch. 

The liberal majority on the state Supreme Court agreed in a 4-3 ruling Tuesday morning.

“The challenged statutes empower JCRAR to take action that alters the legal rights and duties of the executive branch and the people of Wisconsin. Yet these statutes do not require bicameralism and presentment,” the majority opinion reads.

“Therefore, we hold that each of the challenged statutes … facially violates the Wisconsin Constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements,” wrote Chief Justice Jill Karofsky in the majority opinion, joined by Justices Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet, and Janet Protasiewicz.

Justices Ziegler and Grassl Bradley, Jr dissented, while Justice Hagedorn concurred and dissented in part.

Governor Tony Evers celebrated the opinion.

“A handful of Republican lawmakers should not be able to single-handedly and indefinitely obstruct state agencies from doing the people’s work,” Evers said.

“Wisconsinites want to protect our constitutional checks and balances. Today’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision ensures that no small group of lawmakers has the sole power to stymie the work of state government and go unchecked.”

Steve Nass, co-chair of the Committee on Administrative Rules, characterized the ruling as judicial tyranny by the liberal Supreme Court majority.

“The liberal judicial junta on the state supreme court has in essence given Evers the powers of a King,” he said in a statement.