{"id":15134,"date":"2025-02-05T17:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15134"},"modified":"2025-02-05T18:58:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:58:40","slug":"the-act-10-fight-wisconsin-legislative-reforms-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=15134","title":{"rendered":"The Act 10 fight: Wisconsin legislative reforms at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/americanhabits.org\/the-act-10-fight-wisconsin-legislative-reforms-at-risk\/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2qw_-PkoCle3FByxzdDcMTyN8v8ujE7d-w9jAFwzu3MFFA87WOZgOY6_Y_aem_oO60JqX9gp9Kz-aAXOHFvg#new_tab<\/a><\/p>\n

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State capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n

\u201cIn July, as Wisconsinites prepared for Fourth of July celebrations, Dane County Judge Jacob Frost issued a decision in Abbotsford Education Association v. WERC<\/em>, marking another challenge to Act 10<\/a> passed in 2011. In denying the Legislature\u2019s motion to dismiss, the Court signaled a desire to strike \u201call of the collective bargaining changes in the Act\u201d and in the process, established a framework for gutting rational basis review.\u00a0And in December Judge Frost granted Plaintiffs\u2019 Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, effectively killing most of Act 10.\u00a0With the case winding its way up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, it\u2019s critical to recognize the signature reform of the Walker-Kleefisch era that has saved the state and local units of government close to $17 billion<\/em> is at risk of being overturned by the state\u2019s progressive judiciary.\u00a0Wisconsin voters would be wise to consider the impact of this decision when the ideological balance of the Court is decided in April\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

The now 13-year-old reform fundamentally realigned the relationship between public employers and employees, allowing employers to negotiate in the best interest of government operations and efficiencies and most importantly, giving taxpayers a seat at the table.\u00a0Recall the simple yet profound changes brought on by Act 10 \u2013 collective bargaining units were required to conduct annual recertification elections and the number of votes needed for recertification was changed to a majority of members, the terms over which collective bargaining units were allowed to bargain over were limited, public employers were prohibited from collecting dues from paychecks and providing them directly to the respective bargaining units, collective bargaining agreements were limited to one year in length, and public employees were required to pay the full employee-required contribution towards the WRS (Wisconsin Retirement System) and imposed a cap on employer contributions toward health insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

In denying the Legislature\u2019s motion, the Court adopted Plaintiffs\u2019 claim that Act 10 violated Wisconsin\u2019s Equal Protection Clause and ignored two key precedents.\u00a0In 2013, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in WEAC v. Walker<\/em> rejected an argument that Act 10 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, finding the division of public safety and general employees was a rational distinction.\u00a0In 2014, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in MTI v. Walker<\/em> also rejected the argument that Act 10 violated the equal protection provisions in both the Wisconsin and United States Constitutions, finding that treating represented general employees differently from non-represented general employees also had a rational basis.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the current challenge was the Legislature\u2019s decision to carve out seven of the 22 protective occupation participant categories found in Wisconsin Chapter 40, placing these seven categories of employees in a public safety category in Wisconsin Chapter 111 exempt from the requirements of Act 10.\u00a0Despite explaining in great detail the extremely high standard for striking down a law as lacking a rational basis \u2013 \u201c[a]ll legislative acts are presumed constitutional and we must indulge every presumption to sustain the law\u201d \u2013 the Court found the classifications created by Act 10 were not based on substantial distinctions and were not germane to the purpose of the law.<\/p>\n

The implications of the decision are significant.\u00a0While the Legislature is almost certain to appeal the decision to the more friendly Waukesha-based District II Court of Appeals, a decision overturning Judge Frost\u2019s decision could then be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where certain members, such as Justice Protasiewicz, have already indicated a desire to overturn Act 10.\u00a0In carving out public safety employees like members of the state patrol, local police officers, and deputy sheriffs, the Legislature was making a rational policy decision to provide additional employment benefits and protections for positions they deemed higher risk and more difficult to recruit for and to avoid any labor unrest that could have resulted in the event these positions were not exempted.\u00a0Whether other law enforcement positions like conservation wardens or Capitol Police should have been included in the category of public safety employees was a legislative determination that Wisconsin courts have historically respected.<\/p>\n

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Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin speaking at the Iowa Republican Party\u2019s 2015 Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

To make matters worse, the Court refused to sever the portions of Act 10 it found violated the Equal Protection Clause.\u00a0The Court could have simply struck the distinction between various categories of law enforcement, preserving the remaining provisions of Act 10. Instead, it struck all of the collective bargaining changes brought about by Act 10.\u00a0If Judge Frost\u2019s decision is ultimately upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, local units of government would again be forced to bargain over every aspect of public employment.\u00a0In light of the levy limits that constrict the ability of local units of government to raise property taxes, the financial impact to local budgets will be devastating.\u00a0A possible unintended consequence from such a scenario is the mass layoff of public employees.<\/p>\n

Finally, and even more problematically, are the implications of Judge Frost\u2019s rational basis review.\u00a0Under Wisconsin case law, a statute must meet five criteria in order to have a rational basis.\u00a0Judge Frost himself emphasized the standard that \u201cwe are obligated to locate or, in the alternative, construct a rationale that might have influenced the legislative determination.\u201d\u00a0By straining to ignore every possible rationale for the Legislature\u2019s decision to exempt certain categories of public safety employees from the impact of Act 10, the Court has provided a framework for arguably striking down every major reform passed during the Walker-Kleefisch era.<\/p>\n

Reverting back to pre-Act 10 labor relations will upend local government operations.\u00a0But more devastating is the potential impact to jurisprudence in Wisconsin.\u00a0Deferring to Legislative determinations in all but the most extreme cases is a fundamental principle in our tripartite form of government.\u00a0Whether one agreed or disagreed with the policy decisions made by the 2011 Legislature, we should all agree it had a rational basis for the decisions it made.\u00a0Rejecting this key principle will have negative consequences for years to come and upends key separation of powers principles.\u00a0This decision must not stand.<\/p>\n

Jake Curtis is the General Counsel for the Institute for Reforming Government (\u201cIRG\u201d) and previously served as an agency Chief Legal Counsel in the Walker Administration and as an elected Ozaukee County Supervisor.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This post originally appeared at https:\/\/americanhabits.org\/the-act-10-fight-wisconsin-legislative-reforms-at-risk\/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2qw_-PkoCle3FByxzdDcMTyN8v8ujE7d-w9jAFwzu3MFFA87WOZgOY6_Y_aem_oO60JqX9gp9Kz-aAXOHFvg#new_tab State capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. \u201cIn July, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":15136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-institute-for-reforming-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15140,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15134\/revisions\/15140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}