State Supreme Court Hears Arguments Regarding the Power of Legislative Committees

Thursday, April 18th, 2024 -- 3:00 PM

(AP) Wisconsin Supreme Court justices questioned Wednesday how much power legislative committees should wield, in a case that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers brought against the Republican-controlled Legislature and that could have a major impact on how state government functions.

A ruling in favor of Evers would upend decades-old practices in the Legislature and make it easier to approve projects in a land stewardship program. But justices echoed concerns raised by Republicans that the case could have far broader impacts on the separation of power between the executive and legislative branches.

Siding with Evers would “overturn how our state government has functioned for almost a century,” Misha Tseytlin, a lawyer for the Legislature, told the court. But liberal Justice Jill Karofsky, in deflecting arguments that the court should not overturn such established practices, said “Maybe they’ve been wrong for the last century and we shouldn’t double down on how wrong this is.”

Evers argues that the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, which is controlled 12-4 by Republicans, is exceeding its constitutional lawmaking authority and effectively acting as a fourth branch of government.

The Legislature counters that the committee’s powers, including the approval of certain state conservation projects, are well established in state law and court precedent. Karofsky questioned whether the budget committee had too much power.

“There doesn’t seem to me to be any limits whatsoever,” she said. “There are zero guardrails here.” If the court sides with Evers, then numerous other functions of the budget committee, the state building commission and other legislative committees that have been in place for a century would also be unconstitutional, Tseytlin said.

Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley questioned whether the court’s ruling would apply across a myriad of legislative committees and their powers.

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