The Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the state legislature’s ability to suspend administrative rules, ending a decades-old practice of lawmakers being empowered to temporarily block agency regulations.
The court ruled that the statutes giving powers to the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules violated the Wisconsin Constitution’s mandate for bicameralism and presentment. In a 4-3 decision, the court found that the committee was overreaching its authority in blocking various other state regulations.
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Chief Justice Jill Karofsky wrote for the majority that the state legislature was illegally taking “action that alters the legal rights and duties of the executive branch and the people of Wisconsin.” She was joined by the court’s three other liberal justices.
Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn’s dissent said the court’s ruling was “devoid of legal analysis and raises more questions than it answers.”
The legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules was a powerful, Republican-controlled panel that was in charge of approving state agency regulations.
The ruling stemmed from a challenge that Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) again filed two actions from the committee. One indefinitely blocked commercial building code rules administered by the Department of Safety and Professional Services, and the other suspended the rule the Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board issued that served as a de facto ban on conversion therapy for LGBT people.
The ruling cleared the way for the ban on conversion therapy to be enacted. In a statement, Evers touted the ruling.
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“It’s pretty simple — a handful of Republican lawmakers should not be able to single-handedly and indefinitely obstruct state agencies from doing the people’s work,” he said in a news release.
“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,” the governor said. “This is an incredibly important decision that will ensure the state government can do our important work efficiently and effectively to serve Wisconsinites across our state.”