Posted on 03/14/2015 5:12:51 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Just nine weeks on the job, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel is already counting off the number of lawsuits he will see come across his desk.
The state’s chief legal officer expects to see court action over the right-to-work law, the school accountability bill and drug testing of public assistance recipients, if the Republican-supported measures go into law.
“I think that we are going to be very busy,” Schimel said at a March 4 Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce conference in Madison.
Schimel, a Republican, said it?s something that he will savor.
“I am going to enforce the law the way it is written, but I am going to tell you honestly that I was very relieved to find that it was going to be this legislature and this governor whose laws that I am going to enforce,” he said. “I would have done it the other way, but this way is a lot better than the alternative.”
Schimel is also marking March 20 on his calendar, the date the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to take up the Wisconsin voter ID case.
“If they don’t, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision stands, and Wisconsin’s voter ID law will actually go in effect five years after it passed, better late than never,” Schimel said.
The former Waukesha County district attorney said there’s likely to be challenges if an April 7 referendum passes to allow Wisconsin Supreme Court justices to pick their own chief justice. Opponents say it’s unconstitutional, because it violates separation of power in the judicial system. The proposal was approved in both houses of legislature in January, with Democrats saying it was an attack on liberal Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who’s held the role – now determined by seniority – for more than 18 years.
Schimel said Gov. Scott Walker and he are considering a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over limits on power plants’ carbon emissions when the final standards are released this summer. Walker sent a letter to EPA regarding the proposal, saying it will hurt the state’s manufacturing industry and increase utility rates for ratepayers.
“We are going to find out this summer what the final rules will be and then Gov. Walker and I will decide if we are going to sue the EPA,” Schimel said.
Speaking to the WMC Business Day crowd, whose representatives applauded Walker’s opposition, Schimel supports a lawsuit, calling the EPA “dirty stinkers” because the proposed rules would require the state to improve upon emission standards from 2012. He said in that year the state had lower than average coal-generated power, so it will be difficult to improve upon.
Speaking to the crowd, he quoted Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe who said the EPA climate rules were overstepping the administrative agency’s reach to make laws and was unconstitutional.
He said the rules could cost Wisconsin’s businesses and affect employment.
“We all love clean air, of course we do, I am not one who wants to see the global climate to change dramatically; the problem is these final rules, if they are anything like they were proposed last summer, would drastically change the jobs picture in Wisconsin and dramatically increase our energy bill,” Schimel said.
I do like Governor Walker. I like him a lot.
L
If liberals don’t like a law, they sue. They don’t understand, as their great leader “The One” Obama says, “elections have consequences.”
Man the ramparts. With regard to the EPA, I think we should tie every EPA employee from the mailroom to the boardroom to one of the blades of a wind turbine for 24 hours and see how they like it.
“Man the ramparts. With regard to the EPA, I think we should tie every EPA employee from the mailroom to the boardroom to one of the blades of a wind turbine for 24 hours and see how they like it.”
No, make them hang-glide through the bird-fryer beam of a solar power plant, and into the blades of a wind farm.
If they want to flip us the bird, we can make them bird for a day.
Part of my family is from Wisconsin...there are mixed feelings about him...I think he is great!
“elections have consequences.”
Only if they win. Another line they like is “it’s not over until we win”.
The law suits have been sop in WI since Walker got elected. They all get filed in Dane Co where the far left wing judges will make up things if they have to in order to prevent the right from governing.
New WI AG (Brad Schimel) ready to handle a plethora of lawsuits.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
All I know is that a decent American would not, should not work for them.
Hey, Libs!
Elections Matter.
We Won!
Move on. :) (Oh, how they HATE that in this town, LOL!)
Brad Schimel is going to prove to be an honest, upstanding, CONSERVATIVE AG for Wisconsin. JB Van Hollen was a doofus RINO. SO glad to be rid of him! :)
It’s too bad Van Hollen turned into a disappointment. When he was elected in the wake of the Peggy Drunkenslaughter debacle during the 2nd term of Diamond Jim Doyle, he seemed like a breath of fresh air who was going places...
We won in November. Let me know when the consequences start.
He was a MAJOR disappointment.
No, no, no; you forgot the other line; “it isn’t over until THEY win”!
They operate under the same logic as 2 yr olds.
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