Free Republic

Madison - A Dane County judge permanently enjoined the state's new voter ID law on Monday - the second judge in a week to block the requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls. "A government that undermines the very foundation of its existence - the people's inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote - imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people," said the eight-page opinion by Dane County Judge Richard Niess. "It sows the seeds for its own demise as a democratic institution. This is precisely what 2011 Wisconsin Act...

Madison - Neither Supreme Court Justice David Prosser nor fellow Justice Anne Walsh Bradley will face criminal charges for an altercation this summer involving the two, a special prosecutor has determined. "The totality of the facts and the circumstances and all of the evidence that I reviewed did not support my filing criminal charges," Sauk County District Attorney Patricia Barrett said in an interview Thursday. Bradley has said Prosser put her in a "chokehold" during a June argument over a case in her chambers. Others have said Bradley came at Prosser with fists raised and he put up his hands...

For Immediate Release: June 6, 2011 Contact: Deb Jordahl (877) 707-5571 Sun Prairie, WI ---The Wisconsin Club for Growth has asked the Wisconsin Judicial Commission to investigate possible misconduct on the part of Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi. Sumi is at the center of a controversial ruling blocking publication of new law to reform the collective bargaining privileges of government employees in Wisconsin. The complaint says Sumi acted inappropriately and demonstrated bias against the State when she filed a brief with the Wisconsin Supreme Court last month. • On May 18, 2011, Judge Sumi, through her attorneys, filed...

A Wisconsin judge has struck down a law taking away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most state workers. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Thursday that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin's open meetings law during the run up to passage. She says that renders the law void.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s polarizing law that curbs union rights has been set aside for about two months after a judge said Friday that a restraining order blocking it would stay in place while she considers whether Republicans passed it illegally. Republicans had been pushing the law through despite a boycott by Democratic state senators and weeks of protests. But they suffered a defeat on Thursday when the same judge, Maryann Sumi of Dane County Circuit Court, declared the law was not enacted last week as Republicans had claimed. Judge Sumi on Friday extended indefinitely a temporary restraining order...

Madison — Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said Friday she will keep in place her order declaring that the collective bargaining law has not yet taken effect. Secretary of State Doug La Follette will remain barred from taking steps to implement the law.

Madison — A state law to sharply curb union bargaining by public employees is not in effect, a Dane County judge ruled Thursday, continuing the turmoil over a measure that sparked massive protests and prompted Democrats to boycott the Senate for three weeks. Gov. Scott Walker's administration said it would comply and discontinue the implementation of the law.

A judge in Madison, Wis., on Thursday ruled a controversial law severely limiting the collective bargaining powers of public employee unions in the state was not in effect. Following a court hearing on March 29, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi issued a declaration on Thursday morning stating that the state officials had not followed correct procedures when they published the law "and is therefore not in effect."

A Wisconsin judge on Tuesday ordered "no further implementation" of the Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill that limits collective bargaining rights. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said that her earlier restraining order saying the law shouldn't be enacted had either been ignored or misinterpreted. Sumi stopped short of saying the law was not already in effect. She said she will take more testimony on that issue. The Legislative Reference Bureau posted the law on a legislative website Friday, leading Walker's administration to declare the law was in effect. Sumi revised her original March temporary restraining order blocking the...