August 18, 2011

Wisconsin Reporter occasionally good for a laugh

I missed this at the time, but it just popped up in a Google search for something else. This is from the Wisconsin Reporter, a collection of conservative Republican hacks pretending to be a "news service":
Obviously nobody violated state open meetings law in passing the collective bargaining bill ...
Interesting, because those alleged to have violated the State open meetings law admitted to it on the record, in court. And not only did they admit to violating the explicit letter of the statutes, they admitted the intent of the Wisconsin constitution's directive to the legislature to provide minimum public access to its affairs governed any picayune objections derived from medieval foreign common law relics. "Correct, absolutely correct," they confirmed in response to the presiding judge's view that the State constitution embodies "a vastly external expectation — [a] right — that people have under the Open Meetings Law."

Continues the Wisconsin "Reporter":
... and even if they did, the judge had no power to delay it.
Which is funny because you know what?

Not enjoining the bill would have been a wholesale betrayal of the State statutes. Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law explicitly grants the courts injunctive power pursuant to alleged violations of the Open Meetings Law but the injunctive power is not to be exercised unless the party who requests the injunction can show a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of his case, which in this instance was that same allegation that legislative Republicans had violated the Open Meetings Law.

And in this instance it didn't as much matter whether the requesting party — the Dane County District Attorney — had affirmatively demonstrated its likelihood of succeeding because the legislative Republicans, by and through their Department of Justice counsel, themselves affirmed the District Attorney's meritoriousness in court.

And rather unequivocally — "Absolutely correct" — at that.
[Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann] Sumi ... [said] legislative Republicans violated opening meetings law.
Yes, because those legislative Republicans admitted it in her court.

What on Earth is so difficult to understand about this?

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