Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen Monday asked a state appellate court to lift a lower court’s temporary restraining order blocking the controversial budget-repair measure recently signed by Gov. Scott Walker from becoming law.
Dane County District Court Judge Maryann Sumi Friday granted the county prosecutor’s request for a TRO to keep Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law until she rules on it.
The bill — which strips most public unions of many of their collective bargaining rights and increases state employees pension contributions and health care premiums — can become law only after the secretary of state publishes it.
Dane County district attorney Ismael Ozanne contends the legislative panel that passed a revised budget bill and then sent it to the chambers for a vote didn’t provide sufficient notice of the meeting in violation of open-meetings laws.
Hollen is seeking permission to appeal the order and requested that the TRO be lifted. The filing charges that Sumi overstepped her authority and that her action interferes with legislative powers.
Walker earlier this month signed the revised budget-repair package. Senate Democrats stalled the Republican majority’s passage of the original legislation by fleeing the state, leaving the Senate one member short of the special majority needed to establish a quorum.
The GOP got around the requirement by stripping the bill of its fiscal elements, including a $165 million debt restructuring, which had triggered the need for a larger majority to establish a quorum.
