MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) – Wisconsin’s lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic has been overruled by the state Supreme Court, which has ruled officials didn’t follow the proper steps when implementing it.
The court made its decision May 13 in the state Legislature’s case against Andrea Palm, the secretary of the Department of Health Services. It has been decided that Palm failed to include lawmakers when instituting her March 24 order requiring Wisconsinites to stay home.
She renewed that direction in April 16’s “Safer at Home Order."
“People, businesses and other institutions need to know how to proceed and what is expected of them,” Justice Patience Drake Roggensack wrote for the 4-3 majority.
“Therefore, we place the responsibility for this future law-making with the Legislature and DHS, where it belongs.”
Issuing such a rule requires some level of involvement from the Legislature, the court ruled.
“Rulemaking exists precisely to ensure that kind of controlling, subjective judgment asserted by one unelected official, Palm, is not imposed in Wisconsin,” Roggensack wrote.
Palm was backed in her decision by Gov. Tony Evers, who showed his disappointment in a statement.
“Up until now, Wisconsin was in a pretty good place in our battle against COVID-19. We had reached almost all our gating criteria,” he said.
“We had opened up 14,000 small businesses across the state, putting 90,000 folks back to work, and that was because of the good work of Wisconsinites across our state who banded together, stayed home, and stayed safe.
“Despite that good work, Republican legislators have convinced four justices to throw our state into chaos.”
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce applauded the decision.
“Today’s decision is a win for the state’s economy, countless businesses and hundreds of thousands of unemployed Wisconsinites who are ready to get back to work,” said Kurt Bauer, CEO of WMC.