Judge likely to rule whether union law in effect

— A Wisconsin judge weighed arguments Tuesday about whether her court order intended to temporarily block the state's divisive new collective bargaining law was still in place, or whether Republican leaders had again outmaneuvered their opponents by using a legal loophole.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi scheduled Tuesday's hearing to consider arguments in one of several lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's law, which would strip most public workers of collective bargaining rights and which led to weeks of pro-union protests in and around the state Capitol.

But Sumi was also expected to weigh in on whether the law took effect when a state office unexpectedly published it online, despite her order blocking the secretary of state from publishing it in a newspaper - the typical last step before a law takes effect in Wisconsin.

If she were to declare that it took effect Saturday - the day after its online publication - it would mark the second time the Republicans used a loophole to push the law forward. After weeks of stalemate, Republican senators passed the law after finding a way to vote on it without their Democratic colleagues, who had fled the state to deny a quorum.



The governor's top aide, Mike Huebsch, said Monday that the administration was preparing a computer program that would account for the new deductions and halt deductions of union dues from state workers' paychecks, starting April 21. The Department of Administration would stop that work if a court determined the law didn't take effect Saturday, Huebsch added.

Secretary of State Doug La Follette, a Democrat, and the head of the nonpartisan agency that posted the law online, the Legislative Reference Bureau, contend that a law can't take effect until the secretary of state orders it published in a newspaper.

Democratic Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, one of several people suing to block the law, argued as much in a court brief filed Monday night. Ozanne, who contends that the Senate violated Wisconsin's open records/meetings statute because it didn't give enough prior public notice before voting on the reconfigured law, asked Sumi to declare that the law hadn't taken effect on Tuesday. He wrote that the secretary of state and the reference bureau must work in tandem to publish laws, and that one can't act alone.



