Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider whether 175-year-old law bans abortion
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will consider two challenges to a 175-year-old law that conservatives have interpreted as an abortion ban
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the statutes in 2022, arguing they were too old to enforce
I mean, laws don't have a sunset date.
Unless there's a split between the upper and lower state legislatures and governor, why not just either pass a new law making abortion either explicitly illegal or repeal the old law so that it's explicitly legal? Like, what's the point of having court cases over some law from 1849?
What's the makeup of the legislature?
kagis
Ahh.
So the Republicans control the upper and lower legislative houses. The governor is a Democrat. The Republicans have a two-thirds supermajority in the upper house, but only a majority in the lower house. So basically, nobody has enough oomph to push through a change (at least if the division is along party lines, which it may not be in Wisconsin).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Legislature
So based on that, the Republicans need two more seats in the 99-seat lower house to have a supermajority there as well and be able to override a governor's veto, or to get a Republican governor, which avoids the veto issue. They're very close to being able to pass legislation without Democratic support, but not quite there.
The Democrats are nowhere near having a majority in both houses, so they probably can't pass legislation anytime soon without Republican support.
The legislature was finally forced to redraw the highly gerrymandered districts and control of the legislature could become competitive again for the first time since 2011. https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-redistricting-republican-democrat-9c2677a09e48152df323fbf5c55611ef
Wisconsin is the most gerrymandered state in the nation at the state government level. Even though democrats got more votes, Republicans ended up with a super majority in one house and large majority in another. This is why you see the statewide elections like governor and attorney general, and the state legislature makeup, differing so much. They can't gerrymander a state wide vote.
Not anymore.
There is an actual legal principle of laws simply going out of date, even if they don't explicitly have a sunset date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude
It's more common in the UK, where you have 1200 year old laws banning wearing of sandles on Thursdays, but it pops up in other Common Law countries, too, including the US.
I know shits complicated because of politics but it's so much fucking simpler to just officially sunset these laws through the legislature. I don't ever want murder to become temporarily legal because we're all fine with how the law is defined.
kagis
Nice.
This should be a lesson for every state to enact marriage equality laws. If you think they're not coming for Obergefell, then you aren't paying attention.
It would probably boost Dem voter turnout which would be beneficial this year.
edit:
you probably meant the legislature should do it
I was thinking ballot measure.
The law was passed 71 years before women had the right to vote. I think this is an important fact.
Good old GOP looking back over 100 years on how to treat women.
I will never be able to wrap my mind around why the fuck it matters what was and was not legal 200 years ago. It’s maddening that folks that do even exist let alone are ushered into the halls of power with such regularity
Biden used ancient law to stop a railroad strike
Biden’s done a lot of shitty things and I don’t personally care for him but he’s not attempting to become an absolute dictator so he’s got that going for him