The Republican president of the Wisconsin Senate wants to speed up legal challenges to new laws in Wisconsin. Senator Mike Ellis of Neenah is asking for co-sponsors on a bill that would force the Wisconsin Supreme Court to directly consider all lawsuits filed against state laws – and to decide on them within 150 days.
“We can’t be using lower courts as a mechanism to delay and hinder the responsibilities of two branches of government,” said Ellis. Ellis said his measure would streamline the legal process, by taking lower court challenges off the table. It comes after two years of legal battles over the law which virtually banned most public union bargaining. And the Republican photo ID requirement for voters is still tied up in a pair of state appeals courts.
“You’ve got to look at this in the sense that you have a supreme court, a legislative branch, and an executive branch, and you cannot overpower any one of those branches,” Ellis said. “The citizens have the ultimate right to challenge any action by the legislature or the governor, and they can do that on constitutional grounds. And when they do, it should go directly to the state Supreme Court.”
