The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that local health officers have the right to issue public health orders without consulting with elected officials. (
In a 4-3 decision, Justice Brian Hagedorn sides with the court’s liberal justices in deciding that Dane County health officer Janel Heinrich was correctly issuing public health orders to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and that the county board did not have to sign off to allow enforcement.
Writing for the majority, Justice Jill Karofsky says that health officers have had those powers dating back to Wisconsin’s territorial days and that nothing in state law has preempted those powers.
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