Wisconsin Power Struggle Appears Bound for Court, Long Favorable to Republicans

Now it may be what decides the fate of the outgoing governor’s new laws to limit the power of his successor.

“There will be a challenge, no doubt,” Gov. Scott Walker said a few days before he signed bills expanding the power of legislative Republicans he teamed up with over the last decade. “They’ve challenged just about everything we or lawmakers have done.”

The threat of litigation has rarely dissuaded Walker, a Republican who signed the power-shifting measures Friday afternoon as one of his final acts in office. The judiciary has upheld several of Walker’s signature policies in recent years, despite fierce challenges from the left. And as Walker predicted, liberal groups quickly vowed legal action on the new legislation.

“This is a shameful attack on our democracy by politicians who will do anything to hold onto power,” said Eric Holder, an attorney general under President Barack Obama who leads one of the groups that has promised a court fight.

With conservatives holding a one-vote majority, the state Supreme Court has been at the forefront of a pattern Democrats say they have grown tired of: Republicans pass right-leaning policies despite protests, Walker signs them, and the judiciary upholds them, even if a local judge first expresses skepticism.

But many conservatives in the state reject the rubber-stamp argument.

One example: The Wisconsin Supreme Court this year sided with Tony Evers, the state schools superintendent who is now the governor-elect, when he wanted to hire outside lawyers for a lawsuit. Evers, who narrowly defeated Walker in November, is a Democrat.

The three laws Walker signed Friday include a grab bag of provisions ranging from the niche (Evers would need legislative approval to ban guns at the Capitol) to the expansive (Republican lawmakers could intervene in lawsuits and block more administrative rules). The laws also curbed the authority of the new Democratic attorney general, further codified voter identification and Medicaid work requirements and restricted early voting to two weeks.

Both Evers and Josh Kaul, the incoming attorney general, have raised the possibility of suing, but neither had announced lawsuits as of Saturday morning.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.