GOP lawmakers are seeking to intervene in union lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's Act 10

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Republican lawmakers are trying to intervene in a lawsuit over Wisconsin's labor laws, marking the fifth set of cases they have tried to involve themselves in since last year.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau announced Monday that he and other GOP legislative leaders would seek to intervene in a recent lawsuit over Act 10, the 2011 law that sharply limited collective bargaining for most public employees in Wisconsin.

Fitzgerald did not immediately say what law firm they would use or what it would cost taxpayers. In many of the other cases, lawyers are billing taxpayers $500 an hour.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester, left) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

The filing marks an escalation of GOP attempts to join lawsuits — a practice that until last year was rare.

From 1990 until last year, lawmakers attempted to intervene in just one case, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. Since then, they've tried to do it five times.

Republican lawmakers have had mixed success in trying to join other lawsuits.

A panel of federal judges last year let them intervene in a case alleging Wisconsin's legislative maps were unfairly drawn to benefit the GOP in elections. But a federal judge last month declined to let them participate in a lawsuit over abortion laws, writing that doing so would "infuse additional politics into an already politically divisive area of the law and needlessly complicate this case."

The lawsuit over Act 10 was brought by two arms of the International Union of Operating Engineers. Act 10 has been upheld by state and federal courts in other cases.

The union filed the latest lawsuit in 2018, dropped it months later and revived it this month. The suit names Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul.

“We aren’t picking this fight — once again a liberal group is trying to change laws that have been passed by the Legislature and previously upheld by the courts," Fitzgerald said in a statement. "We cannot sit idly by and allow our attorney general or governor an opportunity to undermine Act 10, and will seek to intervene in this case accordingly to make sure that the law is upheld."

Kaul hasn't yet responded to the lawsuit or said whether he plans to defend the state.

Evers spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff said Republicans should not get involved in the case.

"Instead of wasting even more taxpayer dollars on private attorneys, Senate Republicans should focus on passing the People’s Budget and stop trying to play attorney general," she said in a statement, referring to Evers' proposed state budget.

Roger Putnam, a spokesman for the union, wouldn't say whether the labor organization would fight the legislators' attempt to join the lawsuit.

GOP lawmakers' interest in jumping into lawsuits began last year when they asked to join the case challenging the election maps because they feared that if Kaul won the race for attorney general he would not defend the legislative maps as ardently as GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel had.

Months later, after Kaul and Evers won their elections, GOP lawmakers passed lame-duck legislation curbing the powers of the governor and attorney general to make it easier for legislators to intervene in lawsuits. The lame-duck laws themselves are now the subject of lawsuits.

Redistricting case. Lawmakers agreed to have taxpayers spend up to $840,000 through this summer for the Chicago law firm Bartlit Beck in the case over election maps. Legislators have also retained Bell Giftos St. John at a cost of $300 per hour.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester has used the firm to help him argue he should not be deposed in the case.

Abortion case. Lawmakers are paying $500 an hour to the Virginia law firm Consovoy McCarthy Park to try to defend abortion laws challenged by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

U.S. District Judge William Conley wouldn't let them join the case because Kaul is already doing so. Lawmakers have appealed.

Lame-duck case. Legislators hired the Chicago law firm Troutman Sanders to intervene in one case over the lame-duck laws. They are paying the firm $500 an hour.

A Dane County judge agreed to let them join that case. They were named in other lawsuits over the lame-duck laws and did not have to ask to participate in those cases.

Environmental cases. Legislators last month intervened in two environmental lawsuits before the state Supreme Court using Husch Blackwell, a national law firm with offices in Wisconsin. The firm charges $215 to $820 an hour.

In those cases, Kaul has sided with Clean Wisconsin, the environmental group bringing the lawsuits.

Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.