Thousands of public workers may soon feel the effects of Wisconsin's new collective bargaining law, despite wide disagreement about whether it is in force and mounting legal challenges to its authority.
Public employees will first see the changes on their April 21 paychecks, with increases in health insurance premiums and retirement contributions, as well as a stop to automatic collection of union dues, state Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch said Monday. "It is my requirement to follow the statute and implement the law," he said.
Most public workers will be required to pay about 5.8 percent of their salary toward retirement and about 12.6 percent of the average cost of annual insurance premiums under the law. The changes amount to an average 8 percent pay cut.
Also Monday, the state Department of Justice asked to withdraw its appeal of Judge Maryann Sumi's order blocking Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the law, saying the matter is moot since the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law Friday on the Legislature's website.
But Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued in court filings that putting the law on the Legislature's website did not constitute "publication," which is the last step in the process before a law can take effect.
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Ozanne also noted that the secretary of state must set the publication date within 10 days of the governor's signature, and while La Follette did that, he rescinded it to comply with Sumi's order.
The Reference Bureau cannot publish the bill unless it has been given a publication date by the secretary of state, Ozanne wrote, and the secretary of state must publish notice of the bill in the Wisconsin State Journal, the state's official newspaper, for it to become law.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and City Attorney Michael May said the Reference Bureau's action "has no legal effect."
"We think the governor has to follow the law and not make it up as he goes along," Cieslewicz said.
A hearing in the case was set for 8:30 this morning, but the Justice Department asked that it be canceled.
Howard Schweber, a UW-Madison law professor, said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has crafted a "clever" argument that contends filers of the lawsuit "blew it" by not including the Reference Bureau in their suit.
"I still expect that tomorrow, in court, the argument will not carry a lot of weight with the judge," he said.
When asked about the many questions surrounding the new law, Huebsch said the legal advice he received indicated the Reference Bureau correctly published the law on Friday. Huebsch declined to name who had given him that advice, saying only it was the DOA's legal team.
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"It's remarkable that they've chosen again not to follow the orders of the court," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha. "The judge's order was very clear."
"My basic understanding (is) there's not a whole lot of law on this because this hasn't been pushed in the past," said Professor Donald Downs, a UW-Madison law professor. "It's an unusual situation, as far as I know."
Copyright (c) 2011, The Wisconsin State Journal/Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
