A Question

JoAnne Kloppenburg holds a tiny lead over Justice David Prosser in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. I assume she will win, and if the final result is within a few hundred votes, I assume it will have been procured by fraud, of which there is some evidence. I also believe that since Kloppenburg is evidently a liberal activist, she will contribute to any number of bad decisions.
What I don’t understand is why this Supreme Court election should be critical to the future of the union legislation that was recently enacted. The Supreme Court could overturn the law on the ground that there is a right to public employee collective bargaining under the Wisconsin Constitution; not only that, but a right to certain types of collective bargaining on certain issues. Such a claim would be ridiculous, and I do not see how the most liberal court could embrace it.
The only other argument I am aware of is that the statute was improperly enacted because of an alleged violation of the state’s open meeting law. I have not researched this issue myself, but Ann Althouse has written that she considers it frivolous. And the Republicans in Wisconsin’s legislature, who could easily re-pass the law, are not concerned enough about this argument to bother to do so.
So Kloppenburg’s election is unfortunate, but I don’t see any reason to think it will have any effect on the Republicans’ labor legislation. It is also of doubtful symbolic value. I had expected her to win in a landslide, given the enormous resources that the Left poured into what would normally be a low-turnout election, and given the hysteria and strong financial interest that motivate union voters. Under the circumstances, the fact that the Left could do no better than a tie bodes reasonably well for the upcoming recall actions, where the real action will be.

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