Wisconsin repeals public health protections, only State Supreme Court stacked with Republicans to do that!!!

With no COVID-19 policies in place, bars, restaurants and concert halls are allowed to reopen – unless local officials put in their own restrictions. That raises the prospect of a patchwork of policies, with rules varying significantly from one county to the next.

In the majority opinion, Roggesack determined Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm should have issued such state restrictions through a process known as rule making, which gives lawmakers veto power over agency policies. Without legislative review, “an unelected official could create law applicable to all people during the course of COVID-19 and subject people to imprisonment when they disobeyed her order,” the majority wrote. 

The details…

The decision was written by four of the court’s conservatives – Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justices Rebecca Bradley, Daniel Kelly and Annette Ziegler. The court’s fifth conservative, Brian Hagedorn, wrote a dissent joined by the court’s two liberals, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet. 

GOP lawmakers who brought the lawsuit have said the legal challenge was necessary to get a seat at the table where Evers and state health officials make decisions about how to respond to the outbreak, which has killed 418 people in the state in two months.