2011 Wisconsin Act 10 reformed collective bargaining for public sector employees. Unions sued to stop it, and WILL filed amicus briefs on behalf of employees who wanted the freedom to not pay union dues. Eventually, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared Act 10 constitutional.
For decades, Milwaukee had an arbitrary limit on the number of taxi cab licenses issued by the city. WILL filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit brought by the Institute for Justice, and a court struck down the cap.
This challenge to the voter ID law argued that the presentation of an ID was an “additional qualification” to vote not permitted by the Wisconsin Constitution. In amicus briefs, WILL argued that it was not an additional qualification, but rather a method of establishing that a voter meets the existing qualifications. The court of appeals and supreme court agreed, upholding the law.
This challenge to the voter ID law argued that it denied minorities the right to vote, because they were less likely to have an ID. We filed amicus briefs justifying the law by showing that voter fraud exists in Wisconsin and can swing local elections that are sometimes decided by single-digit margins. The supreme court upheld the law.
Even though the Wisconsin Constitution expressly says that the legislature can define the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s powers, the SPI ignored a 2011 law requiring agencies to get gubernatorial approval before implementing new rules. We filed an amicus brief urging the Wisconsin Supreme Court to apply the Constitution’s plain language, but the Court disagreed.
When Wisconsin implemented voter ID , progressive groups filed federal lawsuits arguing that the law was racist. We provided legal counsel for a key state witness during the trial held for these consolidated cases. We also filed an amicus brief in the 7th Circuit, which upheld the law.