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Crime, Daily Bread, Law, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.16.24: On Decriminalizing Marijuana Possession, Bipartisan Bills Don’t Assure Passage

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 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 5. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset 4:47 for 9h 25m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

  The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1786, Virginia enacts the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson.

  Rich Kremer reports Bipartisan bill would decriminalize marijuana possession under 14 grams (‘Legislation would also eliminate felony charges for those caught a second time with less than an ounce’):

A group of bipartisan lawmakers has introduced a bill to decriminalize possession of marijuana in Wisconsin.

The legislation was introduced by State Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez, D-Milwaukee, and Rep. Dave Consadine [sic], D-Baraboo. It would create a standard $100 fine for possession of a half ounce or less and eliminate felony charges for anyone caught a second time with less than an ounce. 

Sortwell told WPR it’s a compromise bill, because some lawmakers want harsher penalties while others want to see them weakened. He said some cities like Milwaukee, Madison and Eau Claire have enacted local ordinances reducing or eliminating fines for possessing small amounts of marijuana. 

“And because of the way things kind of work out right now across our state, you may not be treated the same way if you or somebody you know is caught possessing marijuana in one part of the state versus another part of the state,” Sortwell said.

Under the bill, anyone caught with less than 14 grams of marijuana would not face criminal charges but would face a $100 fine. Under current state law, those individuals face a misdemeanor criminal charge that comes with a fine up to $1,000 and up to six months of jail time. 

The bill would also make a big change with regard to those caught a second time with marijuana. Under current law, a second offense is treated as a Class I felony that could come with a fine up to $10,000 and up to three-and-a-half years in jail. The legislation would eliminate the felony provisions for those caught a second time with 28 grams of marijuana or less. 

There are criminal law aspects of the bill (decriminalization and statewide adoption of remaining penalties for possession) and political aspects (how will this bill fare?). It’s the latter aspect that determines whether the former is germane. 

A bipartisan bill does not guarantee the passage of legislation. While it’s true that Sortwell is a Republican and Ortiz-Velez & Considine are Democrats, a clue to the problems the bill faces comes when one reads that “some lawmakers want harsher penalties while others want to see them weakened.” (Emphasis added.) 

Success for this bill will not come from those who have proposed it, but instead only if opponents on both sides of decriminalization (‘no’ and ‘more’) are prepared to accept the proposal of a few legislators working in bipartisanship. (As of 12.22.23, the bill had only a few sponsors.) 

No one should be holding his or her breath. 

One Day in the Coldest Village on Earth -71°C (-95°F) | Yakutia, Siberia:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.15.24: Employee’s Complaint against Wisconsin Supreme Court Majority Predictably Dismissed

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 Good morning.

Dr. King Day in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 3. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset 4:46 for 9h 24m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1943, The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington County, Virginia.

Readers will recall that after the Wisconsin Supreme Court had a new majority in August, that majority dismissed then-Courts Director Randy Koschnick. The dismal received some news coverage (Journal Sentinel Focuses on a Minor Wisconsin Supreme Court Story), the Court hired a Walker appointee to replace Koschnick (Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Liberal Majority Hires a Walker Appointee), but the conservative Koschnick filed a complaint over his firing nonetheless. 

These months later, one predictably reads that Complaint against Supreme Court liberals over state courts director appointment dismissed:

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission has dismissed complaints filed against the four liberals on the state Supreme Court over their decision to install a new director of state courts when the body’s majority flipped in August. 

The complaints had been filed by Judge Randy Koschnick, the previous director of state courts, who was removed from his post days after Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn into office. Koschnick and the Court’s conservatives speculated that the firing was due to his right-leaning political views. 

The episode marked the beginning of an ugly first few weeks for the Court, with several conservative justices and Koschnick airing their grievances against the newly empowered liberals in the media. 

After Koschnick was removed, the Court installed Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Audrey Skwierawski as the new director of state courts. Koschnick then filed the complaint against Skwierawski and the four justices — Protasiewicz, Ann Walsh Bradley, Rebecca Dallet and Jill Karofsky — alleging she was unable to hold the post because she was still serving as a circuit court judge. He said Skwierawski was unable to accept the position until 2025 because of a state law that prohibits judges from holding nonjudicial offices as long as they are still serving their terms. . 

In a letter to each of the four justices, the commission’s director, Jeremiah Van Hecke, wrote that the commission determined there was no misconduct in the hiring of Skwierawski. In a letter to Skwierawski, Van Hecke wrote that the complaint against her was being dismissed because she resigned as a judge on Dec. 31 and is therefore no longer subject to the commission’s jurisdiction. 

At the time of Koschnick’s dismissal, I wrote that Koscchnick’s replacement, Audrey Skwierawski, was “easily as qualified as Koschnick, and in any event appointee Koschnick wasn’t entitled to permanent public employment.” 

That was, however, only half of the matter. Koschnick (a lawyer and former Jefferson County judge) would have known (as would any other lawyer) that his complaint to the Wisconsin Judicial Commission would be dismissed procedurally the moment after Skwierawski resigned as a judge (which, of course, she would and now has done). 

Koschnick’s complaint was a political, but never a serious legal, grievance.

Whale lifts head out of water, surprises tourists:

Courts, Daily Bread, Foxconn, Law, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.2.24: A List of Top State Government Stories in 2023

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 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 33. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset 4:32 for 9h 07m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 64.1% of its visible disk illuminated. 

On this day in 1777, American forces under the command of George Washington repulse a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.

  Steven Walters has a list of the Top 10 State Government Stories of 2023. It’s a solid recounting of the biggest state issues of 2023. His Numbers 1 and 2 would appear on any list of major Wisconsin events: 

1. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz not only won a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court, but she won by a landslide in the most expensive ($51 million by candidates and outside groups) judicial race in the nation’s history. Her win gave liberals their first majority on the seven-member court in 12 years.

2. In December, that new Supreme Court majority ruled that Assembly and Senate boundaries Republicans drew in 2021 were unconstitutional. The court gave all sides a Jan. 12 deadline to submit new district lines for November elections and named two experts to advise the justices on next steps. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the ruling would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After his top ten, Walters mentions a few other big stories, and a post-Foxconn future is rightly among them:

Microsoft paid $50 million for 315 acres of Mount Pleasant land owned by Foxconn, officially retiring the 2018 promise by then-President Trump, ex-Gov. Scott Walker and ex-U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan that Foxconn’s investment in Racine County would create a high-tech, “eighth wonder of the world.” Microsoft says two data centers will be built.

FREE WHITEWATER has a category dedicated to the Foxconn debacle. 

In Whitewater (see A Sham News Story on Foxconn) and too many other places, support for the Wisconsin Foxconn project was (and should have been) a sign of dog-crap-quality policymaking. 

This Microbe May Someday Replace Your Steak:

“Someday,” however, is not today.

Courts, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.27.23: A Story on Federal Review of Wisconsin’s Recent Gerrymandering Case

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 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 41. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset 4:27 for 9h 03m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.7% of its visible disk illuminated. 

On this day in 1929, Soviet General Secretary Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” leading to a Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks (prosperous peasants) and their families. 

  Jessie Opoien and Molly Beck report in a general readership story that Republicans likely to take Wisconsin gerrymandering case back to the U.S. Supreme Court:

In order to get the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the case, the Legislature and its allies will need to make the argument that there was a violation of federal law. That’s because, explained Rob Yablon, University of Wisconsin Law School professor and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, the core legal claim in the case — contiguity — is a matter of state law.

The case brought to the court argued the maps violate Wisconsin’s Constitution because some legislative districts include pieces of land that are not connected.

“The Wisconsin Supreme Court has the last word on state law questions,” Yablon said.

A request for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a state Supreme Court decision (or a federal appeals court decision) is known as a petition for certiorari, or cert petition. Under U.S. Supreme Court rules, four of nine justices must vote to accept such a case.

“(The majority) did a really intentional job of sticking to very narrow state constitutional issues, which has the effect of insulating a lot of the decision from U.S. Supreme Court review,” said Daniel Suhr, a Republican attorney who served in former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. “When a case is decided on only state constitutional grounds, there’s not a U.S. constitutional hook for the Supreme Court to rely on in intervening.”

In their story, Opoien and Beck consider two principal arguments for federal intervention (Protasiewicz’s participation in the Wisconsin decision and if any new maps have an unlawful racial bias) but report through interviewed experts that both lines of argument have uncertain prospects. 

In any event, while it’s four to take the case, it’s five to overturn on federal grounds.

What ChatGPT is and what it’s not: A three-minute guide:

City, Common Council, Council Leadership, Daily Bread, Law, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, Open Government

Daily Bread for 8.25.23: Scenes from a Council Meeting (Representations)

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Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:40 PM for 13h 27m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1944, the Allies liberate Paris. During its session on 8.15.23,…

Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Daily Bread, Law, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.9.23: Wisconsin Senate Considers Bills to Address Sexual Assault in the Wisconsin National Guard

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Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:55 AM and sunset 8:05 PM for 14h 09m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 38.5% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1974, as a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard…

Daily Bread, Elections, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Law, Legislature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 8.3.23: Nineteen Wisconsin Residents File Suit Against Gerrymandered State Legislative Districts

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Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:49 AM and sunset 8:12 PM for 14h 23m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM. On this day in 1977, Tandy Corporation…