Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider whether 175-year-old law bans abortion
Wisconsin Supreme Court to consider whether 175-year-old law bans abortion
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will consider two challenges to a 175-year-old law that conservatives have interpreted as an abortion ban
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Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the statutes in 2022, arguing they were too old to enforce
I mean, laws don't have a sunset date.
Unless there's a split between the upper and lower state legislatures and governor, why not just either pass a new law making abortion either explicitly illegal or repeal the old law so that it's explicitly legal? Like, what's the point of having court cases over some law from 1849?
What's the makeup of the legislature?
kagis
Ahh.
So the Republicans control the upper and lower legislative houses. The governor is a Democrat. The Republicans have a two-thirds supermajority in the upper house, but only a majority in the lower house. So basically, nobody has enough oomph to push through a change (at least if the division is along party lines, which it may not be in Wisconsin).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Legislature
So based on that, the Republicans need two more seats in the 99-seat lower house to have a supermajority there as well and be able to override a governor's veto, or to get a Republican governor, which avoids the veto issue. They're very close to being able to pass legislation without Democratic support, but not quite there.
The Democrats are nowhere near having a majority in both houses, so they probably can't pass legislation anytime soon without Republican support.
The legislature was finally forced to redraw the highly gerrymandered districts and control of the legislature could become competitive again for the first time since 2011. https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-redistricting-republican-democrat-9c2677a09e48152df323fbf5c55611ef
There is an actual legal principle of laws simply going out of date, even if they don't explicitly have a sunset date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desuetude
It's more common in the UK, where you have 1200 year old laws banning wearing of sandles on Thursdays, but it pops up in other Common Law countries, too, including the US.
Wisconsin is the most gerrymandered state in the nation at the state government level. Even though democrats got more votes, Republicans ended up with a super majority in one house and large majority in another. This is why you see the statewide elections like governor and attorney general, and the state legislature makeup, differing so much. They can't gerrymander a state wide vote.
Not anymore.
kagis
Nice.