Tuesday, September 12, 2017

GOP Sen. Leader adds court favor, phantom 'restriction,' to Foxconn deal

[Update - - Fitzgerald's amendment passed.] There's no stopping the dimensions of the Foxconn con.

WI GOP Senate Majority Leader and Foxconn water carrier Scott Fitzgerald 
Wisc Sen. Scott Fitzgerald.jpg
is maneuvering around a ham-handed legal procedure blunder by the GOP-led Legislative budget-writing Joint Finance Committee with a Foxconn FUBAR legal feint of his own.

Fitzgerald today is pretending to guard the State Constitution by pretending to override the Joint Finance Committee's direct-to-the-Supreme Court fast-tracking amending work last week for any Foxconn lower court action:
Under Fitzgerald’s amendment, the appeals court would collect filings in the case. It would then send the appeal directly to the state Supreme Court without first issuing a decision.
The Committee had passed a late-hour amendment to the Foxconn subsidy package Walker's crucial 2018 re-election deal which gave Foxconn this favor:

Any Foxconn-related lower court ruling would go straight to the State Supreme Court, thus evading any role for the Appeals Courts.

That looks pretty unconstitutional on its face, given pesky expectations attached to Separation of Powers and Due Process 

So enter Fitzgerald's ploy: any lower court Foxconn ruling, with the automatic stay in place which the Joint Finance Committee had also added, will go to the Appeals Court - - but just for pro-forma date-stamping and paper gathering, then on to the Supremes without any decision rendered. 

Which reduces the Appeals Courts to a collection of highly-paid, document-bundling clerks.

Fitzgerald knows what he's doing, and he probably got his GOP AG Bred Schimel pal to sign off on this charade to maybe trick constitutional lawyers from arguing that the Foxconn-favored litigation process as it came out of the Joint Finance Committee twists the constitution too blatantly.

Maybe tying up the whole deal in, gasp, court!

And also invites other big-monied corporate interests from demanding the same kind of step-skipping, straight to the Walker-and-big-business-friendly State Supreme Court/just-for-Foxconn privileges.

But Fitz wouldn't have brought the amendment forward without knowing his majority would vote to approve it, so add another con to the Foxconn farce.

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