This week, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel announced that his office was joining in yet another lawsuit against the federal government. This time, the suit attempts to overturn new workplace regulations that increase the salary threshold at which overtime must be paid to workers.
This is certainly not the first time that Schimel has used your state tax money to fight the federal government (which is ironically supported with your federal taxes). In a series of highly partisan actions, Schimel has consistently used state resources to advance the right-wing agenda of Scott Walker and the state GOP.
No friend of the environment, Schimel has entered Wisconsin into a suit fighting federal regulation of power plant carbon emissions. He is fighting federal regulations that limit ozone-forming pollutants. He has spent state money to limit the ability of the federal government to remedy the pollution of navigable waters.
But Schimel doesn't just limit his actions to the protection of corporate polluters. He has joined in no fewer than three suits attacking the Affordable Care Act. He joined in a suit to allow federally-banned discrimination in schools based on gender identity. He joined a multi-state suit fighting much-needed federal immigration reforms. State suits against the US government almost always require the approval of the governor. Walker has been involved, if not the instigator, in all of these actions.
Schimel's meddling on the national scene isn't limited to fighting the feds. He has supported Texas in their unconstitutional anti-abortion efforts. He has involved Wisconsin in a federal case to protect manufacturers of leaded paint from liability (sound vaguely familiar?).
Where is all of the money coming from to advance this right-wing-corporatist agenda by the Wisconsin Department of Justice? I thought that Wisconsin was broke! At a time when our university system, public schools, and the DNR have undergone drastic cuts, the DOJ keeps getting more and more money. Walker has given the DOJ a hefty 5.2% increase in funding between 2014 and 2017.
In a 2015-17 budget that pulled $250 million from the state university system, Scott Walker somehow found the money to build a new bureaucracy within the DOJ. The new group, called the Solicitor General's Office, was created and funded at $584,500 per year (2017). This staff of five is tasked with representing "the State of Wisconsin in cases on appeal that are of special importance to the State". In reality, this means defending new extremist-GOP laws of questionable constitutionality.
Much of the new funding for the DOJ is being used to defend Walker's and the GOP legislature's extreme agenda. Schimel's recent actions include defending Wisconsin's anti-choice laws, defending new voting restrictions, and defending our unconscionable redistricting maps. He defends the state GOP's union-busting Right-to-Freeload law that was jammed through the legislature in 2015. He defends the constitutionally-questionable "pee-in-a-cup" law requiring drug tests for those on public assistance.
Not content to have a lock on the Governor's office, the State Supreme Court, and both houses of the Legislature, the GOP has sought to punish any remaining moderate office holders. GOP legislative power grabs to minimize elected moderates like Supreme Court Justice Abrahamson, Secretary of State Doug LaFollette, and State Superintendent Tony Evers have all been defended in court by the partisan hack, Schimel.
Acting like Scott Walker's personal legal representative, Schimel has interjected himself in the John Doe illegal campaign-coordination scandal. In August, he submitted a brief to the US Supreme Court, arguing that Walker's Doe case should not be considered by the highest court.
Wisconsin Attorney General, Brad Schimel has taken gross GOP partisanship to an unprecedented level. Hardworking Wisconsin taxpayers are footing the bill for his spree of lawsuits against the federal government. We are funding his expensive courtroom defense of a swarm of indefensibly-partisan state laws. We need an Attorney General whose first obligation is to the people, not his Governor, legislature, and party.
Paul C. Adair
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