Republican legislators introduce bill to move lawsuits out of Dane County
A courtroom and a judge's gavel. (Getty Images creative)
A pair of Republican legislators have introduced a proposal that would allow the parties in lawsuits against state officials filed in Wisconsin's largest, and most Democratic, counties to have the venue changed to another county court. Critics of the proposal say it amounts to an attempt to gerrymander the court system.
The legislation from Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp) is currently circulating for co-sponsorship. Under the 'Court Fairness Bill,' if a lawsuit against certain government officials is filed in a county with a first or second class city — the designation given to cities with more than 39,500 residents — any party to the lawsuit can request a venue change to a different circuit court. The second court would be chosen randomly and no further venue changes would be allowed.
Steffen told the Wisconsin Examiner that the bill was designed to allow Republicans to move lawsuits out of Dane County court because they believe they don't 'get a fair shake' when arguing in front of judges elected by the state's most Democratic voting county. Current law doesn't require lawsuits against the state government to be filed in Madison, but because most state government offices are in the capital city, many of those lawsuits are heard in the Dane County Circuit Court.
'If you are a liberal entity or individual, you increase your chance of success substantially by filing that case in the Dane County Circuit,' Steffen said. 'That type of judge shopping should not only be discouraged but prevented when possible, and so I don't believe that that is the way our Founding Fathers, both at the national or state level, envisioned courts to work where individuals or organizations are making decisions where they file based on the chance of it being a more favorable outcome.'
Steffen added that he thinks the number of lawsuits filed against state government would decrease if people thought they might be heard by judges outside of Dane County.
'So by providing an option for either party to request a random selection to another circuit, we increase the public's perception and support of the decision that is made, and we decrease the number of frivolous and politically motivated lawsuits and decisions,' he said.
Current law already allows parties to a lawsuit to change the venue at the appellate level. Wisconsin is divided into four appeals court districts. If a case is heard at the circuit court level in Dane County, its appeal would generally be heard in the District IV Court of Appeals, which covers 24 counties across most of southwestern and central Wisconsin. In 2011, Republicans enacted a law that allows a party in a lawsuit to request that an appeal be heard in a different district.
Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the voting rights focused firm Law Forward, told the Examiner the proposal is an attempt to disenfranchise voters in cities that Republicans don't like because of the people they elect to be judges.
'It's a further attempt to gerrymander the courts,' he said. 'The gerrymandered Legislature has already gerrymandered the appellate courts and now it's trying to gerrymander the circuit courts. It is anti-democratic. It is anti-rule of law, it is inappropriate, it is inefficient, and there's no good reason for it, and here, fascinatingly, they only want it to apply to lawsuits that are filed in counties that have cities of the first or second class. So they're really just targeting counties that have larger populations or that they don't like. It's a very weird thing.'
While the proposal would allow venue changes in Milwaukee County and more than a dozen counties with second class cities, Steffen said it's targeted at Dane County because he believes Republicans lose 90-95% of their cases there.
'There is no place other than downtown Madison that has a 91% concentration of a party,' he said.
Mandell said Steffen is exaggerating how poorly conservative causes do in Dane County court and there's no requirement right now that lawsuits against the state be filed there. Wisconsin's judges are elected for a reason, Mandell said, and this bill would nullify the choices of hundreds of thousands of Dane County voters.
'We have elected judges in Wisconsin, and one of the theories is that we do that because our judges are responsive to and come from the community,' he said. 'So if I have an issue with the way that a local election official, or any other local official is doing something in my local area, part of the reason to bring the suit where I live is because the judge knows and understands the conditions of my local area. To then send it someplace completely different is truly bizarre.'
He added that if someone were trying to sue their member of Congress, the proposal would allow that suit to get moved to another side of the state where there is less knowledge about that representative and the community that elected them.
'You are looking to the court to give you relief, but you are probably also looking for other people who are constituents of your member of Congress to know about this and be able to follow the case,' he said. 'But now the venue is going to be randomly reassigned, and it could be assigned well outside of the congressional district. The judge is no longer a constituent or doesn't know as much about the member of Congress and the local media no longer has the same kind of access. The whole thing is just really, really bizarre.'
Experts also say there are a number of logistical concerns with the proposal.
Bree Grossi Wilde, executive director of UW-Madison's State Democracy Research Initiative, said because of Wisconsin's political geography, the proposal wouldn't make things even. Moving a case out of Dane County doesn't give a 50-50 shot at landing that case in a conservative or liberal county because a higher number of Wisconsin's 72 counties lean conservative.
'If the concern is to try to level the playing field and have a more diverse kind of set of circuit court judges deciding these important cases that are brought against state or federal officials, or whatever it might be, then actually, it's going to swing in the opposite direction,' she said. 'It's not going to be more level. It's going to be likely more conservative judges deciding these cases.'
She added that a similar bill authored by Republicans in Kentucky was struck down by that state's Supreme Court. Steffen said he's not concerned about that happening here if the bill were passed — though it's unlikely it would be signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Plus, Grossi Wilde said, because Dane County has been the venue for many of these cases for so long, there's a level of expertise and institutional knowledge in cases involving complex areas of state law such as elections.
'Sometimes it's more about expertise … these are judges that are familiar with these claims and are able to sort of manage them more efficiently,' she said, adding that 'Dane County Circuit Court has built up that bench, has built up this sort of expertise, because they're used to managing these type of cases.'
Sending cases out around the state to judges who deal with many issues and are not particularly familiar with certain areas of the law — 'whether it be … civil, criminal, family, juvenile, probate … [or] complicated or constitutional claims' could burden courts and cause them not to work as well, she said.
Steffen said he hadn't nailed down the details of how the new venue would be randomly selected, but suggested drawing cards or names out of a hat.
But Mandell questioned what would happen if a case was filed in Milwaukee County and the name drawn out of the hat was far-away Bayfield County.
'It's highly inefficient,' he said. 'I mean … every time the court wants to hold a hearing, everybody might have to, you know, schlep all the way to Bayfield. For what purpose?'
The deadline for lawmakers to sign on to the bill as co-sponsors is Feb. 18.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump-Musk feud shows what happens when unregulated money floods politics
Elon Musk said, very loudly and very publicly, what is usually the quiet part of the role of money in US politics. 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude,' he wrote on his X social media platform amid an ongoing feud with Donald Trump. When rightwing commentator Laura Loomer wrote that Republicans on Capitol Hill had been discussing whom to side with in the inter-party feud, Musk replied with a nod toward the long tail of his influence. 'Oh and some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years … ,' Musk wrote on X. Billionaires in the US often seek to influence politics in big and small ways, throwing their money and influence around to extract what they want from the government. But few are as explicit and influential as Musk has proven in the past year – and it's showing just how transactional and broken US governance has become. The Trump-Musk battle exemplifies the post-Citizens United picture of US politics: the world's richest person paid handsomely to elect his favored candidate, then took a formal, if temporary, role with a new governmental initiative created for him that focused on dismantling parts of the government he didn't like. We're sitting ringside to a fight between the mega-rich president and the far richer Republican donor to see who can cut more services from the poor. As one satirical website put it: 'Aw! These Billionaires Are Fighting Over How Much Money to Steal From Poor People.' Fifteen years ago, the US supreme court ruled that corporations and outside groups could spend as much as they wanted on elections. In that ruling, conservative justice Anthony Kennedy said: 'The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.' In the years since, it's become clear that these infusions of wealth have eroded democracy, with Musk's ostentatious example accelerating an already out-of-control level of money in politics. Musk spent nearly $300m to elect Trump in 2024. It's the billionaire's government now. 'Fifteen years after that decision, we're seeing the full culmination of living under a Citizens United world – where it's not just elections that are for sale, but it's that our entire government, and the apparatus of our government, is up for sale,' Tiffany Muller, the president of End Citizens United, told the Bulwark earlier this year. Musk isn't alone here: in races up and down the ballot, ultra-rich donors are throwing around their cash to get their favored candidates elected. This is the standard state of play for politics in the US now, in both political parties. Bernie Sanders confronted Democrats at their convention last year to say: 'Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections.' Earlier this year, Musk poured big money into a Wisconsin judicial election, but lost to the Democratic candidate. And he's sent small-dollar donations to Republicans who wanted to go after judges who ruled against the Trump administration. The threat of his money, even if it is uneven and has an inconsistent success record, looms large for both political parties. But, by virtue of his unelected role, Musk couldn't do as much as he wanted to stop Trump's signature spending bill – or so it seems so far. Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' didn't cut enough spending or favor Musk enough or otherwise meet his litmus test for a budget. And when the administration stopped working for him, he turned on it, blazing out the door in a chaotic fashion. It's a fitting coda to the uneasy alliance between Trump and Musk that started with a warm embrace and front-row status for the ultra-wealthy when Trump took office. The fact that Musk holds such sway over the budget process is in itself corruption. Trump has said Musk knew what was in the bill, the undertone being that the administration sought his approval before the public explosion. Musk embraced a brawling style of political spending that is rare among the uber-wealthy, who tend to let their money speak louder than their public words. One expert in philanthropy previously told the Guardian Musk stood out because of his 'complete eschewal of discretion as a mode of political engagement'. Musk is now rallying his followers on X to reach out to their members of Congress and kill the bill, a quest that could be successful, depending on how Republican lawmakers shake out when they're forced to decide between their ideologue president and a megadonor known for his vindictiveness. In rightwing media, the feud has created a chasm. On Breitbart, one commentator noted how Trump was 'sticking his finger in the eye of his biggest donor and that never happens'. In the American Spectator, one writer opined that Musk did not elect Trump: 'the American people did.' But in the pages of the Washington Examiner, Musk's stance on the bill was praised because Trump's budget plan 'deserves to die'. 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,' Trump wrote to cap off a series of posts and public comments about Musk. Musk has 'lost his mind', the president said in a TV interview Friday. So far, Republican officials are lining up behind Trump. 'President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads,' JD Vance said. If Musk ultimately loses, he could take his money and run elsewhere. He floated the idea of creating a third political party, a prospect that's been tried many times before but without the wealth infusion and bully pulpit he'd offer to the cause. Democrats, themselves quite reliant on rich donors, will lobby for him to switch sides. The Democratic representative Ro Khanna suggested the party should 'be in a dialogue' with Musk. Although Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley and has called for the left to embrace economic populism, saw intense backlash against his comments from his party, he doubled down. 'If Biden had a big supporter criticize him, Trump would have hugged him the next day,' he wrote on X. 'When we refused to meet with @RobertKennedyJr, Trump embraced him & won. We can be the party of sanctimonious lectures, or the party of FDR that knows how to win & build a progressive majority.'
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Fury as Republicans go ‘nuclear' in fight over California car emissions
California has long been one of the nation's preeminent eco-warriors, enacting landmark environmental standards for cars and trucks that go much further than those mandated by the federal government. Vehicles across the country are cleaner, more efficient and electric in greater numbers because of it. But that could all change if Donald Trump and his Republican allies manage to revoke the state's ability to set its own, stricter emissions standards amid a White House crusade to combat climate-friendly policies. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets and updates its own federal standards for all states on smog and emissions from cars and trucks, which the Biden administration made even stricter last year, saying they will save American drivers thousands in fuel costs and maintenance over the life of a vehicle. But for decades, California has been granted the ability to make those rules even stricter to help address some of the worst smog and air quality issues in the nation, which are linked to a host of health effects that disproportionately affect people of color. On Wednesday, the Senate voted to reverse the waivers, in move that prompted fury from Democrats who call it a 'nuclear' option, calling it an unprecedented, and illegal, use of the statute. The Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian have agreed, saying EPA waivers are not subject to the review law. The House approved similar resolutions earlier this month. The resolutions now go to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign them. 'This move will harm public health and deteriorate air quality for millions of children and people across the country,' said senators Alex Padilla, Sheldon Whitehouse and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, in a statement. 'This Senate vote is illegal. Republicans went around their own parliamentarian to defy decades of precedent. We won't stand by as Trump Republicans make America smoggy again,' California's governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement on Thursday. 'We're going to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.' Kathy Harris, the director of clean vehicles at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized California's ability to mandate strict emissions standards for cars, trucks and buses had existed for nearly 60 years, noting the state had been granted more than 75 waivers under Republican and Democratic presidents. Among the waivers include rules to increase the share of electric vehicles each year among all new car and truck sales, as well as mandates that auto companies introduce progressively cleaner vehicles. She described the waivers as a 'quadruple win', benefiting public health, air quality, drivers' pockets and the economy as a whole. 'These waivers are not new or novel,' Harris said in an interview. 'California has historically been innovators in systems to help produce cleaner air and stymying California's ability is a direct attack on our ability to limit pollution and health harming pollutants in the air.' She added revoking the waivers would immediately lead to an increase in pollution on the nation's roadways. More than a dozen states follow California's lead on emissions standards, according to the California air resources board. The standards now cover nearly 40% of new light-duty vehicle registrations and more than a quarter of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks across the entire US. Automakers have largely followed California's emissions standards as well so they can continue to sell cars there, as the state equates to the fourth-largest economy on the planet. Newsom upped the ante in the nation's environmental future in 2020, declaring his state would ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Eleven states have also joined California's plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by the 2035 deadline, a reality that has spooked major car companies. Joe Biden's administration approved the plan at the end of his term. Trump, however – a vehement opponent to many of the nation's climate efforts – has vowed to see them reversed. 'California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,' Trump said during his campaign last year. 'I will terminate that.' Newsom on Wednesday cast the battle as a nail in the coffin for the American car industry and decades of public health advancements. 'The United States Senate has a choice: cede American car-industry dominance to China and clog the lungs of our children, or follow decades of precedent and uphold the clean-air policies that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon fought so hard for,' he challenged Republicans in a statement. 'Will you side with China or America?' The Senate's decision may have sweeping effects far beyond the state's borders. Harris said she recently pulled up pictures of what air quality looked like in cities around the country in the 1960s before the Clean Air Act, the seminal environmental law that regulates the nation's air quality, was in effect. She described normal levels of smog in California as blanketing the state similar to the apocalyptic clouds of wildfire smoke that have descended during recent fire seasons. The American Lung Association also found last month that Los Angeles remained the country's smoggiest city for the 25th time in 26 years of tracking, despite decades of improvements in air quality. 'I think we have forgotten about what our air used to look like,' Harris said. 'We take it for granted because it's a policy that's been around for so long we don't really recognize those direct benefits. 'There is still a long way to go, we have not succeeded in fully cleaning up our air yet,' she added. 'These types of policies help ensure we are moving in a positive direction.'
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sanders warns of authoritarianism after Trump deploys national guard to LA
Bernie Sanders warned of the US's slide into authoritarianism following Donald Trump's decision to deploy the national guard to Los Angeles over the city's protests against federal immigration raids. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, the leftwing Vermont senator said: 'We have a president who is moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism … My understanding is that the governor of California, the mayor of the city of Los Angeles did not request the national guard but he thinks he has a right to do anything he wants.' Sanders, and many others, have long warned for the potential risk to American democracy that Trump represents in his second term. Since returning to the White House Trump has roiled American politics and civic life with numerous actions including attacking universities, slashing government spending and firing tens of thousands of employees and rolling back the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Sanders added: 'He is suing the media who criticizes him. He is going after law firms who have clients who were against him. He's going after universities that teach courses that he doesn't like. He's threatening to impeach judges who rule against him. And he's usurping the powers of the United States congress. This guy wants all of the power. He does not believe in the constitution. He does not believe in the rule of law.' Pointing to the Republican-led House and Senate, Sanders went on to say that the future of the US 'rests with a small number of Republicans in the House and Senate who know better, who do know what the constitution is about'. 'It's high time they stood for our constitution and the rule of law,' Sanders said. His latest interview comes after widespread backlash from California leaders towards Trump's decision to deploy 2,000 California national guards to respond to the immigration protests. Trump's decision came at the objection of California governor Gavin Newsom, who called it 'purposefully inflammatory.' 'The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles – not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle,' Newsom said, adding: 'Don't give them one.' Over the weekend, Los Angeles has been rocked by widespread protests in response to the Trump administration's draconian immigration raids against migrant communities. Trump's deployment of the national guard marks the first time a US president wielded such power since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles over the brutal beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist, by four white police officers who were acquitted.