The very lives of Wisconsinites hang in the balance of a pending case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as Republicans are putting money before the lives of the people.
On April 16, Wisconsin Tony Evers extended the Safer at Home Order (think stay at home) until May 26, due to a new increase in the daily count of COVID-19 cases. With the extension of the order came such things as the closing of schools for the remainder of the school year and guidelines for the easement of the order which closely parallel those issued by Trump.
Major corporate lobbying groups like Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce and Wisconsin Tavern League had a conniption and started putting pressure on their bought and paid for servants, Republican legislators.
In turn, the Republicans, led by Robin "Full PPE" Vos and Scott "I'm running for Congress" Fitzgerald, had their own conniption fit and filed a lawsuit directly with the special interest-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court. The basis of their argument is that the COVID-19 cases are leveling off and that most people don't like the order.
Both arguments are, of course, false.
Wisconsin is currently seeing a spike in new cases every day. The leading causes for this are the increased cases in meatpacking plants (one in Green Bay is already over 500 infected people), nursing homes and other front line care giving sites and yes, the forced in-person elections on April 7 - over 52 cases have already been tied directly to the elections. And that's just in Milwaukee County.
As far as public support, it's squarely with Evers. A Marquette University poll shows that a whopping 86% of Wisconsinites support the order. Imagine that, people don't want to needlessly die for someone else's bottom line.
I'm afraid that things don't bode well for the people. On Tuesday, four unions - the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, Madison Teachers Inc., SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 - filed to intervene in the case. Within hours, the Supreme Court offhandedly denied this request with no explanation.
One would think that the Court would want to hear from the people that would suffer irreparable harm if the order is lifted, but obviously the special interests that own the Court doesn't agree. I guess it would hurt their case too much.
Later on Tuesday, Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a response to the lawsuit, pointing out the simple fact that dropping the order would irresponsibly endanger public safety.
But even if the Republicans do win, it seems unlikely they will see the desired results. A helluva lot of people, led by the unions, are saying they will refuse to go back to work - even if it means losing their unemployment insurance - or patronize non-essential stores that reopen before its safe. In other words, even if the Republicans do win, it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best.
