- In other state news, the race for governor in Wisconsin is
already seeing a skirmish between the incumbent and a
Democrat in the running.
In tonight's capitol insight, we look at how Governor Scott
Walker won't let Democratic Superintendent of Public
Instruction Tony Evers have his own lawyer to represent him in a
lawsuit over how he runs his agency.
The governor wants the State Attorney General's office to
represent Evers, even though the justice lawyer
would argue against Evers. Hmm.
We are joined by WPR Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson to
sort this out. That is kind of a hmm.
- It is.
There's a lot of those in this case.
- But it is usual practice, as I understand it,
for the State Department of Justice lawyers to represent
agencies in lawsuits.
So what's different this time?
- What's different this time is that while the Department of
Justice is willing and is currently slated to represent
Tony Evers in this case, they think that the people suing him
essentially are right.
That is, they disagree with Tony Evers in this case.
And so they would be giving him representation,
but not the kind of representation he wants.
- Let me back up a little bit and say that Evers was sued by a
right-wing law group over not getting the Walker
Administration's signoff on implementation of rules within
the Department of Public Instruction.
That's a new requirement under state law.
But does it make a difference in this case in terms of this legal
representation and this signoff of these administrative rules
that Tony Evers is a Constitutional officer?
- Tony Evers would argue that it does.
That his powers are spelled out explicitly
in the state Constitution.
And it's not just him making that argument either.
The State Supreme Court issued a decision in 2016 in a very
similar case involving a new law that gave the governor more
power to veto rules from the Department of Public
Instruction.
And in that 4-3 decision, they said that, yes,
the Superintendent of Public Instruction has these powers and
that the governor can't restrict them.
- This is basically just a quagmire,
but what is really happening here is that the justice lawyers
would not argue Evers' side of this case.
- Right.
That's what it boils down to at this point.
And that's why you heard Tony Evers say this past week-- he
held a press conference where he had a message to his political
opponents, Governor Walker and I think Tony Evers called them his
hand-picked attorneys.
He said you're fired.
And here's what Tony Evers said about why.
- The governor doesn't get to choose his opponents on the
ballot and his opponents' lawyers in court.
I can't believe there's many, if any,
citizens in the state of Wisconsin that would feel
comfortable going to court knowing that the attorney that's
representing them actually represents the other side.
- So who does Tony Evers want as his lawyer?
- He wants his own lawyer, his lawyer within the Department of
Public Instruction, to represent him.
That's actually what happened when this case-- not this case,
but the similar case went through,
the one decided in 2016.
Tony Evers had an attorney from the Department of Public
Instruction represent him.
He wants to do that again.
The Department of Public Instruction was starting to
initiate that process this time, when Governor Walker's office
stepped in and said, no, the Department of Justice,
Brad Schimel's office, will represent you, Tony Evers.
- What else does the governor say on why he's doing this?
- The governor, when he was asked about the Tony Evers
situation, he basically came back to this message of Tony
Evers needs to follow the law.
That was the message that you heard over and over again from
Governor Walker.
So he was asked specifically, shouldn't Tony Evers have a
lawyer representing him who represents his cause,
who believes in his cause?
Here's what the governor had to say about that.
- You're entitled to a lawyer that represents everyone then.
The fact of the matter is that the Justice Department
represents all state agencies.
They're not conflicted out.
And so they're ultimately going to represent the state
in this case just like they would
for any other state agency or any other office.
- Politically speaking, are both sides now, Tony Evers,
who we've mentioned is a candidate,
a Democratic candidate running for governor,
of course incumbent Scott Walker who has announced that he's
running for reelection, are they both politicking on this now?
- It would seem like it.
We are less than a year from the next governor's race.
I think we should view everything that Tony Evers,
a candidate for governor, and Scott Walker,
a governor running for third term,
we should view everything they do through a political light.
So I think we're on safe ground there.
When this thing started out, you could argue that Wisconsin
Institute for Law and Liberty, the group bringing this lawsuit,
while it is consistent for them to want to restrict
administrative rule-making power from agencies,
they presented this as Tony Evers breaking the law, right?
Knowing that he's a candidate for governor.
Tony Evers is hitting back now saying I'm standing up
to Scott Walker.
He's fund-raising off of this pretty regularly
saying that he's in this fight with Scott Walker.
So he's using it to his advantage, too.
- Just super quickly, there's a thing that just happened on this
as well, another filing.
- Yeah, essentially the lawyers who represented teachers who
brought this case initially back in 2012 are asking that court to
revisit it again and stop Scott Walker from enforcing this.
So instead of dealing with it at the State Supreme Court,
they want to take it back into the Circuit Court system.
- We'll keep watching it.
Shawn, thanks very much.
- You're welcome.