Source: https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi/000229/000003
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 08:18:13+00:00

Document:
III,2(2) (2) Providing for registration of electors.
III,2(3) (3) Providing for absentee voting.
III,2(4)(a) (a) Convicted of a felony, unless restored to civil rights.
III,2(4)(b) (b) Adjudged by a court to be incompetent or partially incompetent, unless the judgment specifies that the person is capable of understanding the objective of the elective process or the judgment is set aside.
The requirement to present acceptable photo identification comes within the legislature's authority to enact laws providing for the registration of electors under Article III, Section 2 because acceptable photo identification is the mode by which election officials verify that a potential voter is the elector listed on the registration list. League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network, Inc. v. Walker, 2014 WI 97, 357 Wis. 2d 360, 851 N.W.2d 302, 12-0584.
Disenfranchisement of felons does not deny them equal protection. Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24.
Even rational restrictions on the right to vote are invidious if they are unrelated to voter qualifications. However evenhanded restrictions that protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process itself are not invidious. An Indiana statute requiring citizens voting in person on election day, or casting a ballot in person at the office of the circuit court clerk prior to election day, to present photo identification issued by the government did not violate constitutional standards. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181, 128 S. Ct. 1610, 170 L. Ed. 2d 574 (2008).
IV,1 Legislative power. Section 1. The legislative power shall be vested in a senate and assembly.
The supreme court declined to review the validity of the procedure used to give notice of a joint legislative committee on conference alleged to violate the state open meetings law. The court will not determine whether internal operating rules or procedural statutes have been complied with by the legislature in the course of its enactments and will not intermeddle in what it views, in the absence of constitutional directives to the contrary, to be purely legislative concerns. Ozanne v. Fitzgerald, 2011 WI 43, 334 Wis. 2d 70, 798 N.W.2d 436, 11-0613.
IV,2 Legislature, how constituted. Section 2. The number of the members of the assembly shall never be less than fifty-four nor more than one hundred. The senate shall consist of a number not more than one-third nor less than one-fourth of the number of the members of the assembly.
IV,6 Qualifications of legislators. Section 6. No person shall be eligible to the legislature who shall not have resided one year within the state, and be a qualified elector in the district which he may be chosen to represent.
IV,7 Organization of legislature; quorum; compulsory attendance. Section 7. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members; and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide.
IV,8 Rules; contempts; expulsion. Section 8. Each house may determine the rules of its own proceedings, punish for contempt and disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members elected, expel a member; but no member shall be expelled a second time for the same cause.
Courts have no jurisdiction to review legislative rules of proceeding, which are those rules having “to do with the process the legislature uses to propose or pass legislation or how it determines the qualifications of its members." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. DOA, 2009 WI 79, 319 Wis. 2d 439, 768 N.W.2d 700, 07-1160.
IV,9(1)(1) Each house shall choose its presiding officers from its own members.
IV,10 Journals; open doors; adjournments. Section 10. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings and publish the same, except such parts as require secrecy. The doors of each house shall be kept open except when the public welfare shall require secrecy. Neither house shall, without consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days.
IV,12 Ineligibility of legislators to office. Section 12. No member of the legislature shall, during the term for which he was elected, be appointed or elected to any civil office in the state, which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which shall have been increased, during the term for which he was elected.
IV,14 Filling vacancies. Section 14. The governor shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies as may occur in either house of the legislature.
IV,15 Exemption from arrest and civil process. Section 15. Members of the legislature shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest; nor shall they be subject to any civil process, during the session of the legislature, nor for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session.
The members of the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention did not intend to create a legislative privilege from criminal arrest and prosecution when they included article IV, section 15 in the Wisconsin Constitution. The phrase “treason, felony and breach of the peace" in that section was intended to mean all crimes. State v. Burke, 2002 WI App 291, 258 Wis. 2d 832, 653 N.W.2d 922, 02-2161.
IV,16 Privilege in debate. Section 16. No member of the legislature shall be liable in any civil action, or criminal prosecution whatever, for words spoken in debate.
Not all activities of a legislator are protected by this section insofar as that activity is not an integral part of the deliberative and communicative processes. While legislative acts are protected by the speech and debate clause, political acts are not. Hiring, directing, and managing legislative caucus staff to oversee political campaigns is not protected. By its very nature, engaging in campaign activity is political. State v. Chvala, 2004 WI App 53, 271 Wis. 2d 115, 678 N.W.2d 880, 03-0442.
See also State v. Jensen, 2004 WI App 89, 272 Wis. 2d 707, 684 N.W.2d 136, 03-0106.
This section provides only immunity from prosecution based on use of communications, and not secrecy for communications of government officials and employees. Legislative Technical Services Bureau Custodian of Records v. State, 2004 WI 65, 272 Wis. 2d 208, 680 N.W.2d 792, 02-3063.
IV,17(1)(1) The style of all laws of the state shall be “The people of the state of Wisconsin, represented in senate and assembly, do enact as follows:".
IV,17(2) (2) No law shall be enacted except by bill. No law shall be in force until published.
The enacting clause is not required for each particular statute. According to legislative rule, when an act, or part of an act, creates a statute section number, that action indicates a legislative intent to make the section a part of the Wisconsin Statutes. Hence, because the legislature can intend that only a part of an act creates a statute, it does not follow that each statute must contain all the constituent parts of an act, namely, the enabling clause. State v. Weidman, 2007 WI App 258, 306 Wis. 2d 723, 743 N.W.2d 854, 06-2168.
In order for the legislature to create a law, the proposed law must be enacted by bill. Mere enactment of a bill to ratify a collective bargaining agreement and publication of it as an act was not sufficient to cause a provision of the collective bargaining agreement to become a law enacted under this section to create an exception to the public records law, s. 19.35. The act did not reference s. 19.35 or the contract provision that purportedly modified that law, did not purport to amend any published statutes, and did not contain any language that might give notice that the statute was being amended. As a result, the contract provision was not enacted by bill and remained a contractual provision and was not a “law" that is an exception to s. 19.35. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. DOA, 2009 WI 79, 319 Wis. 2d 439, 768 N.W.2d 700, 07-1160.
Under certain circumstances, incorporation by reference in a bill may be effective to work a change in the law. Cases recognizing incorporation by reference have generally dealt with incorporating the provisions of other published statutes and with the establishment of standards by reference, not incorporation of sources being given the force of law. The source being incorporated cannot be a law itself without having been enacted in a manner sufficient to satisfy this section. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. DOA, 2009 WI 79, 319 Wis. 2d 439, 768 N.W.2d 700, 07-1160.
In order for the legislature to create a law, the proposed law must be enacted by bill and be published. For some action to be sufficient to constitute publication, that action must be evaluated in light of the purpose publication seeks to achieve, i.e., was the public provided with sufficient notice of the law that is being enacted or amended. The publication requirement is meant to avoid the situation where the people have their rights sacrificed by the operation of laws that they are bound to know, but have no means of knowing. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel v. DOA, 2009 WI 79, 319 Wis. 2d 439, 768 N.W.2d 700, 07-1160.
This section vests the legislature with the constitutional power to “provide by law" for publication. The legislature has set the requirements for publication. If a court can intervene and prohibit the publication of an act, the court determines what shall be law and not the legislature. If the court does that, it does not in terms legislate but it invades the constitutional power of the legislature to declare what shall become law. This a court may not do. Ozanne v. Fitzgerald, 2011 WI 43, 334 Wis. 2d 70, 798 N.W.2d 436, 11-0613.
Article VII, sec. 21  requires full text publication of all general laws, and publication of an abstract or synopsis of such laws would not be sufficient. Methods other than newspaper publication, under 985.04, may be utilized to give public notice of general laws. 63 Atty. Gen. 346. See also s. 14.38 (10).
IV,18 Title of private bills. Section 18. No private or local bill which may be passed by the legislature shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.
A 2-prong analysis for determining violations of this section is discussed. City of Oak Creek v. DNR, 185 Wis. 2d 424, 518 N.W.2d 276 (Ct. App. 1994).
Courts will not afford legislation challenged under this section a presumption of constitutionality unless the record shows that the legislature adequately considered the legislation in question. When a majority of the members of the Assembly co-sponsored a single-subject bill exempting YMCAs from property taxation before the measure was added to the budget bill and a majority of senators either co-sponsored the stand-alone bill or considered and voted for the proposal as members of the Joint Finance Committee, there was a presumption that the legislators who sponsored the bill or voted for it in committee adequately considered the proposal. Lake Country Racquet and Athletic Club, Inc. v. Morgan, 2006 WI App 25, 289 Wis. 2d 498, 710 N.W.2d 701, 04-3061.
IV,19 Origin of bills. Section 19. Any bill may originate in either house of the legislature, and a bill passed by one house may be amended by the other.
IV,20 Yeas and nays. Section 20. The yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question shall, at the request of one-sixth of those present, be entered on the journal.
The taking of yea and nay votes and the entry on the journals of the senate and assembly can be complied with by recording the total aye vote together with a listing of the names of those legislators who voted no, were absent or not voting or were paired on the question. Art. V, sec. 10; Art. VIII, sec. 8; Art. XII, sec. 1 discussed. 63 Atty. Gen. 346.
IV,22 Powers of county boards. Section 22. The legislature may confer upon the boards of supervisors of the several counties of the state such powers of a local, legislative and administrative character as they shall from time to time prescribe.
Milwaukee county may, by ordinance, provide credit in a retirement system for service of an employee with another municipality. 61 Atty. Gen. 177.
Abolishing the office of town assessor in those counties adopting a countywide assessor system does not amount to the creation of a different system of town government. Thompson v. Kenosha County, 64 Wis. 2d 673, 221 N.W.2d 845.
Only enactments that unnecessarily interfere with the system's uniformity in a material respect are invalidated by this section. Classifications based upon population have generally been upheld. State ex rel. Wolf v. Town of Lisbon, 75 Wis. 2d 152, 248 N.W.2d 450.
Wisconsin Constitution updated by the Legislative Reference Bureau. Published March 29, 2019. Click for the Coverage of Annotations for the Annotated Constitution. Report errors at 608.504.5801 or lrb.legal@legis.wisconsin.gov.

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