Title: Jeffrey Becker v. Dane County
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 2021AP001382, 2021AP001343
State: Wisconsin
Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Date: May 2, 2023

2023 WI 36
 
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This order is subject to further 
editing and modification.  The 
final version will appear in the 
bound volume of the official 
reports.   
 
 
 
No.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382 
 
 
Jeffrey Becker, Andrea Klein and A Leap Above 
Dance, LLC, 
 
          Plaintiffs-Appellants, 
 
     v. 
 
Dane County, Janel Heinrich and Public Health 
of Madison & Dane County, 
 
          Defendants-Respondents. 
 
FILED 
 
May 2, 2023 
 
Sheila T. Reiff 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
Madison, WI 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Court entered the following order on this date: 
 
¶1 
The court having considered plaintiffs-appellants-
petitioners Jeffrey Becker, Andrea Klein, and A Leap Above Dance, 
LLC's motion for reconsideration;  
¶2 
IT IS ORDERED that the motion for reconsideration is 
denied without costs. 
 
 
No.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.bh 
 
2 
 
¶3 
BRIAN HAGEDORN, J.   (concurring).  The motion for 
reconsideration does not meet our standards; I join the court's 
order denying it.1  I write separately to address the petitioners' 
suggestion 
that 
my 
"text-and-history" 
approach 
to 
the 
nondelegation challenge in this case was novel, and they should 
have the opportunity to brief it.   
The petitioners challenged a statutory scheme with roots 
dating back to the first laws enacted after the adoption of the 
Wisconsin Constitution.  Early legislative enactments are 
obviously relevant to the original understanding of the Wisconsin 
Constitution.2  Indeed, scholarship surrounding the nondelegation 
doctrine looks at precisely this kind of evidence to determine the 
scope of judicially-enforceable nondelegation principles.3   
                                                 
1 The dissent spends many pages in the hopes of relitigating 
this case, raising arguments new and old.  It does not, however, 
accurately represent the arguments I made in my concurrence in the 
underlying case.  But the nature of this motion does not demand a 
re-airing of the legal issues; therefore, I will not do so.   
2 See Serv. Emps. Int'l Union, Local 1 v. Vos, 2020 WI 67, 
¶64, 393 Wis. 2d 38, 946 N.W.2d 35 ("Early enactments following 
the adoption of the constitution are appropriately given special 
weight . . . because these enactments are likely to reflect the 
original public meaning of the constitutional text."). 
3 As the movants are no doubt aware, there is a significant 
scholarly debate over these matters.  Some have argued that little 
historical evidence supports some of the more robust theories of 
nondelegation.  See, e.g., Julian Davis Mortenson & Nicholas 
Bagley, Delegation at the Founding, 121 Colum. L. Rev. 277 (2021); 
Nicholas R. Parrillo, A Critical Assessment of the Originalist 
Case Against Administrative Regulatory Power:  New Evidence from 
the Federal Tax on Private Real Estate in the 1790s, 130 Yale L.J. 
1288 (2021); Christine Kexel Chabot, The Lost History of Delegation 
at the Founding, 56 Ga. L. Rev. 81 (2021).  Other scholars have 
argued that history reflects general agreement about nondelegation 
No.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.bh 
 
3 
 
It is true that some have attempted to propound a kind of 
general theory to govern nondelegation challenges.  But as I 
explained in my concurrence, there is no need to resort to a 
judicially-created all-purpose test if history provides sufficient 
assistance.  Analyzing the historical record to assess how specific 
nondelegation 
claims 
may 
have 
been 
understood 
should 
be 
uncontroversial.  This is particularly important here because the 
dangers of judicial usurpation are great.  Justice Scalia has 
suggested that where possible, the rule of law should be a law of 
rules.4  A nondelegation framework that is ill-defined or too 
abstract runs the risk of operating simply as a means by which 
judges find whatever they're predisposed to find.  If a general 
framework is appropriate, it should offer reasonable clarity, and 
always be subject to a case-specific check rooted in an honest, 
faithful inquiry into the original understanding of the Wisconsin 
Constitution. 
In this case, the petitioners asked us to revise our approach 
to nondelegation questions, but they did not present an originalist 
case for their proposed rule rooted in the relevant history.  That 
failure is not a good reason to give them another opportunity to 
do so now.  I respectfully concur. 
                                                 
as a principle, even if its precise contours were subject to debate 
and not particularly consistent.  See, e.g., Ilan Wurman, 
Nondelegation at the Founding, 130 Yale L.J. 1490 (2021).   
4 See Antonin Scalia, The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules, 56 
U. Chi. L. Rev. 1175 (1989).   
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
4 
 
¶4 
REBECCA GRASSL BRADLEY, J.   (dissenting).   
I like bats much better than bureaucrats.  I live in the 
Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin."  The greatest 
evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" 
that Dickens loved to paint. . . .  [I]t is conceived 
and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in 
clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by 
quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and 
smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their 
voices.  Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is 
something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the 
office of a thoroughly nasty business concern. 
C.S. Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters 3–4 (1961) (1942). 
¶5 
The people of Wisconsin protected themselves from the 
evils of bureaucracy by ratifying a constitution under which only 
elected officials, directly accountable to the voters, could 
prescribe or proscribe the activities of the people.  In this case, 
the four members of the majority effectively amended the 
constitution to ordain a fourth branch of government, although the 
people never agreed to be governed by it.1  The damage done to the 
constitutional separation of powers is bad enough, but in order to 
rubber stamp the diktats of the bureaucrats, the majority also 
bastardized history.  The petitioners highlighted the error in 
their motion for reconsideration, but the majority refuses to admit 
its mistake, much less correct it.  Such acknowledgement may 
embarrass the majority, but better the majority endure some 
mortification than the people suffer an affront to their liberty. 
¶6 
The petitioners argue two grounds for reconsideration.  
First, the petitioners seek an opportunity to brief Justice Brian 
                                                 
1 Becker v. Dane County, 2022 WI 63, 403 Wis. 2d 424, 977 
N.W.2d 390. 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
5 
 
K. Hagedorn's novel approach to analyzing the nondelegation 
doctrine.  As the petitioners explain, neither this court nor the 
United States Supreme Court has ever resolved a nondelegation issue 
using this method, nor did any member of this court join the 
concurrence 
proposing 
it. 
 
While 
the 
first 
basis 
for 
reconsideration 
is 
grounded 
in 
the 
justices' 
different 
philosophical approaches to constitutional law, the second basis 
for reconsideration highlights a fundamental error contaminating 
the majority's entire analysis.  Although neither party——nor any 
of the seven amici——even mentioned it, the majority heavily relied 
on an 1849 statute as supposed historical evidence of the 
legislature delegating extraordinarily broad rulemaking authority 
to a single, unelected public-health official.  The majority 
omitted from its analysis the pivotal portion of that statute, 
under which the legislature purported to delegate the power to 
promulgate public health orders to elected officials.  Nothing in 
the statute authorized unelected bureaucrats to order the people 
do anything.  As the petitioners point out, the majority was dead 
wrong.   
¶7 
While the majority's oversight is troubling, its current 
obstinacy is unjustifiable.  "To err is human, and judges are 
nothing if not human[.]"  Bartlett v. Evers, 2020 WI 68, ¶202, 393 
Wis. 2d 172, 945 N.W.2d 685 (Kelly, J., concurring/dissenting); 
see also State ex rel. Ekern v. Zimmerman, 187 Wis. 180, 196, 204 
N.W. 803 (1925) ("Perfection is an attribute solely of the Supreme 
Ruler of the universe[.]").  The availability of reconsideration 
represents a judicial recognition of our own fallibility.  By 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
6 
 
rejecting this motion for reconsideration, the majority does "more 
damage to the rule of law" than by "admit[ting] [its] error[.]"  
State v. Roberson, 2019 WI 102, ¶49, 389 Wis. 2d 190, 935 
N.W.2d 813 (quoting Johnson Controls, Inc. v. Emps. Ins. of Wausau, 
2003 WI 108, ¶100, 264 Wis. 2d 60, 665 N.W.2d 257).  In doing so, 
the majority endorses revisionist history, eroding a bedrock on 
which civilized society rests——truth.  I dissent. 
I.  THE MAJORITY'S ERROR IN BECKER 
The majority's rejection of the nondelegation principle 
relied heavily on its selective reading of an 1849 statute.  That 
statute's first section stated: 
The justices of the peace of every town, the president 
and trustees of every incorporated village, and the 
mayor and aldermen of every incorporated city in this 
state, shall be boards of health, and as such shall 
exercise all the powers, and perform all the duties 
provided in this chapter, within the limits of the towns, 
villages, and cities respectively, of which they are 
such officers. 
Wis. Rev. Stat. ch. 26, § 1 (1849).  Neither the majority/lead 
opinion2 nor Justice Hagedorn's concurrence acknowledged this 
section 
(i.e., 
they 
"overlooked" 
it), 
which 
defined 
the 
composition of a local board of health.  Critically, all members 
of such local boards were elected officials, directly accountable 
to the people.  The reasoning of both opinions depends on other 
sections of the statute, which the majority misconstrued to grant 
                                                 
2 Wis. S. Ct. IOP III.G.4 ("If . . . the opinion originally 
circulated as the majority opinion does not garner the vote of a 
majority of the court, it shall be referred to in separate writings 
as the 'lead opinion[.]' "). 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
7 
 
unelected local boards significant rulemaking authority.  See 
infra Parts II, IV.  
¶8 
Because neither the majority/lead opinion nor the 
concurrence seemed to notice the first section of the 1849 statute, 
the majority mistakenly assumed that members of local boards of 
health were unelected bureaucrats.  Only by ignoring the first 
section of the 1849 statute could the majority (erroneously) 
conclude that broad delegations of rulemaking authority to 
bureaucrats do not offend the Wisconsin Constitution, as 
originally understood.  The 1849 statute——to the extent it has any 
relevance——actually stands for the opposite proposition:  the 
constitution does not permit delegations of legislative authority 
to unelected bureaucrats.  To the extent the statute delegated any 
rulemaking authority, duly elected officials were the only 
permissible delegees.  The statute declared that members of local 
boards "shall be" elected officials; bureaucrats could not serve 
on those boards.  See Wis. Rev. Stat. ch. 26, § 1 (1849). 
 
¶9 
In section 2, the 1849 statute distinguished between 
local boards of health and local public health officers, 
reinforcing that the powers of the two were purposefully kept 
separate: 
Every board of health may take such measures and make 
such rules and regulations, as they may deem most 
effectual for the preservation of the public health, and 
for that purpose may appoint a physician, who shall be 
the health officer of the territory within the 
jurisdiction of the board, and who shall hold his office 
during their pleasure; they may also appoint so many 
persons to aid them in the execution of their powers and 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
8 
 
duties, as they think proper, and shall regulate the 
fees and charges of every person so employed by them. 
Id. § 2.  While the 1849 statute may have given rulemaking 
authority to local boards, it cannot fairly be read to have granted 
any such authority to health officers, who performed an executive, 
not legislative, function.  The legislature statutorily authorized 
local boards to "make such rules and regulations, as they may deem 
most effectual for the preservation of the public health[.]"  Id.  
The legislature did not so authorize health officers.  See id.  
Section 3 permitted local boards——not health officers——to 
implement orders, and section 4 declared that the local boards——
not health officers——had to first publish those orders for them to 
be enforceable.  Id. §§ 3–4.  A health officer who tried to make 
law unilaterally and then enforce it acted without authority.  As 
the petitioners explain in their motion for reconsideration, "this 
statute['s plain language] does not provide any support whatsoever 
for the proposition that the power to issue enforceable 
restrictions can be delegated to a single, unelected official at 
the local level.  If anything, it cuts the other way."   
¶10 The majority misunderstood the historical context in 
which the 1849 statute existed.  For decades after the statute's 
enactment, "local boards of health and appointment of [local 
public-]health officers were optional."  Wis. Legis. Council, 
Staff Report to the Public Health Committee on Public Health 
Services 14 (1960).  Much to the medical profession's lament, local 
boards were generally found only in large cities.  William C. 
Rives, The Importance and Essential Needs of Local Boards of 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
9 
 
Health, 13 JAMA 403, 403 (1889).  According to an 1883 report, "in 
more than one [Wisconsin] town where Small Pox made its appearance 
it spread solely because there was no one authorized to take the 
prompt and efficient measures that the emergency demanded[.]"  
State Bd. of Health, Annual Report of 1882 102 (1883).  A similar 
report a few years later explained: 
Local Boards . . . have long had a legal existence in 
the State of Wisconsin, certain officials elected for 
other purposes having by the statutes been declared to 
be also Boards . . . .  As a matter of fact, however, 
these Boards, though invested with ample powers, have, 
except in a very few of the larger cities, seldom had 
more than a nominal existence, have rarely ever 
met . . . , have more rarely appointed Health Officers, 
and have practically almost wholly ignored their duties 
as guardians of Public Health. 
State Bd. of Health, Biennial Report for the Period from Nov., 
1882 to Sept. 30, 1884 27 (1885).  After smallpox devastated 
Wisconsin in the early 1880s, the legislature responded by enacting 
a law mandating the formation of local boards.  Wis. Legis. 
Council, Staff Report to the Public Health Committee on Public 
Health Services, at 14–15. 
¶11 The legislative history of the 1883 statute reveals a 
serious policy concern with unelected bureaucrats serving on local 
boards of health.  The 1882 report contains a copy of the bill as 
first introduced; it had been prepared by the State Board of 
Health.  The bill stated, in relevant part: 
Section 1.  Every town board, village board, or common 
council of every town, village or city in this state 
shall hereafter, within thirty days after each annual 
election, organize themselves into a Board of Health, or 
shall appoint from their own members or otherwise, a 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
10 
 
suitable number of competent persons, who shall organize 
by the election of a chairman and clerk, and exercise 
all the powers and perform all the duties of a Board of 
Health in and for such town, village or city:  provided, 
that no special health department shall have been 
established or constituted by the charter or other act 
of incorporation of any such town, village or city.  And 
every board of health organized, appointed or elected 
under the provisions of this act . . . . 
State Bd. of Health, Annual Report of 1882, at 104 (emphasis 
added).  Ostensibly, this bill would have authorized bureaucrats 
to serve on local boards; however, the legislature removed the 
emphasized language, maintaining the historical requirement that 
all members of local boards must be elected officials.  See § 1, 
ch. 167, Laws of 1883.   
¶12 The majority's failure to fully consider the 1849 
statute is particularly striking given the central role it played 
in the decision.  Appendix 1 reproduces the instances in which it 
was cited or discussed.  Also noted are instances in which members 
of the majority advanced the theory that the 1849 statutes are 
especially important.  Appendix 1 illustrates the significance of 
the 1849 statute to the court's decision, especially for Justice 
Hagedorn——whose vote was necessary to uphold the validity of orders 
issued by local health officials.  Also evident in Appendix 1, 
despite extensive discussion of the statute by all members of the 
majority, none of them mentioned the first section of the statute—
—only sections 2 through 4. 
II.  THE CONCURRENCE'S ANALYTICAL ERRORS 
¶13 In his concurring opinion, Justice Hagedorn placed 
substantial, if not controlling, emphasis on the 1849 statute.  He 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
11 
 
wrote, "[t]hese 1849 statutes offer significant evidence of 
original understanding in this case."  Becker v. Dane County, 2022 
WI 63, ¶65, 403 Wis. 2d 424, 977 N.W.2d 390 (Hagedorn, J., 
concurring); see also id., ¶39 (majority/lead op.) ("[T]he 
original understanding of our constitution's separation of powers 
was that the constitution allows grants of broad public health 
authority to local governments substantively similar to that 
delineated in Wis. Stat. § 252.03.").  He continued: 
Our earliest statutes provide particularly important 
evidence 
of 
how 
the 
Wisconsin 
Constitution 
was 
originally understood.  The Revised Statutes of 1849 
were written and adopted by legislators who observed or 
participated in the constitutional convention first 
hand.  Shortly after it convened, Wisconsin's first 
state legislature quickly created a commission to assist 
in drafting our first statutes.  The commission's task 
was to compile and recommend an initial set of laws based 
upon territorial rules and practice, omitting those that 
were obsolete, as well as those repugnant to the newly 
drafted constitution.  The commission's recommendations 
were then debated and voted on by the legislature, 
ultimately creating the Revised Statutes of 1849. 
Id., 
¶62 
(Hagedorn, 
J., 
concurring); 
see 
also 
id., 
¶38 
(majority/lead 
op.) 
("Bolstering 
our 
conclusion 
that 
the 
substantive nature of Wis. Stat. § 252.03 and Dane County Ordinance 
§ 46.40 do not upset our constitutional separation of powers is 
founding-era grants of similar public health authority to local 
governments.  Wisconsin's first state legislature saw no conflict 
between the constitution's separation of powers and the grant of 
broad public health authority to local governments.").  For 
support, Justice Hagedorn cited a secondary source, a book on 
Wisconsin legal history by Attorney Joseph A. Ranney.  In addition 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
12 
 
to misinterpreting the statute by neglecting to consider its first 
section, Justice Hagedorn also misunderstood how the revised 1849 
statutes were created.  Neither primary sources nor Attorney 
Ranney's 
findings 
support 
Justice 
Hagedorn's 
analytical 
foundation. 
¶14 The 1849 Assembly Journal contains a report from the 
committee on revision, which compiled the revised 1849 statutes.  
This report chronicles the struggles of the committee, which felt 
overworked.  Expressing concern, it wrote: 
The act authorizing the election of commissioners to 
revise the laws seems to contemplate that they should 
suggest in writing, by reports or notes accompanying the 
acts 
revised, 
the 
contradictions, 
omissions, 
or 
imperfections which might appear therein, and the mode 
in which the same might be reconciled, supplied, or 
amended, and their reasons for advising the repeal of 
any act which in their judgment ought to be repealed.——
With this provision the commissioners have been wholly 
unable to comply.  It must be obvious that the 
performance of such a labor would consume much time[.] 
J. 2d Sess. Assemb. State Wis. 788–89 (1849) (emphasis added).  
The early legislature was similarly overworked, so it generally 
deferred to the committee.  See Joseph A. Ranney, Trusting Nothing 
to Providence:  A History of Wisconsin's Legal System 76 (1999) 
("[T]he commissioners were a legislature unto themselves:  their 
revisions to the laws were subject to legislative approval but 
ultimately were adopted largely intact."); W. Scott Van Alstyne, 
Jr., Land Transfer and Recording in Wisconsin:  A Partial History—
—Part I, 1955 Wis. L. Rev. 44, 54 (explaining the committee's 
drafts "met some opposition" but that "a comparison of the 
legislative result with the final drafts confirms the notations in 
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13 
 
[a committee member]'s diary that the drafts finally passed with 
amazingly few amendments of any significance"). 
¶15 Attorney Ranney, on the same page Justice Hagedorn 
cited, explained: 
The commissioners met in the late summer of 1848 and 
soon realized that the task was too big for them alone.  
The 1839 codification of territorial laws eased their 
task somewhat, but the large body of laws enacted since 
1839 had to be compiled and organized.  In addition, 
existing statutes failed to cover many important areas 
of the law and filling in the gaps was a huge task. 
The commissioners decided to concentrate first on laws 
essential to the basic administration of the state.  By 
January of 1849, they had prepared code sections 
covering the organization of state and local government, 
taxes, transportation, public health, corporations, and 
trade and commercial regulation.  The 1849 legislature 
adopted these laws largely without change and appointed 
a 
special 
legislative 
committee 
to 
help 
the 
commissioners with their remaining work. 
Ranney, Trusting Nothing to Providence, at 76.  The 1849 statute 
was based primarily on a territorial law (under a system of 
government with a different separation of powers) and appears to 
have been adopted by the legislature prior to the formation of the 
special legislative committee, which was created to assist the 
committee on revision.  See Wis. Stats. p. 125 (1839).  Attorney 
Ranney's work is hardly an endorsement of using the revised 1849 
statutes 
as 
a 
guidepost 
to 
constructing 
the 
Wisconsin 
Constitution's original meaning. 
¶16 Justice Hagedorn also erred by failing to consider other 
sources of original meaning.  "We may look to 'three primary 
sources in determining the meaning of a constitution provision:  
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14 
 
[1] the plain meaning, [2] the constitutional debates and practices 
of the time, and [3] the earliest interpretations of the provision 
by the legislature, as manifested through the first legislative 
action following adoption.' "  Black v. City of Milwaukee, 2016 WI 
47, ¶54, 369 Wis. 2d 272, 882 N.W.2d 333 (Rebecca Grassl Bradley, 
J., concurring) (quoting Dairyland Greyhound Park, Inc. v. Doyle, 
2006 WI 107, ¶19, 295 Wis. 2d 1, 719 N.W.2d 408 (modifications in 
the original)).  "The ordering of these sources reflect[s] their 
legal weight, i.e., plain meaning is most important while early 
statutory enactments are least indicative."  Becker, 403 Wis. 2d 
424, ¶105 n.18 (Rebecca Grassl Bradley, J., dissenting) (citation 
omitted).  Justice Hagedorn barely considered plain meaning or the 
constitutional debates, focusing almost exclusively on an early 
statutory enactment while ignoring the very statutory provision 
that undercuts the majority's analysis altogether. 
III.  RECONSIDERATION STANDARDS 
¶17 To the extent this court reflexively denies this (or any 
other) reconsideration motion based on its nonbinding internal 
operating procedures (IOPs), the court errs.  Wisconsin Stat. 
§ (Rule) 
809.64 
(2019–20) 
states, 
"[a] 
party 
may 
seek 
reconsideration of the judgment or opinion of the supreme court by 
filing a motion under s. 809.14 for reconsideration within 20 days 
after the date of the decision of the supreme court."  No rule of 
appellate procedure specifies the criteria this court should 
consider when determining whether to grant a motion for 
reconsideration.  This court's IOPs provide some guidance.  Part 
III, Section J notes, in relevant part: 
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15 
 
Reconsideration, in the sense of a rehearing of the case, 
is 
seldom 
granted. 
 
A 
change 
of 
decision 
on 
reconsideration will ensue only when the court has 
overlooked controlling legal precedent or important 
policy considerations or has overlooked or misconstrued 
a controlling or significant fact appearing in the 
record.  A motion for reconsideration may result in the 
court's issuing a corrective or explanatory memorandum 
to its opinion without changing the mandate. 
Wis. S. Ct. IOP III.J.  This statement, however, is not 
controlling.  The introduction to the IOPs notes the IOPs "are not 
rules of appellate procedure."  Id. at Intro.  The introduction 
also declares, "[i]t should be reemphasized that these are not 
rules.  They do not purport to limit or describe in binding fashion 
the powers or duties of any Supreme Court personnel."  Id. 
(emphasis added).  The IOPs do not contemplate a majority of the 
court committing a serious error of the sort permeating its 
analysis in this case, and the non-exhaustive examples of grounds 
for reconsideration contained in non-binding IOPs do not constrain 
the court from correcting its mistakes.  Declaring that "policy 
considerations" warrant reconsideration, but grievous errors in 
pronouncing the law do not, would be an extraordinary position 
indeed for the state's highest court to take.  "The court should 
have the courage to correct its own mistakes.  The motion for 
reconsideration affords the court this opportunity."  Collison v. 
City of Milwaukee Bd. of Rev., No. 2018AP669, unpublished order, 
at 5 (Aug. 16, 2021) (Roggensack, J., dissenting from the denial 
of the motion for reconsideration). 
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16 
 
IV.  THE MAJORITY'S FOUNDATIONAL ERRORS COMPEL RECONSIDERATION 
¶18 The majority's misapplication of the 1849 statute 
overlooked the text's dispositive distinction between elected 
officials and unelected bureaucrats, an axiom of early Wisconsin 
government.  To reject the distinction is to equate a technocracy 
with a democratic republic.  "What is a republican government?  
There is or can be but one answer to the question.  It is a state 
in which the exercise of the sovereign power is lodged in 
representatives elected by the people."  J. B. Jillson, An 
Abolitionist Subscriber's Views (1847), reprinted in The Struggle 
over Ratification, at 639, 640 (Milo M. Quaife ed., Wis. Hist. 
Soc'y 1920); see also Gundy v. United States, 588 U.S. __, 139 
S. Ct. 2116, 2134 (2019) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) ("Restricting 
the task of legislating to one branch characterized by difficult 
and deliberative processes was also designed to promote fair notice 
and the rule of law, ensuring the people would be subject to a 
relatively stable and predictable set of rules.  And by directing 
that legislating be done only by elected representatives in a 
public process, the Constitution sought to ensure that the lines 
of accountability would be clear:  The sovereign people would know, 
without ambiguity, whom to hold accountable for the laws they would 
have to follow.").  Indirect accountability (i.e., a bureaucrat's 
accountability to elected officials who are in turn accountable to 
the people) is no substitute for direct accountability.  See Clean 
Wis., Inc. v. Wis. Dep't of Nat. Res., 2021 WI 72, ¶56, 398 
Wis. 2d 433, 
961 
N.W.2d 611 
(Rebecca 
Grassl 
Bradley, 
J., 
dissenting) 
("The 
people 
never 
imparted 
any 
power 
on 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
17 
 
administrative bureaucrats insulated from any democratic oversight 
by the people.").   
¶19 The nondelegation principle is firmly rooted in 
Wisconsin's history as well as the structure of the constitution.  
"The people have a right to expect and demand at the hands of their 
representatives a full and fair discharge of their duties.  Elected 
by their votes for the attainment of specified and well-known 
objects, their powers are limited and they are acting in the 
capacity of agents and cannot transcend instructions."  Selections 
from the Milwaukee Courier:  Views of a "Democrat" (1846), 
reprinted in The Struggle over Ratification, at 196, 196 (Milo M. 
Quaife ed., Wis. Hist. Soc'y 1920).  The very process by which 
bureaucrats make decisions is distinct from the approach of elected 
officials (at least those who would like to continue serving).  "A 
'technocratic' approach to government 'drains public discourse of 
substantive moral argument and treats ideologically contestable 
questions as if they were matters of economic efficiency, the 
province of experts.' "  Becker, 403 Wis. 2d 424, ¶147 (quoting 
Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit:  What's Become of the 
Common Good 20 (2020)).   
¶20 This 
distinction 
is 
ingrained 
in 
the 
Wisconsin 
Constitution, and early pronouncements of the nondelegation 
principle exist in this court's precedent.  Well over a century 
ago, this court unequivocally stated that "the power to make the 
law cannot be delegated to any board or body not directly 
responsible to the people."  State ex rel. Adams v. Burdge, 95 
Wis. 390, 404, 70 N.W. 347 (1897) (emphasis added).  The 
Nos.  2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb 
 
18 
 
majority/lead opinion in Becker never addressed Burdge, and 
Justice Hagedorn stated in his concurrence that "Burdge supports 
the conclusion that the authority to issue local health orders may 
be conferred by the legislature on local health official," 
exhibiting his failure to apprehend the distinction between 
elected officials and unelected bureaucrats.  See Becker, 403 
Wis. 2d 424, ¶66 (Hagedorn, J., concurring).   
¶21 More recently, in a case analogous to Becker, the court 
thrice noted that Secretary-Designee Andrea Palm was an unelected 
bureaucrat in its majority opinion striking down her safer-at-home 
order as an unlawful exercise of power.  Wisconsin Legislature v. 
Palm, 2020 WI 42, ¶1, 391 Wis. 2d 497, 942 N.W.2d 900 ("This case 
is about the assertion of power by one unelected official, Andrea 
Palm, and her order to all people within Wisconsin to remain in 
their homes, not to travel and to close all businesses that she 
declares are not 'essential' in Emergency Order 28."); id., ¶24 
("If we were to read the definition of 'Rule' as Palm suggests, 
one person, Palm, an unelected official, could create law 
applicable to all people during the course of COVID-19 and subject 
people to imprisonment when they disobeyed her order."); id., ¶28 
("Rulemaking exists precisely to ensure that kind of controlling, 
subjective judgment asserted by one unelected official, Palm, is 
not imposed in Wisconsin."  (citation omitted)).  My concurrence 
in that case expounded upon this distinction:  "As a general 
principle, it is the duty of the legislature to create the law, 
and any delegation of lawmaking responsibility to administrative 
agencies . . . must be carefully circumscribed in order to avoid 
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the people being governed by unelected bureaucrats."  Id., ¶78 
(Rebecca Grassl Bradley, J., concurring); see also Tavern League 
of Wis., Inc. v. Palm, 2021 WI 33, ¶17, 396 Wis. 2d 434, 957 
N.W.2d 261 
(lead 
op.) 
("Rulemaking 
'ensure[s] 
that . . . controlling, subjective judgment asserted by one 
unelected official' is not imposed by agencies through the 
abandonment of rulemaking procedures."  (quoting Palm, 391 
Wis. 2d 497, ¶28 (majority op.) (modifications in the original))); 
Gymfinity, Ltd. v. Dane County, No. 2020AP1927-OA, unpublished 
order, at 3 (Wis. Dec. 21, 2020) (Roggensack, C.J., dissenting) 
("[W]hen it is presented to us that fundamental personal liberty 
is suppressed by an unelected official, we must act.").  The 
majority in Becker never addressed Palm; not a single member of 
the majority in this case joined the majority in Palm, and three 
of them dissented from it.  E.g., Becker, 403 Wis. 2d 424, ¶136 
(Rebecca Grassl Bradley, J., dissenting) ("The majority silently 
overrules Palm, a decision from which three members of the majority 
in this case sharply dissented.  Only a change in court membership 
enables the current majority to discard this quite recent 
precedent.").  
¶22 To the extent the 1849 statute has relevance, it lends 
historical credence to the dissent I authored in Becker.  See, 
e.g., id., ¶74 ("Under our state constitution, the people of 
Wisconsin authorized particular elected officials to exercise 
power over them.  But the people never consented to that power 
being given away."); id., ¶75 ("Not surprisingly, when the people 
consented to the rules that will govern society, they carefully 
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confined the exercise of such awesome power to those whom they 
elect.  Should others attempt to rule over the people, their 
actions are beyond the law, even if they bear the imprimatur of a 
legislative body.  Legislators have no power to anoint legislators; 
only the people do."); id., ¶76 ("The people adopted an exception 
permitting the legislature to delegate lawmaking power to county 
boards (the members of which are elected), but those local 
governmental entities may not give the power to anyone else."); 
id., ¶77 ("The constitution does not give the Dane County Board of 
Supervisors any authority to empower a single, unelected 
bureaucrat to restrict the liberty of the people of Dane County."); 
id., ¶108 ("Burdge goes on to explain the authority the legislature 
may confer on local boards (not unelected bureaucrats)[.]"); id., 
¶128 ("If the lawmakers may not re-delegate their delegated power 
even to the people, it is logically impossible for county boards 
to redelegate their delegated power to an unelected bureaucrat."); 
id., ¶133 ("This duty becomes imperative when governmental actors 
conspire to collapse the carefully calibrated separation of powers 
among the three branches in favor of consolidating power in a 
single, unelected bureaucrat."); 
id., ¶147 ("The majority 
displaces the constitutional design for the exercise of lawmaking 
power with a 'technocracy' the majority favors."  (citation 
omitted)).  Substantial precedent reinforces the difference 
between the constitutional exercise of power by elected officials 
and the unlawful exercise of power by unelected bureaucrats.  See 
id., ¶¶118–32 (summarizing many cases). 
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¶23 The majority owns its error; neither the parties nor any 
of the seven amici briefed the statutory history on which the 
majority relied.  Some members of the majority have warned us of 
the detrimental consequences of violating the party presentation 
principle.  See, e.g., Town of Wilson v. City of Sheboygan, 2020 
WI 16, ¶78, 390 Wis. 2d 266, 938 N.W.2d 493 (Hagedorn, J., 
concurring) ("I believe we would be best served by adversarial 
briefing and argument.  A full hearing on the merits of this 
important issue would help ensure that we are not missing anything 
and that the consequences of our decision are fully fleshed out 
beforehand.").  The consequences in this case are particularly 
grave because the majority tampered with the very constitutional 
structure of the government.  When judges conduct independent 
historical research without the benefit of adversarial briefing, 
they have an obligation to use the sources they find "faithfully," 
which necessarily requires judges to thoroughly review them.  
Skylar Reese Croy & Alexander Lemke, An Unnatural Reading:  The 
Revisionist History of Abortion in Hodes v. Schmidt, 32 U. Fla. J. 
L. & Pub. Pol'y 71, 81 (2021).  Citing historical sources out of 
context is antithetical to the originalist approach.  Id.   
¶24 The 
denial 
of 
the 
motion 
for 
reconsideration 
demonstrates at least some members of the majority never cared 
about a legitimate historical inquiry into the meaning of the 
Wisconsin Constitution.  Justice Hagedorn claimed in his 
concurrence that "[r]egardless of judicial philosophy, every 
member of this court is interested in . . . what the historical 
evidence reveals about the text."  Becker, 403 Wis. 2d 424, ¶72 
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(Hagedorn, J., concurring).  If that were true, the majority would 
correct its blatant error. 
V.  CONCLUSION 
¶25 "This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples 
of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing 
when one story too many is added."  Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 
319 U.S. 157, 181 (1943) (Jackson, J., separate op.).  In Becker, 
the majority added a fictional story to the already disintegrating 
temple of the nondelegation principle.  The majority is happy with 
the result its story produced, so it denies this motion for 
reconsideration without explanation.  The majority's errors injure 
the constitutional separation of powers as well as this court's 
reputation.  Although the oversight in Becker may have been an 
honest mistake, today's denial is not.  I dissent.3 
                                                 
3 The majority/lead opinion and the concurrence are replete 
with other examples of poor statutory history analysis.  As just 
one example, the majority/lead opinion truncated a quote from a 
1919 enactment.  Below is the full section of the statute quoted 
in paragraph 17 of the majority/lead opinion, with strikethrough 
indicating the portions omitted from the quote: 
SECTION 1.  There is added to the statutes a new section 
to read:  Section 1411-5.  The local board of health of 
each township, incorporated village or city with the 
consent of the state board of health shall have power to 
establish quarantine and to order and execute what is 
reasonable and necessary for the prevention and 
suppression of disease; to forbid public gatherings when 
deemed necessary to control epidemics, and to condemn 
and abate conditions causative of disease by means of 
rules and regulations which shall be consistent with the 
state law and the rules and regulations prescribed by 
the state board of health.  
§ 1, ch. 159, Laws of 1919.  The struck-through portions of the 
statute indicate local boards of health could issue orders only 
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¶26 I am authorized to state that Chief Justice ANNETTE 
KINGSLAND ZIEGLER and Justice PATIENCE DRAKE ROGGENSACK join this 
dissent. 
Appendix 1:  Instances in Which the Majority/Lead Opinion or the 
Concurrence Cited or Discussed the 1849 Statute 
Paragraph/Footnote 
Reference 
Majority/lead op., 
¶164 
¶16 
Similarly, 
Wisconsin's 
first 
state 
legislature granted the local power to "take" 
measures "deem[ed] most effectual for the 
preservation 
of 
the 
public 
health."  
Importantly, 
this 
law 
distinguished 
the 
power 
to "take such measures" for the preservation 
of public health from the power to "make such 
rules and regulations" for the same purpose.  
See Wis. Stat. ch. 26, § 2 (1849).  That 
distinction 
indicates 
that 
"take 
such 
measures" included action not by rule or 
regulation but by order, as subsequent 
sections of that same law recognized.  See 
Wis. 
Stat. 
ch. 
26, 
§§ 3–4 
(1849) 
(differentiating between an "order" and a 
"regulation"). 
                                                 
with the express approval of the state board of health, which would 
seem to be a significant procedural safeguard.  The petitioners 
referenced the struck-through language in their reply brief, and 
they complain in their motion for reconsideration that the majority 
overlooked this language.  See Pet'rs Reply Br. at 6 ("Respondents 
cite a statute . . . which, they claim, gave local health officers 
'the power to order and execute what is reasonable and necessary 
for the prevention and suppression of disease.' . . .  The law 
they cite, however, applied to 'local board[s] of health'——not 
individual health officers——and any 'orders' required the 'consent 
of the state board of health.' "). 
4 This paragraph was joined by four justices. 
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Majority/lead op., 
¶38 
¶38 Bolstering our conclusion that the 
substantive nature of Wis. Stat. § 252.03 and 
Dane County Ordinance § 46.40 do not upset 
our constitutional separation of powers is 
founding-era grants of similar public health 
authority to local governments.  Wisconsin's 
first state legislature saw no conflict 
between the constitution’s separation of 
powers and the grant of broad public health 
authority to local governments.  The first 
state code enacted just months after our 
constitution's ratification authorized local 
boards of health the authority to "take such 
measures, 
and 
make 
such 
rules 
and 
regulations, as they may deem most effectual 
for the preservation of the public health."  
Wis. Stat. ch. 26, § 2 (1849).  A violation 
of board of health "order or regulation" 
constituted 
a 
criminal 
misdemeanor 
punishable by up to $100 (over $3,000 in 2022 
dollars) or three months in prison.  Wis. 
Stat. ch. 26, § 3 (1849). 
Majority/lead op., 
¶39 
¶39 We see two upshots from this original 
grant of public health authority to local 
governments. 
 
First, 
the 
original 
understanding 
of 
our 
constitution's 
separation 
of 
powers 
was 
that 
the 
constitution allows grants of broad public 
health 
authority 
to 
local 
governments 
substantively similar to that delineated in 
Wis. Stat. § 252.03.  And second, our 
constitution’s separation of powers also 
allows public health orders enforceable by 
criminal penalties that far exceed the civil 
citations 
authorized 
by 
Dane 
County 
Ordinance 
§ 46.40.  As such, Wis. Stat. § 252.03 and 
Dane 
County 
Ordinance 
§ 46.40 
do 
not 
substantively 
offend 
our 
constitution's 
separation of powers. 
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25 
 
Concurrence, ¶62 
¶62 
Our 
earliest 
statutes 
provide 
particularly important evidence of how the 
Wisconsin 
Constitution 
was 
originally 
understood.  The Revised Statutes of 1849 
were written and adopted by legislators who 
observed 
or 
participated 
in 
the 
constitutional 
convention 
first 
hand.  
Shortly after it convened, Wisconsin's first 
state 
legislature 
quickly 
created 
a 
commission to assist in drafting our first 
statutes.  The commission's task was to 
compile and recommend an initial set of laws 
based upon territorial rules and practice, 
omitting those that were obsolete, as well 
as those repugnant to the newly drafted 
constitution. 
 
The 
commission's 
recommendations were then debated and voted 
on by the legislature, ultimately creating 
the Revised Statutes of 1849. 
Concurrence, ¶63 
¶63 
These 
laws 
therefore 
have 
unique 
relevance to an analysis focused on the 
original understanding of the constitutional 
text.  This is particularly true when we find 
laws on the books today that either descended 
from these early statutes or do similar 
things.  When the constitutionality of such 
a law is challenged, the historical context 
provided by those early laws must weigh 
heavily in the analysis.  Does this mean 
these 1849 laws represent the final word on 
a statute's constitutionality?  No.  But 
unquestionably, they provide very strong 
evidence of the constitution's original 
understanding. 
Concurrence, 
¶63 
n.35 
State v. Beno, 116 Wis. 2d 122, 138, 341 
N.W.2d 668 (1984) ("[B]ecause the Revised 
Statutes of 1849 are the first of our 
statutes 
to 
be 
enacted 
following 
the 
constitution, it is reasonable to rely on 
those statutes as reflecting the practice 
when the constitution was adopted to assist 
our interpretation of a word used by the 
authors 
of 
the 
constitution 
in 
1848."  
(quoting another source)). 
Concurrence, 
¶63 
n.36 
We have long employed this interpretive 
technique in constitution interpretation.  
See State ex rel. Pluntz v. Johnson, 176 
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26 
 
Wis. 107, 
114–15, 
186 
N.W. 729 
(1922) 
(noting 
that 
a 
statute 
"first 
appeared 
in 
the . . . Revised Statutes of 1849" and 
concluding 
that 
it 
"amounts 
to 
contemporaneous legislative construction of 
this 
constitutional 
provision, 
which 
construction 
is 
entitled 
to 
great 
deference"); Payne v. City of Racine, 217 
Wis. 550, 558, 259 N.W. 437 (1935) (same); 
Buse v. Smith, 74 Wis. 2d 550, 572, 247 
N.W.2d 141 (1976) (noting the persuasive 
force of "the contemporaneous construction 
evidenced" a provision of the "Revised 
statutes of 1849"). 
Concurrence, ¶64 
¶64 One such 1849 statute is especially on-
point 
in 
this 
case. 
 
Chapter 
26 
in the 
Revised 
Statutes of 1849 was entitled "Of the 
Preservation of the Public Health."  That 
statute is significant for our purposes 
because it established local boards of health 
and gave them duties and responsibilities 
quite similar to the statutes challenged in 
this case.  In relevant part, the statute 
provided:  "Every board of health may take 
such measures, and make such rules and 
regulations, as they may deem most effectual 
for the preservation of the public health."  
It then provided that "every person who shall 
violate any order or regulation, made by any 
board of health . . . shall be deemed guilty 
of a misdemeanor, and punished by a fine not 
exceeding 
one 
hundred 
dollars, 
or 
by 
imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding 
three months."  In other words, not only did 
Wisconsin's first state government authorize 
local health authorities to issue orders, it 
criminalized the failure to follow those 
orders. 
Concurrence, 
¶64 
n.37 
Wis. Stat. ch. 26 (1849). 
Concurrence, 
¶64 
n.38 
Wis. Stat. ch. 26 (1849). 
Concurrence, 
¶64 
n.39 
Wis. Stat. ch. 26, § 2 (1849). 
Concurrence, 
¶64 
n.40 
Wis. Stat. ch. 26, § 3 (1849). 
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Concurrence, ¶65 
¶65 These 1849 statutes offer significant 
evidence of original understanding in this 
case.  When the Wisconsin Constitution was 
ratified, 
those 
participating 
in 
state 
government did not appear to understand the 
constitution 
to 
forbid 
giving 
local 
officials 
charged with protecting public health the 
authority to issue at least some orders of 
indeterminate 
character. 
 
Nor 
was 
it 
understood to be problematic if those orders 
were 
enforceable. 
 
That 
same 
general 
statutory authority has been amended and 
modified many times, but it continues in 
today's Wis. Stat. § 252.03.   If this 
arrangement on its face did not run afoul of 
the constitutional separation of powers in 
1849, it is hard to see why it would today.  
Whatever theoretical nondelegation framework 
may be found in the Wisconsin Constitution, 
this kind of empowerment of local health 
officials does not appear to violate it. 
Concurrence, 
¶65 
n.41 
See Wis. Stat. ch. 26, §§ 2, 3 (1849); Wis. 
Stat. ch. 32 §§ 2, 3 (1858); Wis. Stat. ch. 
57, §§ 1412, 1413 (1878); Wis. Stat. ch. 76e 
§ 1412 
(1921); 
Wis. 
Stat. 
§ 143.03 
(1923–24); 
Wis. Stat. § 252.03 (1993–94). 
Concurrence, 
¶71 
(third sentence) 
Based on the historical record, I conclude 
the 
legislature 
did 
not 
impermissibly 
delegate legislative power to local health 
officers by authorizing them to issue orders 
under Wis. Stat. § 252.03. 
Concurrence, ¶72 
¶72 I close with a word to litigants.  
Regardless of judicial philosophy, every 
member of this court is interested in what 
the text says and what the historical 
evidence reveals about the text.  Therefore, 
parties who come to us advancing legal 
theories 
grounded 
in 
the 
Wisconsin 
Constitution should make every effort to 
present arguments focused on the original 
understanding of our constitution.  While 
such briefing is always welcome, arguments 
of this type are especially helpful when 
analyzing 
novel 
claims 
or 
considering 
challenges to our precedent.  This is not a 
new invitation; it is made in earnest. 
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