Opinion ID: 6499237
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: conclusion

Text: ¶71 The petitioners bring us two nondelegation claims supported by a proposal for how we should analyze nondelegation questions going forward. I do not endorse a broader nondelegation framework at this time because doing so is unnecessary to resolve the claims before us. 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. I also conclude the petitioners' claim that Dane County Ordinance § 46.40(2) violates local nondelegation principles fails because the ordinance does not delegate, or redelegate as the dissent frames it, legislative power at all. ¶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.53 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.54 While such briefing is 53 See majority/lead op., ¶¶38-39 (relying on historical evidence from Wisconsin's founding era). 54 See Halverson, 395 Wis. 2d 385, ¶¶22, 24. 17 No. 2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.bh 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.55 55 James, 397 Wis. 2d 517, ¶62 (Hagedorn, J., concurring). 18 Nos. 2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb ¶73 REBECCA GRASSL BRADLEY, J. (dissenting). 'Law is the ultimate science,' Paul quoted. Thus it reads above the Emperor's door. I propose to show him law. Frank Herbert, Dune 284 (Penguin Books 2016) (1965). ¶74 Our republic and our state were founded on the fundamental idea that the people possess inherent rights, they form governments for the primary purpose of protecting those rights, and governments may exercise only those powers the people consent to give them.1 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. ¶75 This case involves the power to make the rules by which the people will be bound, a power the people have entrusted to state and local legislatures alone. Not surprisingly, when the people consented to submitting to the rules that will govern society, they carefully 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. 1Echoing the Declaration of Independence, the people of Wisconsin enshrined these first principles in the first section of the first article of our state constitution: All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Wis. Const. art. I, § 1. 1 Nos. 2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others. . . . And when the people have said, We will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by such men, and in such forms, no body else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can the people be bound by any laws, but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen, and authorized to make laws for them. The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands. . . . . The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to any body else, or place it any where, but where the people have. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government §§ 141–42 (C.B. McPherson ed. 1980) (1690). ¶76 The majority misunderstands first principles and ignores the plaintiffs' principal and most persuasive argument. In Article IV, Section 22 of the Wisconsin Constitution, a section the majority/lead opinion2 and the concurrence both cite but once in passing references,3 the people of Wisconsin Wis. 2 Sup. Ct. IOP III.G.5 (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[.]'). The plaintiffs' main brief cites Article IV, Section 22 of 3 the Wisconsin Constitution so many times, the table of authorities does not provide specific page numbers for each instance in which it is cited, instead using the phrase, passim. The majority/lead opinion instead focuses on Article IV, Section 1 (which vests all legislative power in the senate and assembly). The plaintiffs' main brief cites that clause on a single page. Justice Brian Hagedorn complains the petitioners do not analyze the original meaning of this provision but he 2 Nos. 2021AP1343 & 2021AP1382.rgb authorized the state legislature to delegate certain powers to county boards. That section states, [t]he 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. Wis. Const. art. IV, § 22. The original public meaning of this text, as confirmed by the historical record, reflects the founders' recognition of the non-delegation principle, on which the constitutional framers' vesting of separate powers in each branch was based. Because the people decide who may create the laws that will bind them, those to whom power has been delegated may not give it away. 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. See infra Part II. ¶77 This court has long held the Wisconsin Constitution does not permit county boards of supervisors to subdelegate lawmaking power. Although Article IV, Section 22 authorizes the initial delegation from the legislature to the county boards, the constitution does not authorize any subdelegation. Accordingly, this court has declared unconstitutional a statute enacted by the legislature authorizing a county board to delegate to the electors of the county a power by the Constitution expressly delegated to the county board itself. fails to undertake the analysis at all. Discerning original meaning requires hard work but is an essential element of our