The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers were silent Thursday as state Sen. Jerry Petrowski, 29th District, talked to constituents nearby. Credit: Rick Wood

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Madison — The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld Gov. Scott Walker's signature labor legislation Thursday,delivering an election-year affirmation to the governor in one of the three major rulings issued by the justices on union bargaining, election law and same-sex couples.

In addition to ruling Walker's labor law constitutional, the state's highest court also upheld the state's voter ID law and a 2009 law providing limited benefits to gay and lesbian couples, leaving liberals with one consolation to soften the sting of the two larger conservative victories.

"Our courts have continued to give deference to our Legislature and in all three of these cases, that is what occurred. And that's very important, because after all, that is what democracy looks like," said GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, appropriating the slogan once chanted at the mass demonstrations against the union law.

The state court's decisions on the voter ID and domestic partner registry could still be overtaken by decisions in separate but related cases in federal court. But after more than three years of litigation, the court's seven justices on Thursday put to rest the last of the major legal disputes over Act 10, the 2011 law repealing most union bargaining for most public employees.

The decision was 5-2, with Justice Michael Gableman writing the lead opinion, which found that collective bargaining over a contract with an employer is not a fundamental right for public employees under the constitution. Instead, it's a benefit that lawmakers can extend or restrict as they see fit, he said.

"No matter the limitations or 'burdens' a legislative enactment places on the collective bargaining process, collective bargaining remains a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation. The First Amendment cannot be used as a vehicle to expand the parameters of a benefit that it does not itself protect," Gableman wrote.

Rejecting arguments made by the Madison teachers union and Public Employees Local 61, a group of city of Milwaukee employees, Gableman said that public employees still had the right to form unions to influence their employers, but government officials aren't obligated to listen to them.

"The plaintiffs remain free to advance any position, on any topic, either individually or in concert, through any channels that are open to the public," Gableman wrote.

He was joined by Justices David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler. Justice N. Patrick Crooks concurred, writing that as policy Act 10 was a mistake by Republicans but one allowed under the constitution. Dissenting were Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.

The state Supreme Court rulings Thursday, coming out just as this year's midterm elections heat up, were fraught with political implications.

Speaking to reporters at the Wisconsin State Fair opening in West Allis, Walker called the decision "a move on point" for the state. He said state and local governments had saved some $3 billion from Act 10, which ushered in cuts in benefits for public employees and changes to their insurance carriers, overtime rules and other cost-cutting moves.

"I'm happy for the taxpayers of this state," Walker said. "I think people by and large have seen — despite the hype and hysteria years ago — that it's worked."

It can be difficult to verify all of the savings that Republicans attribute to Act 10 because of gaps in the data among schools and local governments affected by the law. But in general the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been able to confirm a large majority of the savings touted by Walker.

As governor, Walker, a Republican, was one of the defendants in all of the cases. His re-election challenger, Democrat Mary Burke, serves on the Madison School Board, the employer of the teachers suing the state in the labor case.

In her own appearance at the State Fair, Burke said the court decisions didn't change the focus of the race on jobs and the economy. Burke has said she supported cuts to worker benefits made by Act 10, but she disagreed with Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, noting that workers have a right to retain collective bargaining.

"There's nothing about (collective bargaining) that stands in the way of having an effective, efficient, accountable government," she said.

Act 10 prohibited public workers from bargaining over anything except wages, ended the practice of automatic dues deduction from workers' paychecks and required challenging yearly votes for unions to remain certified. Since the law passed, many unions have lost their official status and seen their ranks of paid members thinned.

Lester Pines, a Madison attorney who represented the unions in the case, said the challenges to Act 10 have been effectively exhausted.

"The lawsuits are for the most part done," Pines said. "All of the other cases have failed. In light of what's happened in all the other cases, it doesn't look good."

The only remaining challenge to Act 10 is a lawsuit brought by the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association, which represents State Patrol troopers, state Capitol Police and University of Wisconsin police. The case of this state workers union is largely based on similar arguments to those that were made by Madison teachers and Milwaukee workers and rejected by the Supreme Court Thursday, said Sally Stix, an attorney for the association.

Stix said her client will decide over the coming week whether to go forward with the lawsuit, which was rejected by a Dane County judge and now sits before a state appeals court.

In his concurrence, Crooks wrote at length about the benefits of collective bargaining, quoting everyone from former Wisconsin Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob LaFollette to President Ronald Reagan and Pope Leo XIII. Crooks wrote that Walker could have negotiated with unions in 2011 to obtain the savings that he needed to balance the state budget.

"The damage to public employee unions due to Act 10 was unnecessary. It is a departure from Wisconsin's strong tradition," Crooks wrote.

But since he saw nothing in the law that was unconstitutional, Crooks said he was obligated to uphold it.

In her dissent, Bradley said that the majority opinion diluted public workers' constitutional right to freedom of association.

"The majority has opened the door for the state to withhold benefits and punish individuals based on their membership in disfavored groups," Bradley said.

Act 10 had also violated the constitutional right of local governments to rule their own affairs by prohibiting the City of Milwaukee from paying its workers' share of their pension contributions, Bradley wrote.

In March 2011, Walker and Republicans in the Legislature approved strict limitations on collective bargaining for most public workers, setting off an explosion of litigation. In the lawsuits by unions and others, Act 10 has suffered setbacks in trial courts but so far has been upheld on every appeal.

Like Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said he hoped the latest ruling would help the state move on from the fight over the union law, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators to the state Capitol in February and March 2011.

"After months of protests and costly recalls that Governor Walker, many of my Senate colleagues and I myself survived to retain control over the statehouse, I hope that this added legal victory can allow us to finally lay the fight surrounding Act 10 to rest," Fitzgerald said in a statement.

In this case, opponents filed several challenges to the law and Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colás in September 2012 found major portions of Act 10 unconstitutional. The state Supreme Court agreed to take the case last year without having the state District 4 Court of Appeals first rule on it.

The two sides have disputed whether Colás' ruling affected all public-sector unions or just the two that brought the case. As that fight played out, Colás ruled in October that because of his earlier decision, Walker's employment commissioners were in contempt of court for applying parts of Act 10 to other unions.

The Supreme Court held oral arguments in November on the case and 10 days later issued a 5-2 decision reversing the contempt-of-court order.

Thursday's decision addressed the merits of the case and upheld Act 10 in its entirety. The justices who came down in favor of Act 10 were the same ones who ruled against the contempt order.

This isn't the first time that a higher court has upheld Walker's union law.

The state Supreme Court ruled in June 2011 that lawmakers could easily avoid the state's open meetings law and did not violate that statute in passing the labor limits. And the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Act 10 in its entirety in two challenges in federal court.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters Jason Silverstein in West Allis and Patrick Marley in Madison contributed to this report.

What's next

In upholding Gov. Scott Walker's union law limiting collective bargaining for most public employees, the state Supreme Court effectively ended major litigation over the measure.