Patrick Marley

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - Republican legislators have taken the first steps to hire private attorneys at taxpayer expense to fight a lawsuit challenging lame-duck laws that limit the power of Democratic officials and curtail early voting.

Top lawmakers signed off Thursday on hiring lawyers without knowing what it would cost. Two GOP leaders — Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and Senate President Roger Roth of Appleton — now will decide which attorneys to hire and how much to pay them to fend off a lawsuit filed last week.

The move comes on top of a plan approved last week by Assembly leaders that would give Vos carte blanche to hire attorneys for other potential lawsuits.

Separately, Vos has refused to release a legal contract in an unrelated case that is expected to cost taxpayers at least $850,000.

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Under the latest plan, Republican lawmakers can hire their own attorneys to defeat a lawsuit brought by liberal groups seeking to invalidate the lame-duck laws that curbed the powers of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul. The laws were passed in December after Evers and Kaul won their November elections but before they were sworn in last week.

The lawsuit — brought in Dane County court last week by the League of Women Voters, Disability Rights Wisconsin and Black Leaders Organizing for Communities — contends the laws are invalid because of the way lawmakers convened their session.

Roth rejected that notion and said it was important to have attorneys who can defend lawmakers now that those suing the state have asked to put the lawsuit on a fast track.

"The Senate and Assembly have the right to meet and conduct business as they see fit," Roth said in a statement. "Given the amended filing by liberal special interests, the Legislature took action to make sure the body is represented through this new expedited timeline."

Lawmakers passed the laws at a time when they weren't scheduled to be on the floor by calling themselves into what's known as an extraordinary session. The practice has been used for decades, but those challenging the laws contend such sessions are improper because they're not provided for in state laws or the state Constitution.

Nonpartisan attorneys for the Legislature say such sessions are allowed because courts have found lawmakers get to decide for themselves how they conduct their business.

Members of the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted on party lines Thursday to intervene in the case and put Vos and Roth in charge of hiring attorneys.

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Republicans leaders did not say who they might hire or what they would pay them.

Democrats ripped the plan.

"How many more millions of dollars are Republicans going to waste on outside attorney fees? Rather than handing a blank check to law firms we should be investing in schools, roads and health care," tweeted Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling of La Crosse.

The Republicans on the committee who approved the plan were Vos, Roth, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau, Sen. Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke of Kaukauna and Rep. Mary Felzkowski of Irma.

The Democrats voting against it were Shilling, Sen. Janet Bewley of Mason, Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz of Oshkosh and Rep. Dianne Hesselbein of Middleton.

To intervene in the case, Republicans are using a provision of the lame-duck laws that gives legislative entities the automatic right to insert themselves into cases when statutes are challenged in court.

By voluntarily getting involved in the lawsuit, legislators would likely give up legal immunity that ordinarily protects them from lawsuits. Without immunity, the lawmakers could be forced to turn over documents or sit for depositions.

Separately, Republicans on the Assembly Organization Committee approved giving Vos even broader authority to hire attorneys. That measure, approved on party lines last week by the committee, “authorizes the Legislature to hire any law firms, entities or counsel deemed necessary for services related to the matter of the December 2018 extraordinary session of the Legislature."

Those attorneys will report to Vos and no one else.

Vos spokeswoman Kit Beyer did not say how an Assembly committee could approve hiring attorneys for both houses of the Legislature and have them report to Vos but not senators.

As the state's new attorney general, Kaul is charged with defending the state in the lawsuit. He has been critical of the lame-duck laws and did not say Thursday what he thought of lawmakers intervening in the case.

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The intervention could be the first of many.

There is separate legal action challenging the limits on early voting included in the lame-duck laws and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin on Wednesday filed a suit challenging the state's abortion laws.

GOP lawmakers could use provisions of the lame-duck laws to try to intervene in those cases.

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