A hearing to bar implementation of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill will go ahead today with or without state legislators named in an open meetings lawsuit filed Wednesday by Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne.

The legislators — Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon; Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau; Senate president Michael Ellis, R-Neenah; and Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford — enjoy legislative immunity under the state constitution, which protects them from arrest, criminal charges or civil process during a legislative session or within 15 days before and after a session.

Ozanne is seeking a temporary restraining order to bar publication of the budget repair bill by Secretary of State Doug La Follette, who is also named as a defendant in the case. Ozanne said after a brief status conference in the case on Thursday that Friday’s hearing can proceed because La Follette does not have immunity and has been served with the lawsuit.

Ozanne told Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi that he expects to call 16 to 20 witnesses. Sumi said that if Ozanne does not get through his witnesses today she will set a date to continue the hearing after she returns from a weeklong vacation on March 28. That means the hearing could end on Friday without a decision on the requested restraining order.

The lawsuit alleges that the public was not given sufficient notice of a meeting of a legislative conference committee on March 9 that altered the bill to strip out fiscal impacts and that the bill was improperly taken up by the committee because the state Senate had not passed a version of the bill. The lawsuit is asking that the bill, signed on Friday by Walker, be voided.

A hearing on Dane County’s lawsuit against the state over the budget repair bill, also scheduled before Sumi on Friday, could be delayed until after Sumi’s vacation if there isn’t time to hold it after Ozanne’s open meetings case is heard.