Wisconsin
State GOP lawmakers set to end session on abortion ban
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican legislators in Wisconsin were poised Wednesday to meet in a special session that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called to repeal the battleground state’s dormant abortion ban and quickly adjourn without taking any action.
Wisconsin adopted a ban on abortion except to save the mother’s life in 1849, a year after the territory became a state. The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that essentially legalized abortion nationwide in 1973 nullified the ban.
The court is expected to rule this month in a case that could end Roe v. Wade, which would allow Wisconsin’s ban to go back into effect. Evers on June 8 called the Legislature into a special session Wednesday to repeal the ban.
Republicans have blasted the move as a political stunt designed to please the Democratic base as Evers faces reelection in November. GOP leaders in the Assembly and Senate planned to gavel in to start the special session around noon Wednesday and then end it by gaveling out immediately.
The state ban will likely be challenged in court should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
One major question is how the ban would interact with a related state law passed in 1985 that prohibits abortions after the fetus has reached viability but has an exemption for women whose health could be endangered by continuing the pregnancy. Abortion-rights groups have argued for a broad interpretation of that exemption to include a woman’s emotional and mental health.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has said he thinks the 1849 law is too old to enforce. He has also said he will not investigate or prosecute doctors who perform abortions if the old law does take effect again.
Nation
Labor board takes Starbucks to court over alleged violations
The National Labor Relations Board is asking a federal court to order Starbucks to stop interfering with unionization efforts at its U.S. stores.
It’s the third time the board has filed a case in federal court against Starbucks since December, when a store in Buffalo, New York, became the coffee chain’s first location in decades to unionize. Since then, more than 289 U.S. stores have petitioned the NLRB to hold union elections and at least 151 stores have voted to unionize.
Starbucks opposes the unionization effort, saying its stores function better when it works directly with employees.
The NLRB’s regional director in Buffalo, New York, filed the petition Tuesday in U.S. District Court in western New York. It asks the court to order Starbucks to reinstate seven Buffalo employees it says were unlawfully fired for trying to form a union. It also seeks to force Starbucks to bargain with a store whose union election was allegedly tainted by Starbucks’ repeated anti-union activity.
But more broadly, the petition asks the court to order Starbucks to halt a variety of activities at all of its U.S. stores, including offering benefits to non-union stores, threatening reprisals for employees who support unionization, refusing to bargain with stores that have voted to unionize and temporarily or permanently closing stores.
Earlier this month, Starbucks announced plans to permanently close a store in Ithaca, New York, that had voted to unionize. Employees at the store said the company is retaliating for their labor activism. Starbucks, which operates 9,000 U.S. stores, said it opens and closes locations regularly and based its decision on staffing and other problems at the store.
In its petition, the NLRB alleged Starbucks committed numerous violations of U.S. labor law in Buffalo, including surveilling employees about unionization plans by listening in to conversations on their headsets, promising higher pay and better benefits if they didn’t unionize and interrogating them for wearing union pins.
A message seeking comment was left with Seattle-based Starbucks Corp. Tuesday.
Wisconsin
Election investigator appeals contempt order
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice hired by Republicans to investigate the 2020 election in Wisconsin has appealed a contempt ruling against him related to his response to an open records request and heated appearance in court.
Michael Gableman last week appealed the June 15 order from Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington fining Gableman $2,000 a day until he complies with open records requests from the liberal government watchdog group American Oversight. Remington, in a scathing order, also accused Gableman of unprofessional and misogynistic conduct related to his appearance in court earlier this month where he refused to answer questions and made sarcastic remarks about a female attorney.
Remington also forwarded his contempt order to the committee that disciplines attorneys for possible further action, including suspension or repeal of Gableman’s law license.
In his appeal filed Friday, Gableman argued that the penalties handed down were “grossly disproportionate to the violation.” His attorneys also argued that the judge was wrong to deny Gableman’s motion to adjourn the contempt hearing and to force him to testify without his attorney present.
His attorneys said the judge mistook Gableman’s refusal to testify at the June 10 hearing as his invoking Fifth Amendment rights. Gableman should not have been found in contempt, his attorneys argued.
Gableman has also been subpoenaed by American Oversight to appear at a Thursday court hearing in another open records case filed by the group. It has filed three open records lawsuits against Gableman, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who hired Gableman, and the Assembly.
American Oversight has won a series of victories before Remington and Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn.
Gableman, in his appeal, asked that the case be heard by a three-judge panel in Wisconsin’s 2nd District Court of Appeals, which is based in Waukesha.
American Oversight spokesman Jack Patterson said Tuesday that attorneys were still reviewing Gableman’s appeal, but “we are disappointed that Gableman is continuing to fight against the most basic forms of transparency.”
Gableman was hired a year ago by Vos, under pressure from Donald Trump to investigate the former president’s loss to President Joe Biden by just under 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. The investigation has cost taxpayers about $900,000 so far. Biden’s victory has survived two recounts, multiple lawsuits, a nonpartisan audit and a review by a conservative law firm.
Gableman has issued two interim reports, but his work has faced a barrage of bipartisan criticism. Vos put his work on hold this spring pending the outcome of lawsuits challenging his ability to subpoena elected officials and others who worked on elections.
