MILWAUKEE — As we approach the new year, you will hear more about Wisconsin’s Supreme Court as another big, and likely bitter, election approaches in April.
The results could once again flip the ideological balance of the court. Right now, although technically nonpartisan, liberal-leaning justices have a narrow 4-3 majority.
However, it’s not all about polarization. Productivity has made headlines, too.
Alan Ball, a history professor at Marquette University, runs a blog in his spare time focused on Wisconsin’s high court. His latest analysis found the total number of decisions issued in Minnesota and Iowa was more than six times the output of Wisconsin in the most recent term.
“The most striking conclusion, by far, is the sharp drop in the number of cases this past term going all the way down to 14 that in recent years they were filing plus or minus say 50 cases, decisions a term,” Ball explained.
If you take a short look around Ball’s office, you will quickly realize he is not a lawyer. A professor of Russian and Soviet history, his SCOWstats blog on the state Supreme Court started as a hobby about 15 years ago after some encouragement from his wife, who is an appellate lawyer.
Though Ball’s analysis is now the spotlight, he struggles to find an answer for the drop in decisions.
“It only takes three justices to accept a case,” Ball said. “You don’t need a majority to decide that they are going to accept a case, and so even the three conservatives could accept more if they wanted to.”
That has led to another theory by some in the legal field: Could big cases crowd out the smaller ones? Ball also dismisses that idea.
“There have been plenty of other major cases in the history of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and in those years, the justices managed to file far more decisions than 14. In fact, the Act 10 case, that’s obviously much in the news—10 years ago when that came out obviously, that was a major case—lots of parties, lots of motions, and the justices still managed to file 61 decisions that year,” Ball said.
Some wonder if there are not enough compelling cases for the justices to hear, but Ball doesn’t believe that to be the case.
“While it is true the Court of Appeals has been issuing fewer decisions and thus fewer cases, potentially, coming to the justices and that there are fewer petitions for review compared to, say, several years ago, still there are hundreds available, and I don’t think any appellate lawyer in Wisconsin would argue that there were only 14 petitions for review that deserved Wisconsin Supreme Court attention,” Ball added.
Ball said he will wait and see what happens in the next term before jumping to any conclusions. With several pending cases, Wisconsin justices are already on track to issue more rulings this term than in the previous one.