Major Shift in State Supreme Court Could Allow Unions to Wreak Havoc on Wisconsin’s Budget Once Again, Experts Say

Wisconsin Capitol Protest Union

A legal challenge could upend a long-standing Wisconsin law that has successfully balanced the budget at the expense of curbing public unions in the state, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Lawmakers passed the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, also known as Act 10, in 2011 in an effort to reduce the state’s budget deficit primarily by limiting the power of public unions to demand higher compensation and benefits that had come to be a drag on the state’s finances. A coalition of unions had their chance to argue starting on Tuesday to a Wisconsin judge that the law was unconstitutional, despite previous legal objections and the law’s success at solving key budgetary issues that had previously plagued the state, emboldened by a new liberal majority on the court that threatens to repeal the law, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

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