Both the health and economy of Wisconsin are viscerally intermixed in the decision the Wisconsin Supreme Court has to make after hearing the lawsuit by Republican legislators against the administration of Governor Tony Evers over the series of “Safer-at-Home” executive orders protecting citizens against COVID-19.
Yet a week after the Supreme Court met in Madison and took the cases of lawyers, they still had not let their decision be known, and perhaps haven’t even come to a determination yet.
“It is hard to read into the timing, and it’s hard to read what happened at the oral arguments last week,” said Republican Strategist & President of Edge Messaging Brian Fraley on WTMJ’s Steve Scaffidi Show Wednesday. He expected the decision to come down Wednesday morning.
“You can’t really tell what the justices are thinking just by the questions they’re asking or by how long it’s taking for them to reach their formal decisions. There are a couple cases going on, and they may want to dispose of both of them at the same time. That might explain what people view as a delay.”
As for the decision itself, Fraley explains that the decision won’t necessarily be linear – meaning that it won’t be one way or the other. It could have multi-dimensional nuance to it.
“When they come out with their decision, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take place right away,” said Fraley. “They can issue a stay. They could say ‘Effective June 1st.’ They could say whatever they want.”
And after the decision comes down, Fraley says the Democrats and Republicans will have to do something which has been often perceived as a severe challenge: Work together to figure out how to balance protecting the health of citizens while improving a dramatically-recessed economy due to coronavirus.
“You read the results of the Marquette poll…the overwhelming majority of Wisconsin support Safer-at-Home to this point,” said Fraley.
“I don’t think we’ll see a dramatic opening…I don’t think most of the Republicans want that either. They do want most of the state open most of the way. I think there will have to be a compromise between the administration and the legislature to see that happen. I think a smart way to go would be to let the service industries and retailers of all sizes open up – not at some arbitrary five-person (limit), but let’s ease into larger crowds by saying ‘OK, 20 or 25 percent of your fire code occupational capacity, how many people can you have in there?’ and slowly build it from there.”
