WISCONSIN BLUE BOOK 1985-1986


   "Wisconsin", said the court in Stitt, "has long followed
this general rule".
 For instance, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held in 1891 (McDonald v. State,
80
 Wis. 407, 411-412) that "no inquiry will be permitted to ascertain
whether the two
 houses have or have not complied strictly with their own rules in their
proce-
 dure on the bill, intermediate its introduction and final passage".
   In 1923, in State v. P. Lorillard Co., 181 Wis. 347 (at page 372), the
question
 was:
    .... whether sec. 13.06, [1921] Stats., which required the legislature
to refer appropriation
    bills to the joint committee on finance before passage, meant that such
bills had to be
    referred by each house before final passage. This court, in rejecting
the argument that
    each house had to refer the proposal, pointed out that there was no constitutional
re-
    qurement involved and moreover, that the statute as written did not require
reference by
    each house. This court stated: "This is a question of policy for
legislative, not judicial,
    determination."
    Similarly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 1968, in Outagamie
 County v. Smith, 38 Wis.2d 24, 41, that:
       This court will not interfere with the conduct of legislative affairs
in the absence of a
    constitutional mandate to do so or unless either its procedures or end
result constitutes a
    deprivation of constitutionally guaranteed rights. Short of such deprivations
which give
    this court jurisdication, recourse against legislative errors, nonfeasance
or questionable
    procedure is by political action only.
    In only one case, State ex rel. General Motors Corp. v. Oak Creek, 49
Wis.2d 299, 329 (1971), had the Wisconsin Supreme Court ever implied that
a
statute might be invalid because the Legislature failed to comply with the
mandate of a legislative procedure rule expressed as a statute. Said the
court
in the Stitt case (at page 368):
    .... Because this dicta is inconsistent with the uniform holding of prior
Wisconsin cases
    and the general rule which limits a court's authority to invalidate legislation
only for
    constitutional violations, we withdraw this language in the Oak Creek
case and expressly
    disavow any implication that this court will invalidate legislation when
it finds the legis-
    lature has violated a procedural statutory provision in passing an act.
    Judicial reluctance to inquire into legislative adherence to legislative
rules
must not be misunderstood. Clearly, it does not mean that a legislature need
not comply with its own rules. It merely means that the courts will not force
a
legislature to observe its own rules of procedure (unless failure to observe
the
rule violates a constitutional requirement).
   When Section 8 of Article IV of the Wisconsin Constitution provides that
"each house may determine the rules of its own proceedings" it
not only
grants to the Wisconsin Legislature a power to make rules, but also places
on
the Legislature itself the burden of seeing that the rules are observed.

Legislative rules not subject to lawmaking initiative
   On December 14, 1983, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
ruled, in Paisner v. Attorney General, 458 N.E.2d 734 (Mass. 1983) that the
constitutional power of each house of the legislature (in Massachusetts,
"General Court") is "unicameral" and distinct from the
legislature's "bicam-
eral" power to make a law.
   Not decided was the question of whether the people could have used the
power of initiative to amend the constitution itself. In rescinding to the
peo-


106