WISCONSIN BLUE BOOK 1997- 1998


of common schools, which was subordinate to the superintendent. Regarding
these legislative
acts that interpret Article X, Section 1, the court said:
    It is clear that the "other officers" were intended by the
framers of the constitution as
    subordinate officials, and that the power of supervision of public instruction
was not
    vested equally in the SPI and the "other officers." (696)
    Using the three recognized sources of constitutional interpretation,
the court concluded:
    Our review of these sources demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that
the office of
    state Superintendent of Public Instruction was intended by the framers
of the constitu-
    tion to be a supervisory position, and that the "other officers"
mentioned in the provision
    were intended to be subordinate to the state Superintendent of Public
Instruction. Be-
    cause the education provisions of 1995 Wis. Act 27 give the former powers
of the elected
    Superintendent of Public Instruction to appointed "other officers"
at the state level who
    are not subordinate to the superintendent, they are unconstitutional
beyond a reasonable
    doubt. (698-699)
  The court held that those provisions of 1995 Wisconsin Act 27 were void.
School Choice
  In Thompson v. Jackson, 199 Wis. 2d 715 (1996), the Wisconsin Supreme Court
was evenly
divided on the question of whether the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,
as amended to in-
clude sectarian schools, violated the state or federal constitution. (Justice
Bradley did not partici-
pate). Because the case was before the court as an original action pursuant
to a petition for re-
moval from the circuit court, the supreme court lifted the stay of proceedings
pending in the
circuit court and, thereby, continued the preliminary injunction enjoining
all portions of the
amended program until further order of the circuit court.
The 1995 Stadium Act
   1995 Wisconsin Act 56 authorizes the creation of local professional baseball
park districts that
are empowered to impose taxes to finance the construction and maintenance
of professional
baseball park facilities. The act authorizes a district to issue revenue
bonds for a portion of the
costs of building a professional baseball park stadium and to impose a district-wide
sales and use
tax to repay the bonds. Although the state is not obligated under the act
to repay the bonds, it
does have a nonbinding "moral obligation" to repay them under certain
circumstances.
  The Libertarian Party sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief
from the Wisconsin
Supreme Court in Libertarian Party of Wisconsin v. State of Wisconsin, 199
Wis. 2d 791 (1996).
It argued that the law violated provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution
that prohibit the state
from: 1) enacting special or private tax laws; 2) contracting state debt
without a public purpose;
3) participating in a work of "internal improvement"; and 4) pledging
the credit of the state. The
party also argued that the law violated constitutional provisions limiting
the amount of debt that
may be contracted by municipalities.
  In its declaratory judgment, the court upheld the constitutionality of
the act and denied injunc-
tive relief. The opinion discussed each of the constitutional issues, but
its analysis of the internal
improvements clause appears to be particularly significant. Article VIII,
Section 10, of the Wis-
consin Constitution generally provides that the state may not "contract
any debt for works of in-
ternal improvement, or be a party in carrying on such works." A number
of constitutional amend-
ments have been passed over the years creating exceptions to this clause,
including an exception
to permit the acquisition, improvement and construction of veterans' housing,
following a su-
preme court judgment in State ex rel. Martin v. Giessel, 252 Wis. 363 (1948)
that construction
of veterans' housing was a prohibited internal improvement, even though a
public purpose was
served. The supreme court held almost a half century before in State ex rel.
Jones v. Froehlich,
115 Wis. 32, 41-42 (1902) that the construction of levees was a prohibited
internal improvement
even though the projects would save lives and property, were within the police
power of the state
and would serve a public purpose.
  In deciding the stadium case the court did not expressly overrule the Froehlich
and Giessel
cases. However, it did seem to apply a different test in analyzing the internal
improvement issue:


570