Madison - A Dane County judge's ruling striking down many limits on collective bargaining for public workers will likely be appealed quickly and could go straight to a showdown on a divided, but often conservative-leaning state Supreme Court.
What is less clear is whether the state's highest court will repeat last year's decision when the justices restored the collective bargaining law after it had been struck down following a very different challenge.
Last year's case required the justices to decide whether lawmakers violated the open meetings law when they passed the collective bargaining measure, but the current case "is much more fundamental," said Janine Geske, a former state Supreme Court justice, now a distinguished professor of law at Marquette University.
Geske said the prior case looked at the process followed, while Friday's ruling by Judge Juan Colas focuses on whether the law violated the constitutional rights of people who belong to unions - a question likely to have broad repercussions.
"Can you treat non-represented employees differently than employees represented by a union?" Geske said, citing one of the issues raised in Colas' ruling. "That impacts school boards all over the state."
Geske said that despite the state court's political tilt, it could defy expectations just as the U.S. Supreme Court did in upholding most of President Barack Obama's health care reform law.
"I do think you could have a very different decision because the issues are very different," Geske said. "Yes, I think it's going to be a split on the court, but you never know. . . . All you need is one justice to look at it differently to have a different result."
Others, however, suspect a repeat of last year's 4-3 ruling from the court. A four-justice bloc on the court often tilts conservative on major issues.
"It wouldn't be too surprising if this decision were to face a frosty reception from the conservatives on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court," said Paul M. Secunda, an associate professor at Marquette University Law School.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has, on occasion, defied expectations, Secunda said Wisconsin's highest court appears less inclined to do so. "This is not a court," he said, "that instills a great deal of faith in people who want to see a nonpartisan, deliberative process take place."
The latest turn in Gov. Scott Walker's bid to end most collective bargaining for state and local workers came when Colas threw out many of the provisions put in place amid historic protests last year.
The law, known as Act 10, required public workers to pay more for their pensions and health care, limited bargained raises to inflation in most cases and eliminated workers' power to bargain over other issues.
Colas cited a number of constitutional issues, saying the law violated workers' rights to free speech, free association and equal representation under the law.
Act 10 exempted the police and firefighter unions from the restrictions on collective bargaining and established different wage restrictions for union and nonunion workers.
His ruling also faulted the collective bargaining law for setting pension contributions for city of Milwaukee employees in violation of the Wisconsin Constitution's "home rule" clause.
The law remains largely in force for state workers, but for city, county and school workers the decision by Colas returns the law to its status before Walker signed the legislation in March 2011.
The latest challenge to the collective bargaining law could result in a number of new parties seeking to intervene in the case, a lawyer involved in the matter predicted Saturday.
"The (court) paper is going to be flying," said Lester Pines, an attorney for a Madison teachers union. "This case will be continuing in litigation . . . but we're confident that this law is unconstitutional and will remain unconstitutional."
In a statement Saturday, Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said, "We believe that Act 10 is constitutional in all respects and will be appealing this decision. We also will be seeking a stay of Friday's decision pending appeal in order to allow the law to continue in effect as it has for more than a year while the appellate courts address the legal issues."
Walker also has said he expects the law to be upheld on appeal and characterized Colas as a Madison liberal. Colas was appointed by former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
The turmoil surrounding Act 10 is further complicated by a federal court ruling, issued in March, which knocked out portions of Act 10. Friday's ruling, however, invalidated far more provisions in the law.
The federal case will be argued before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 24. Pines said that even if the 7th Circuit rules against the unions, he does not expect it to affect Colas' decision because the two cases were based on different arguments.
The protracted fight over Act 10 could create headaches for local governments, which have been operating under the terms of the new law for months.
Now parts of that law have been voided, but local officials know the status could again change in the appeals process.
Eighteen months after Walker signed the law, it is not even clear if the debate is finally in the end stages.
"It could be resolved within the next couple of months or it could be the next couple of years," said Secunda at Marquette. "I don't see the end anywhere in sight."