Quick Appeal Expected in Wisconsin Collective Bargaining Ruling

Could go straight to state Supreme Court

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.