Second Amendment Blog
Wisconsin AG Gets Permission to File Brief
Posted by:Bitter on 
Nov 4th, 2009 | 
Filed under: 2nd Amendment
Oddly, in Wisconsin, the elected Attorney General is not allowed to sign on to briefs without permission from another branch.
In Heller, he did not get permission or did not seek it soon enough. In the effort to get the Chicago case to the Court, he also did not sign on to an effort by many other AGs, and gun owners finally called him out on it. He said it wasn’t his fault.
Interestingly, after that pressure, Van Hollen has secured permission early enough to actually get a brief into the Court for McDonald. That’s good for gun owners, good for Wisconsin, and good on Van Hollen for getting around to asking permission in time.
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November 4th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
He’d better get cracking. Amici for McDonald are due Nov. 23, so he has less than three full weeks.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
If he’s smart, he’s already got the opinion ready to go
November 4th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Funny thing, Sebastian, is us crazy open carry advocates lit this fire under his ass and got him on track to be more than an empty suit… before we got political pressure focused on him in the media through our efforts (trying to get him to issue an opinion on OC), all people were doing was complaining about him. Now they are holding him accountable publicly and loudly.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Why are you calling me Sebastian? Last time I checked, Sebastian’s name is not spelled B-I-T-T-E-R.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Thanks for posting, Bitter.
Melancton and Ian, don’t you suppose he will just sign on to the one being prepared by the other state AGs?
Like this one led by Texas’ Greg Abbott, representing the AGs of 33 states, filed on behalf of McDonald’s cert petition.
http://www.chicagoguncase.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/texas_states_cert_stage.pdf
What I am so pleased about (and still somewhat puzzled about), regarding these state AG briefs, is that they are necessarily arguing for a diminishing of their state’s power to regulate arms as they see fit. I’d like to think that all these states were that committed to honoring the 2A rights of their citizens … but I have become a little cynical about government, and a little surprised when the conscientiously cede power.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:02 am
[...] the Wisconsin AG got some grief over not filing a pro-gun Heller brief. Turns out, he needs permission from the legislature. So, he got permission for the Chicago [...]