“A court could hold that the provision is unconstitutional if it finds that this provision violates the judiciary’s independence in the fulfillment of its constitutional responsibilities,” the memo reads. The eight-page analysis highlights this provision among the areas of concern, saying the decision on whether to suspend rulings could be seen as a core power of the court system. The law signed by Walker on Monday changes how environmental challenges and other potential legal cases over the factory would be handled, including automatically suspending any lower court orders until a higher court has weighed in. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports: Specifically, a memo from the Wisconsin Legislative Council - a nonpartisan entity that provides legal analysis for the state’s legislature - suggests that several provisions of the law may be unconstitutional. This plan to give a foreign company a sum of money more than three-and-a-half times larger than the state’s annual education budget - along with the power to destroy wetlands and strong-arm local residents in their own court system - has been celebrated by President Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan (of Wisconsin), and the Wisconsin GOP as a triumph for “nationalist” economic populism.īut some nonpartisan legal experts aren’t so sure.

A recent study concluded that this amount of job creation would generate enough economic activity to offset $2.85 billion in subsidies in about 25 years - assuming that the next quarter-century produces no technological or economic changes that adversely impact Foxconn or its operations in Racine County, Wisconsin. In exchange for these privileges, the company - infamous Apple-supplier Foxconn - will build a flat-screen television factory in Wisconsin that will employ 3,000 people in the immediate term, and up to 13,000 in the long term. Finally, the legislation stipulates that, should environmentalists, local businesses, or Wisconsin residents sue this company, for any reason, any trial-court rulings against it will be automatically suspended, until a higher court weighs in - should the higher court rule also against it, the company will be able to take its case to the state’s (conservative-dominated) Supreme Court in an expedited fashion. The law also allows said company to forgo an assessment of how its plans will impact the state’s environment, and to flout laws meant to protect Wisconsin’s wetlands and waterways. On Monday, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker signed a law that will transfer $2.85 billion from his state’s taxpayers to a Taiwanese tech company.

Plants give preferential treatment