The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) is a nonprofit conservative law firm based in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

. The group was founded by lawyer Rick Esenberg in 2011.

Activities

The organization has defended

right-to-work laws In the context of labor law in the United States, the term right-to-work laws refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions. Such agreements can be incorporated into union contracts to require ...

. In 2016, WILL announced the launch of the Center for Competitive Federalism, a national effort to bring lawsuits and conduct research to promote state sovereignty. That same year, the organization filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, also known as the minimum markup law, which prevents companies from selling products below cost. In 2017, it filed a lawsuit in the Wisconsin Supreme Court ''Koschkee v. Taylor'' arguing that the

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is an agency of the Wisconsin state government responsible for overseeing state education and public libraries in Wisconsin. In addition to oversight of public primary and secondary education ...

(DPI) issued regulations without the approval of the state's governor and the

Wisconsin Department of Administration The Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) is an agency of the Wisconsin state government which provides a range of services and programs, from operations, technology, and logistical support for the state, to assistance programs for low-inc ...

, thus violating the REINS Act. It was seen as an attempt to limit the power of Governor

Tony Evers Anthony Steven Evers ( ; born November 5, 1951) is an American politician and educator serving since 2019 as the 46th governor of Wisconsin. A member of the Democratic Party, he served from 2009 to 2019 as Wisconsin's 26th superintendent of p ...

, then the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Though Evers's role was nonpartisan, he had announced he would challenge Republican Scott Walker for the governorship. In June 2019, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4–2 in favor of WILL, determining that DPI could not make administrative rules without approval of the governor. In September 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Wisconsin The global COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. state of Wisconsin in early February 2020. Although Wisconsin has to date experienced 144 deaths per 100,000 residents, significantly fewer than the US national average of 196 deaths, COVID-19 was on ...

, WILL filed lawsuits to stop a face mask mandate in Wisconsin. In March 2021, the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court, on a 4–3 vote, struck down the statewide mask mandate, saying that Governor

had violated state law by extending his emergency orders, including the mandate, beyond the initial 60-day emergency mandate.Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin charged with conserving and managing Wisconsin's natural resources. The Wisconsin Natural Resources Board has the authority to set polic ...

Wisconsin Elections Commission lawsuit

Wisconsin Elections Commission The Wisconsin Elections Commission is a bipartisan regulatory agency of the state of Wisconsin established to administer and enforce election laws in the state. The Wisconsin Elections Commission was established by a 2015 act of the Wisconsin Legi ...

Paul V. Malloy

Ozaukee County, Wisconsin Ozaukee County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 91,503. Its county seat is Port Washington. Ozaukee County is included in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. As of the 2000 Census, Ozaukee ...

Wisconsin Attorney General The attorney general of Wisconsin is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Forty-five individuals have held the office of attorney general since statehood. The incumbent is Josh Kaul, ...

Josh Kaul Joshua Lautenschlager Kaul (born February 2, 1981) is an American lawyer, politician and member of the Democratic Party who has served as the 45th Attorney General of Wisconsin since January 2019. Early life and education Kaul is the son of ...

Nearly 900 Lincoln County voters affected
''Tomahawk Leader'', Jalen Maki, December 27, 2019. Retrieved August 24, 2020.

On January 12, 2020, Malloy found the three Democrats on the stalemated six-member Elections Commission to be in contempt of court, ordering them each to pay a fine of $250 daily until they complied with his order. Malloy urged speedy implementation of his order, saying, "We're deadlocked, time is running and time is clearly of the essence." The ''

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper and also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely read. It was purchased by the G ...

'' examined the list of voters subject to being purged because they were presumed to have moved and found that about 55 percent of those registrants had been domiciled in municipalities that had been won by

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

in the 2016 general election. Those were mainly from Wisconsin's largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, as well as other college towns. In 2016, Trump had carried Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes. After the contempt order was issued by Malloy, a stay issued later that day by the state Supreme Court upheld his purge mandate. That finding was subsequently reversed by an appeals court, but WILL appealed its decision to the

Wisconsin Supreme Court The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the state judicial system of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. In addition to hearing appeals of lower Wisconsin court decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court also ...

. In the April 7, 2020, election, voters ousted incumbent Daniel Kelly, a conservative Supreme Court justice, who had been appointed by Governor Scott Walker. Kelly had been thought to be a possible swing vote in the Court's deciding the case. In April 2021, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 ruling that the Wisconsin Election Commission should not remove from its rolls voters flagged as possibly having moved, as local municipal elections officials rather than the state election commission should be tasked with removing voter registrations. Of the 69,000 people flagged by the elections commission as being "likely movers", none voted in the 2020 presidential election. No voters were removed from the voter rolls while the legal fight was pending.

2020 election fraud investigation

This group spent ten months investigating

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. WILL found no evidence of widespread fraud. The group found, for instance, 130 cases of ex-felons voting, and 42 ballots from potentially deceased voters, but not in numbers that could have affected the election results, or that could be described as an intentional effort to subvert the election. WILL found "no evidence of significant problems with voting machines," and despite Trump's repeated claims that machines from the firm

Dominion Voting Systems Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a North American company that produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States. The company's headquarters are in Toro ...

were used by Democrats to steal the election, the group found that Democrats actually performed worse than expected in counties that used the Dominion machines. The group found no evidence of "ballot dumping," another common accusation from Trump. In the few cases where some state rules were not correctly followed, little to no evidence showed that voters who cast those ballots "did anything intentionally wrong" and they were likely just following election officials' advice, and thus this is not cause for throwing out those ballots or a basis to "infer fraud."

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.will-law.org
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Ballotpedia
Non-profit organizations based in Wisconsin 2011 establishments in Wisconsin Organizations based in Milwaukee Conservative organizations in the United States