Wisconsin taxpayers the loser in legal fight over lame-duck session

ou can pick who you want to blame. Republicans who passed laws to restrict the powers of our Governor and Attorney General, or the Democrats who filed lawsuits challenging those new laws. But what is clear is that the losers in this fight are the Wisconsin taxpayers. The legal bills in this fight have now topped $2 million. Republican lawmakers and Governor Tony Evers have now racked up a combined $2.1 million in legal fees since the fight began, a figure that continues to grow. Both sides have spent far more than was budgeted for attorney’s fees. Evers initially planned to spend up to $100,000 in the legal fight. That figure has now eclipsed five times that amount. Republicans have spent more than $1.6 million to pay their attorneys, some two and a half times what they initially planned to spend. Much of that legal work has been done by a Chicago law firm which is charging the state’s taxpayers $500 an hour. Clearly, there need to be some limits on how much taxpayers can be socked to pay high-priced attorneys. People get upset if the state spends too much on road work, or on economic development efforts. We should be just as upset when our elected officials soak us for a legal fight that we didn’t start.