"Friends of Scott Walker" have been hard at work in Waukesha County, where they have filed a lawsuit to force the Government Accountability Board ("GAB") to assume the burden of validating the 1 million signatures turned in to recall the Governor. (Under the current recall rules, the burden is on the person challenging the signatures.) The Committee to Recall Walker, as well as all the other recall committees, tried to join the litigation, but (surprise!) Waukesha Judge Mac Davis denied their motion to intervene.
So the recall committees headed to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which on Friday issued a decision reversing Judge Davis and ordering that he allow the recall committees to participate.
What happens from here may affect both the timing of the recalls, and which party has the burden of proving that signatures are, or are not, valid.
More below the cheese curd.
The Court of Appeals' panel (Judges Lundsten, Vergeron and Higginbotham) had no trouble concluding that the recall committees had a clear interest in participating in the litigation:
[T]he recall committees have an interest in the complaint's proposed relief because such relief may include new procedures not required by law that may result in (1) striking valid signatures and placing an increased burden on the committees at a later stage of the review process and (2) causing delay to the recall process.
So Judge Davis' order barring the recall committees was reversed, and he was ordered to let the recall committees into the litigation. In addition, any rulings he made after denying the recall committee's motion to intervene are vacated.
This means that the court order requiring the GAB to screen the signatures for illegible entries, fictitious names, and duplicate signatures is vacated, and Judge Davis has to do a do-over which includes the recall committees.
However, the GAB-must-screen-the-signatures order is not vacated until "remittitur," meaning when the Court of Appeals file is sent back to Waukesha County. The legal system being what it is, the Friends of Walker have 30 days to appeal the decision before the matter is sent back to the circuit court. This additional delay could merit wailing and gnashing of teeth. But the Court of Appeals has a card up its sleeve -- the recall committees also asked the Court of Appeals to take action itself and stay Judge Davis' order demanding the GAB screen the signatures. The Court of Appeals hasn't ruled on this request yet, but it has ordered the parties to submit briefs by mid-February so it can decide whether to eliminate the GAB-screening requirement as soon as possible.
Given the (relative) speed with which the Court of Appeals is moving, we can probably expect a decision by February 17 or so. Even if the Court of Appeals decides to eliminate Judge Davis' order immediately, the GAB may decide at its next meeting on February 7 to screen the signatures anyway in the interest of keeping the process moving along. But the eventual Court of Appeals decision will affect whether the recall committees have to prove the signatures are valid - or whether Friends of Scott Walker will have to prove they are false.