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Between 2010 and 2013, a team of Wisconsin state officials assembled by the Milwaukee County District Attorney, and later involving the state’s Government Accountability Board, targeted the activities of certain groups who had supported Governor Scott Walker’s policy agenda. The probes seized millions of emails, bank records, hard copy documents, and other materials through a combination of electronic search warrants, subpoenas, and raids that used controversial tactics. Litigation in the Wisconsin state courts froze the John Doe investigations in early 2014. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ultimately terminated the investigations in the summer of 2015. In reaction, the Wisconsin legislature passed sweeping reforms of its campaign finance and criminal laws, eliminating the Government Accountability Board, changing John Doe rules, and fixing secrecy laws so that they restrained the prosecutors, not the targets. But there were new developments eight weeks ago: Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel issued a report following an investigation he initiated when, in September 2016, the British Guardian published approximately 1,400 pages of seized witness emails and draft court filings prepared by the prosecution team. Schimel found that a trove of evidence at the Government Accountability Board offices may have been leaked, and promised to institute contempt proceedings against prosecutors and other state officials. As a result, new individuals have learned that their materials were seized and reviewed during the original investigation. Some existing litigation may be impacted, and new litigation may occur. Find out what’s next.
Featuring:
Mr. Edward D. Greims, Partner, Graves Garrett, LLC
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In 1977 in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that public employees, including school teachers, could legally be required to pay a fee if they refuse to join a public-sector union. According to the Detroit Board of Education, the fee was necessary to off-set the costs the union incurred while bargaining on behalf of union and non-union members alike. -- A similar case came to the Supreme Court in 2014, but the Supreme Court did not answer the primary question of Abood, instead ruling that the public employees in question were not actually public employees. Last year, the Supreme Court was left in deadlock in a similar case on the same issue after Justice Scalia’s passing. -- Janus v. AFSCME, brought by an employee of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services who does not believe he should be legally obliged to join a union, is pending cert in the Supreme Court. William Messenger, Staff Attorney at the National Right to Work Foundation, joined us to discuss the probability of Janus being heard at the Court and what that could mean for the future of public-sector employees and unions. -- Featuring: William L. Messenger, Staff Attorney, National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc.

Some antitrust lawyers often say the federal government’s decisions about which mergers to challenge, which monopolists to rein in, and which price-fixers to send to jail are relatively consistent regardless of who occupies the White House. But has federal antitrust enforcement really been entirely apolitical, based on economics, and divorced from other issues such as trade, job creation, and national security? Should it be? A panel of distinguished practitioners and former top government officials from both parties discussed these issues in our Teleforum, which was especially timely given calls by Senate Democrats for increased antitrust enforcement as part of “A Better Deal” and the increasing use of competition law by foreign governments against U.S. companies. -- Featuring: Jon Leibowitz, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, and Former Chair, Federal Trade Commission; William E. Kovacic, Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy & Director, Competition Law Center, The George Washington University Law School, and Former Chair, Federal Trade Commission; Seth Bloom, President & Founder, Bloom Strategic Counsel PLLC, and Former General Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Antitrust Subcommittee; and Tad Lipsky, Former Senior Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Justice Department Antitrust Division Official, and Retired Partner, Latham & Watkins. Moderator: Richard M. Steuer, Senior Counsel, Mayer Brown LLP, and Former Chair, American Bar Association Antitrust Section.

How might America reform the modern administrative state—not only to limit its power, but to restore its constitutional accountability to Congress, the President, and the courts? That is the subject of a recent report by National Affairs, on policy reforms for a more accountable administrative state. In its four chapters, the report: 1. Diagnoses the fundamental problems underlying the modern administrative state, which reflect a failure of republican governance; 2. Proposes to restore Congress to its crucial constitutional role as the "First Branch" in lawmaking, policymaking, appropriations and oversight; 3. Proposes to modernize White House oversight of agency regulatory actions, primarily by shifting the Office of Information and Administration's role from one of reaction to one of action; and 4. Proposes to reform both the laws governing agency process and the laws governing judicial review of agency action, in order to improve the quality of agency actions and, relatedly, to ensure more meaningful judicial review of agency actions. -- To discuss these issues and proposals, please join us for a teleforum discussion with the report’s three authors: Adam White, Oren Cass, and Kevin Kosar. -- Featuring: Oren Cass, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute; Kevin Kosar, Governance Project Director and Senior Fellow, R Street Institute and Adam White, Research Fellow, The Hoover Institution and Adjunct Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School.