News of the Day

The Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance Monday approved an overall 6.03% rate decrease for Worker’s Compensation premiums for businesses, effective October  1, 2018.

This is the third consecutive year Worker’s Compensation rates have declined, following an 8.46% decline in 2017, and a 3.19% decline in 2016. The latest reduction in premiums is expected to result in an annual savings of about $134 million for Wisconsin employers.

“This is just another indicator that Wisconsin’s investments in its employees’ occupational safety is paying off,” Governor Scott Walker said. “Not only are employers seeing reduced premiums, but efforts to reduce workplace injuries help achieve a healthy labor force, resulting in a decline in rates for the third consecutive year.”

Worker’s Compensation rates are adjusted yearly by a committee of actuaries from the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau. The committee studies the prior losses (claims) of hundreds of categories and professions throughout the state’s employment pool and submits a rate recommendation to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, which has final approval over the rates.

“A safe workplace results in a more productive and profitable one for employers,” Commissioner of Insurance Ted Nickel said. “Employers are recognizing the relation between their employees’ safety and the savings that ensue as premiums continue to decline.”

These savings will allow Wisconsin businesses to continue to strengthen their profitability while at the same time ensuring a safe work environment, according to Department of Workforce Development Secretary Ray Allen.

Tonight President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy that will be created on the court when Kennedy retires on July 31. If, as is widely expected (and Republicans hope), Kavanaugh proves to be more conservative than his former boss, the Supreme Court could shift further to the right on a variety of high-profile issues, ranging from reproductive rights to affirmative action.

The 53-year-old Kavanaugh is the consummate Washington insider, well-liked in the city’s legal community. Kavanaugh has lived in the D.C. area for essentially his entire life. He was born in Washington and raised in Maryland and, like Justice Neil Gorsuch (who graduated two years after him), attended the Georgetown Preparatory School, a prestigious Catholic boys’ school in Rockville. He left the D.C. area to attend Yale College and Yale Law School, graduating from the latter in 1990, followed by clerkships on federal courts of appeals in Delaware and California. He returned for a fellowship in the office of then-U.S. solicitor general Kenneth Starr, followed by the Kennedy clerkship.

In 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Kavanaugh (for the second time – his first nomination stalled) for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He has sat on the D.C. Circuit – the springboard to the Supreme Court for three of the current justices – for 12 years.

The confirmation hearings for Justice Neil Gorsuch began roughly a month and a half after he was nominated. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently suggested that the confirmation hearing for a nominee with a lengthy track record – which Kavanaugh certainly has – could take longer, so that Kavanaugh might not be confirmed before the Supreme Court reconvenes in October.

A few state and local officials have started to push for an expansion of a narrow stretch of Interstate 41 between Appleton and Green Bay in an effort to ease congestion and lower the number of crashes.

State Rep. Dave Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, said he has personally noticed issues with traffic on I-41 in the Fox Cities. “It’s very dangerous there and I thought ‘boy, this is really a fatal accident waiting to happen,’” he said.

The stretch of I-41 from Breezewood Lane to the north junction of State 441 has averaged nearly 470 crashes a year in the last five years, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The condition of the road itself, though, is comparable to other highways in the region. The pavement rating between State 15 and State 441 is 79 out of 100. The state typically does not look to repair pavement until the rating gets to 70 or lower.

Murphy said he has talked with Gov. Scott Walker about the possibility of adding the project to a future state budget. The project needs to be enumerated in a state budget before any other work can be done. “I feel like we’re going to try to push forward,” Murphy said.

The United States Supreme Court recently ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., that a state can require out-of-state sellers without a physical presence in that state (i.e., remote sellers) to collect and remit sales or use tax on sales delivered into that state.

Beginning October 1, 2018, Wisconsin will require remote sellers to collect and remit sales or use tax on sales of taxable products and services in Wisconsin.  New standards for administering sales tax laws on remote sellers will be developed by rule.

The rule will be consistent with the Court’s decision in Wayfair, which approved a small seller exception for sellers who do not have annual sales of products and services into the state of (1) more than $100,000, or (2) 200 or more separate transactions. Any small seller exception adopted will not apply to sellers with a physical presence in Wisconsin.

Governor Scott Walker today announced that more than 555,000 families will be receiving $100-per-child before the start of next school year because of the Child Tax Rebate.

Parents who claimed their $100-Per-Child Tax Rebate will receive a check in the mail or a direct deposit before the start of next school year. Those eligible for the Child Tax Rebate needed to apply by July 2, 2018.

There will also be a Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday for everyone from August 1 – 5, 2018. This means the state sales tax will not be charged for those days on school supplies where each item is $75 or less, clothing where each item is $75 or less, computers where each item is $750 or less, and computer supplies where each item is $250 or less.

Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn) Founder and CEO Terry Gou formally broke ground for the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park in Racine County, Wisconsin. President Donald J. Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker joined Mr. Gou in marking the start of construction of the campus which will create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin with $10 billion investment and thousands of more jobs through the extensive supply chain supporting this project.

“We are proud to mark this historic occasion and formally start construction of our state-of-the-art science and technology campus in America’s heartland,” said Foxconn Founder and CEO Terry Gou. “Over the past year, we have formed strong partnerships with communities across Wisconsin and we look forward to continuing to work with the talented, hard-working people here in the years ahead. We thank President Trump, Governor Walker, and Speaker Ryan for their commitment to this  project that will help reinvigorate high-tech manufacturing in the U.S. and the high-tech industry in the Midwest.”

As part of the company’s ‘Wisconsin First’ approach, Foxconn is actively working with local partners and tapping the talented and hardworking workforce in the state. It has started assembling a team of companies with strong track records in Wisconsin to support the development and construction of the Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park.

The Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park will also serve as a science and technology park to promote research and development in advanced technologies in areas such as cloud computing, mobile devices, Internet of Things, Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), networks, and robotics and automation. It will lay the foundation for the AI 8K+5G ecosystem that Foxconn is creating in the United States, and provide a platform for the development of next-generation hardware and solutions as part of that ecosystem. In addition, it will serve as an industry internet platform to enable hundreds of thousands of small and medium size manufacturers to be part of the advanced manufacturing in the Midwest and in America.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in Tetra Tech, Inc. v. Wisconsin Department of Revenue ends deference to agency conclusions of law in the state of Wisconsin.

WILL filed an amicus curiae brief with the Court arguing court deference to agency interpretations of state statutes is unconstitutional. The brief said, in part, “Collapsing the making of policy into its administration places that decision in the hands of an interested party and is inconsistent with the “auxiliary precautions” that underlie the separation of powers adopted by the framers of Wisconsin’s Constitution.”

WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said in response to the Court’s decision:

“Today’s decision limits the prerogatives of administrators and brings us a little closer to the system of government our founders envisioned. Basic American civics and the separation of powers require that each branch of government stay in its lane. Deferring to the legal conclusions of administrative agencies combined the executive and judicial powers in the hands of bureaucrats. The Court was correct to end it, as we argued in our amicus brief.”

Wisconsin courts for decades have chosen to defer to the interpretations of state statutes offered by administrative agencies, even when those agencies are enforcing those statutes against private citizens. They have often done so even when the agency interpretation was less reasonable than alternative readings of the law.  Although several of the Justices chose to avoid the constitutional issue and rule as a matter of judicial policy, the bottom line is that the Court acted today to ensure that the judicial power – including the power to have the final say on what a statute means – resides exclusively in the courts, not the executive branch.

Today’s decision is part of a broader reevaluation of agency deference occurring in both state and federal courts. For example, Mississippi’s high court recently ended agency deference. Federal courts are also beginning to grapple with the question.

This judicial reevaluation of agency authority is independent of, but consistent with, a more general re-examination of the administrative state, including legislative initiatives such as the REINS Act in Wisconsin. Both the federal and Wisconsin constitutions recognize that freedom is preserved not only by the delineation of individual rights but by structural limits on the power of government. The separation of powers – in which each branch “checks” and “balances” the others – is an important part of the way in which these limits act as, in James Madison’s words, “an auxiliary precaution” against the abuse of government power.

Harley-Davidson, up against spiraling costs from tariffs, will begin to shift its production of motorcycles that are bound for Europe from the U.S. to factories overseas.

The European Union began on Friday to roll out tariffs on American imports like bourbon, peanut butter and orange juice. The EU tariffs on $3.4 billion worth of U.S. products come in retaliation to the duties the Trump administration has imposed on European steel and aluminum.

Harley-Davidson Inc. sold almost 40,000 motorcycles in the European Union last year. The revenue the company generated from those sales was second only to that generated in the United States, according to the Milwaukee company.

The motorcycle maker said in a regulatory filing on Monday that EU tariffs on motorcycles it exports from the U.S. have jumped by between 6 percent and 31 percent. That raises the cost of each motorcycle by $2,200 on average.

“Harley-Davidson maintains a strong commitment to U.S.-based manufacturing which is valued by riders globally,” the company said in prepared remarks. “Increasing international production to alleviate the EU tariff burden is not the company’s preference, but represents the only sustainable option to make its motorcycles accessible to customers in the EU and maintain a viable business in Europe. Europe is a critical market for Harley-Davidson.”

Harley-Davidson said it’s trying to avoid raising its prices to avert “an immediate and lasting detrimental impact” on sales in Europe. It will instead absorb much of the higher costs, at least in the short term. Company officials said they expect the cost for the rest of the year to run from $30 million to $45 million.

Harley-Davidson said it could take anywhere between nine and 18 months to complete its plan to move some of its production operations from the U.S. to factories overseas.

The company is already struggling with declining sales. In January, it said it would take its operation in Kansas City, Missouri, and move it to a plant in York, Pennsylvania. U.S. motorcycle sales peaked at more than 1.1 million in 2005 and dropped quickly during the recession.

Asked about Harley’s decision Monday, Gov. Scott Walker talked about tariffs in general but did not specifically discuss the company’s situation.

“The ultimate goal, if we could get there, is no tariffs or if anything few tariffs on anything,” said Walker, a Republican. “That’s what I’m going to push for, ways that we can get to a level playing field then we don’t have this tit for tat on any number of products out there.”