Court Injunction Prevents Ouster of Election Administrator, At Least For Now

In September, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin state senate voted to oust Meagan Wolfe as the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Wolfe was the target of false conspiracy theories about illegal voting during the 2020 election, but she has refused to step down. Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner.

A Dane County judge has blocked Republican leaders in the Legislature from taking any actions to replace Meagan Wolfe as administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC).

In a ruling granting a temporary injunction, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ann Peacock also declared that the state Senate vote in September to fire Wolfe had no legal effect. The ruling came in a case filed on behalf of the commission against the three top officers of the Legislature.

“The Wisconsin Elections Commission is permitted to recognize Meagan Wolfe as the lawful holder of the Administrator position, vested with the full authority of that office and entitled to the privileges thereof, and employ her in that position, subject to a final decision of this Court,” Peacock wrote in the decision issued Friday.

In addition, the judge wrote, “Further official actions by Defendants to remove or attempt to remove Meagan Wolfe from the Administrator position, including appointing an interim Administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, do not have legal effect, subject to a final decision of this Court.”

As the appointed administrator of the elections commission, Wolfe carries out policies that the commissioners have set by a majority vote. Nevertheless, she has become a target of activists making conspiratorial claims about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, which President Joe Biden won by about 21,000 votes. Subsequent investigations and legal challenges seeking to overturn the outcome have found no evidence of alleged fraud.

Wolfe’s term as administrator expired June 31, and representatives from both parties to the evenly divided commission had favored appointing her to another four-year-term. After Republican leaders in the Senate signaled their intention to fire Wolfe rather than confirm her reappointment, however, Democrats on the commission abstained from a nomination vote in June.

The goal was to ensure that she could remain on the job, relying on a 2022 state Supreme Court ruling in the case of holdover Natural Resources Board member Frederick Prehn. That ruling held that appointees to government boards and commissions can hold their positions indefinitely so long as their replacement isn’t confirmed by the Senate.

Because the elections commission’s June vote fell short of the majority that state law requires for the body to appoint an administrator, the commission has taken the position that there is no appointment in place and that Wolfe is a legitimate holdover administrator.

On Sept. 14, the Senate Republicans voted to reject her appointment despite arguments from Senate Democrats and Attorney General Josh Kaul, as well as analysis from the Legislature’s own nonpartisan legal staff, that Wolfe’s confirmation was not properly before the body.

The same day Kaul filed the lawsuit against Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, Senate President Chris Kapenga and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos challenging the vote.

In her ruling, Peacock noted that lawyers for the Republican Senate leaders admitted in their responses to the case that Wolfe was a legal holdover appointee, that the commission did not appoint her to a new term and that the vote in September was “symbolic” and “thus had no legal effect.”

Despite those statements, however, Peacock wrote that an injunction was warranted. She ruled that the risk remains that the GOP lawmakers could continue to try to oust Wolfe when they lack the power to do so. She also observed that Vos subsequently made public comments that claimed the administrator’s office was vacant and suggested the Legislature could act to make an appointment to fill it.

In that event, Peacock wrote, “Without an injunction, the damage would already have been done to Wolfe and WEC.”

Temporary injunction blocks lawmakers from trying to replace elections administrator was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.