(The Center Square) – A bill that would criminalize participating in riots in Wisconsin is on the table, but lawmakers disagree on whether it’s actually moving forward.
Assembly Bill 88, which would make it a Class I felony to promote or instigate a riot, has been criticized as containing broad, vague and even unconstitutional language.
While the bill was referred to the Assembly Committee on Judiciary, it was missing from the agenda for Wednesday’s executive session.
Democratic lawmakers argue the bill’s absence indicates the committee has dropped it.
“I’m ecstatic that Republicans have abandoned this badly written, unconstitutional bill for now,” Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement. “In reality, this isn’t an ‘anti-riot’ bill: it’s a threat to free speech, expression and assembly disguised as a public safety measure.”
Critics argue the bill’s language could lead to people not even involved with a riot being arrested.
“This legislation contains contradictory and unclear language and chills the constitutional rights of speech,” ACLU Wisconsin told The Center Square. “The Constitution does not allow people engaged in lawful protest to be punished for the actions of others, but this bill is attempting to do just that.”
Similar concerns were voiced by lawmakers and citizens at the bill’s contentious first public hearing May 7.
In light of the bill’s absence from the executive session, Clancy and Rep. Andrew Hysell, D-Sun Prairie, released statements crediting the bill’s alleged dropping to testimonies from themselves and others at the hearing.
Republican lawmakers even seem to disagree on whether the bill has been dropped and how it will move forward, if at all.
Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the bill’s author, contends it has not been dropped and is still set to be voted on in the Assembly Judiciary Committee and receive hearings in the Senate.
“To be clear, the chair never pulled the bill because he has not officially scheduled a vote on it yet after receiving a hearing two weeks ago,” Sortwell said in a statement. “I am in discussions with colleagues on the committee, which is standard practice for bill authors after a public hearing.”
Rep. Ron Tusler, R-Harrison, chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, however, argued differently.
“Assembly Bill 88 is not on the agenda because, in its current form, it fails to be good legislation,” Tusler said in a statement to The Center Square. “I wanted to give the bill author a chance to explain the bill out of respect for Rep. Sortwell and the victims of the riots. But in its current form, this bill has constitutional, common-sense, and enforcement issues.”
Tusler concluded the bill in its current form is never going to be scheduled for an executive session until those problems are addressed.
At the time of publication, the bill still appeared as an item in committee on the Assembly Judiciary Committee’s and Senate Judiciary Committee’s websites.
