2011 Wisconsin Act 21 and What it Means Today

In 2011, the legislature passed Act 21, which sought to limit significantly the power of state agencies to move beyond the text of state statutes and aggrandize their powers. Despite the law's clear language, courts and agencies largely have ignored it. Professor Owens will discuss Act 21, a current case at the Wisconsin Supreme Court that may resurrect it, and what needs to be done to rein in the administrative state.

Professor Owens is the Director of the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership, teaches political science at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and is also Affiliate Faculty at the University’s law school.  A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (B.A., J.D.) and Washington University-St. Louis (M.A., Ph.D.), his work analyzes the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals, legal institutions, and judicial behavior.  Professor Owens’ scholarship has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, the Georgetown Law Journal, the William & Mary Law Review, the University of Illinois Law Review, Law & Society Review, and the Journal of Law and Courts.  Between 2008 and 2011, Owens was Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he taught undergraduates and graduate students and seminars in the law school.

A Zoom link will be sent out the morning of the event to all those who RSVP.