Who Makes Wisconsin Laws?

Although lawyers are responsible for interpreting and implementing Wisconsin's laws, they have not played a commensurate part in shaping them.

The occupational composition of the Legislature has changed steadily since statehood. Those changes generally have reflected Wisconsin's changing economy. Farmers predominated during the state's early years. Legislators with experience in the business sector as employers or workers predominated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the state made the transition to a predominantly industrial economy. Since about 1960, as the industrial economy has given way to a service economy, the number of legislators from noncommercial backgrounds - primarily teachers and government employees - has risen sharply. Professional politicians who follow no other trade also have become a permanent part of the Legislature. Lawyers have never controlled the Legislature but they have been the only constant, relatively stable presence in the Legislature over the years.

Nor have lawyers played a dominant role in shaping laws and legislative culture. Most of Wisconsin's landmark laws were created by academics and reformers. Lawyers generally have taken the lead only when a major change in an existing legal system rather than creation of a new system was called for. Major examples include the 1977 no-fault divorce law and the 1983 marital property law, which were spearheaded by attorney-legislators Mary Lou Munts and Donald Hanaway. Overall, the bar's role in the Legislature has borne out Willard Hurst's judgment that "increasingly the lawyer [has] made himself useful ... in the patient attention to detail and the continuing adjustment and improvisation required to effect great schemes" rather than in the creation of those schemes.