Civics: When a court ruling becomes a box score
On October 12, the Madison Literary Club heard a paper by James Troupis, a Madison lawyer for nearly fifty years and a former Dane County circuit judge. Skyler Croy, an attorney at Hurley Burish who teaches constitutional law, responded.
Troupis began with a dry idea. Under Article III of the Constitution, courts may hear only real “cases” in law or equity. A playground quarrel is not a case, and some questions belong to Congress or the president, not judges. Lawyers call these “political questions,” and for most of American history courts stayed out of them.
That line moved in 1962. In Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to Tennessee’s legislative districts, some of which had nineteen times as many voters as others. The decision was right, Troupis suggests, but it opened a door that has never closed.
What replaced the old line, he argues, is a scorecard. We now count judges by the president who appointed them, and a ruling “against type” reads as betrayal rather than independence. He cites polling showing faith in the judiciary falling from 59 percent in 2020 to 35 percent by 2024. He offers no easy fix.
Croy pushed back on where the pressure comes from. When Congress won’t act, presidents act alone, and the courts inherit the fight. He also told the story of Justice Charles Whittaker, so torn over Baker that he never cast a vote in it.
The audience was sharper still. One member argued these are not ordinary times and the threat to the rule of law comes from one direction. Another asked what happens when a court rules and the ruling is ignored. Courts have no army and no purse, Troupis replied; they depend on everyone else’s good faith.
Troupis was the Trump campaign’s lawyer in Wisconsin after the 2020 election. In 2024 the state charged him over the alternate-elector certificates that followed. He has pleaded not guilty, the case has not been tried, and the law presumes him innocent. Croy’s firm represents him in that case.
The full transcript and audio are online. Select any timestamp to hear that moment, and follow links to every court case mentioned.
