Talk:William S. Stickman IV

Lochner Era
A lot of ideologues and partisans are flocking to this page not to convey information but to justify Stickman's Lochneresque ruling or protect him from the substantial criticism directed against it in legal circles. That ranges from suppressing/deleting the info that he was a Republican operative before his appointment, to deleting or at least minimizing the scope of criticism of the ruling that is allowed to be added to the page.

To be clear, Stickman's invocation of the almost universally discredited Lochner ruling has the purpose of reviving the legitimacy of the argument that government regulations and rules of all sort must pass a test which none of them can pass: are there any business owners who object to those regs/rules? If so, then the regulation in invalid constitutionally. It was an absurd position to take a century ago, and did vast damage to millions of Americans' lives.

The absurdity of trying to revive Lochner with regard to pandemic rules goes beyond Stickman's silly pretense that it never was repudiated, or his preference for strawmen arguments and rhetorical flourishes over laws and jurisprudence (no, there is no constitutionally guaranteed "right to work" or "right to pursue one's preferred profession"). It is the simple fact that during the depths of the Lochner era Court, the US faced another novel pandemic and defeated it using government regulations that were in many ways much more sweeping and intrusive than anything instituted this year in PA or elsewhere in the US. And those regulations in 1918 were allowed to stand because it would have been insanity to try to prevent government officials from using whatever tools they had available to contain the fatal virus...unless the regulations truly went beyond reasonable bounds and genuinely abused civil rights.

There has never been in the US a recognized right to ignore civil orders put in place to contain epidemics. These were considered normal functions of government even in the colonial period. In 1918 alone, civil authorities put in place severe restrictions FOR MORE EPIDEMICS THAN JUST THE SPANISH INFLUENZA! There were also measles and scarlet fever epidemics they had to deal with. All of that government regulation was treated as normal in 1918 at a time when the original Lochner extremists were in the driver's seat judicially.

Now we're supposed to believe that governors have to negotiate with every business owner in their state for permission to put life-saving measures in place? Absurd is the only word for what Stickman argued, and very many legal experts have weighed in on how dangerous his argument would be if anybody were to take it seriously.


 * Do you have a specific sourced content suggestion for the article? Marquardtika (talk) 19:26, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I suggest you stop deleting sourced material from the article for no purpose other than to suppress information about the widely perceived flaws in Stickman's ruling. I have seen you doing similiar things elsewhere, as if intent on promoting a non-neutral POV and more than willing to edit-war in the process. If that is not your intent, it would be a good time to stop edit warring and stop deleting factual content just because you happen not to like it. Here, the quoted criticism of the legal/jurisprudential gaps in Stickman's ruling is both brief and fairly mild compared to much of what is said/quoted in the linked articles.


 * You didn't answer my question. I was giving you an opportunity to suggest specific content additions to the article. Instead, you're soapboxing and assuming bad faith. Shame. Get back to me if you have any content suggestions so we can discuss them. Marquardtika (talk) 21:03, 18 September 2020 (UTC)


 * You want an example of bad faith? How about arguing in bad faith? I've added to the article the minimum that I think belongs there, as you know because you have been trying repeatedly to delete it. Now you pretend the onus is on me to justify further additions, not on you to defend your attempted deletions.

I don't see a particularly good reason to include Dickinson's opinion, anon-notable academic who is also a political opponent,  from a less than stellar source, which also had differing opinions. Per WP:ONUS, consensus for this needs to be demonstrated here before being re-added to the article. Trying to reconnect (talk)
 * Onus of consensus building is on those who wish to exclude all criticisms of the ruling. Stickman himself is a non-notable justice who is a Republican politician, and as demonstrated by the quoted part of his opinion - long on rhetoric but short on legal substance - Stickman is a less than stellar source with regard to legal reasoning and jurisprudence. Even a mediocre law professor would likely be a better source on Lochner and constitutional law than Stickman. In any case, as your record of editing on Wikipedia seems to make clear, what you don't see is what you don't care to see.

Trying to reconnect (talk) 01:55, 20 September 2020 (UTC)
 * There is widespread criticism of Stickman's ruling. That is beyond reasonable dispute. Including some of that criticism therefore improves the article per se. There already is consensus for that too, as multiple editors to the article attest. The test for consensus is not merely how many of those people bother to show up on the Talk page to join your debate about excluding sourced and unexceptional information - especially when those (like yourself) who want to exclude it are obvious ideologues/partisans. Not many people are willing to waste time debating with ideologues who have already made up their minds. If it's not Dickinson's relatively mild criticism of Stickman's ruling, then it will have to be another of many criticisms that have appeared in print. Would you prefer that we turn to Stern, Slate's legal writer, for a quote? What plausible excuse is there for denying that Dickinson's statement about jurisprudence has relevance for interpreting Stickman's ruling? If it has relevance, then it improves the article.

If indeed "There is widespread criticism of Stickman's ruling" you should old have no problem finding a reliable source that says just that - that this ruling has been widely criticized. But you can't simply cherry-pick one criticism, from a non-notable  source, and stick it in the article, while ignoring that in that very source there are opinions in support of the ruling. Trying to reconnect (talk) 00:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You're arguing either from ignorance of what the cited sources say, or from utter bad faith. I cited two reliable sources. One at Slate demolishes Stickman's opinion: "But [Wolf's COVID19] orders do not present any particularly difficult legal questions. As Roberts explained in May, a democracy typically entrusts these difficult choices to the people’s elected representatives, not unelected judges desperate to draw praise from the far-right legal movement. There is little doubt that a federal appeals court, or SCOTUS itself, will soon reverse Stickman." The title of the other news report, by an investigative news organization staffed cooperatively by 3 PA news outlets - including the Philly Inquirer, also indicates that Stickman's ruling will probably be overturned...for the same reason Slate identified. It quotes multiple people criticizing the judge's ruling, and I cited a one of those who has a high level of legal training. What exactly do you imagine you're complaining about? That I didn't quote more rebuttals of Stickman? More scathing rebuttals? Or are you seriously claiming that the cooperative investigative news organization is garbage? If so, then do try to make that case. Please. It will show exactly how ideological and clueless you are. You've done nothing this month but edit articles disruptively, to judge by the many complaints that have dogged you, and that's what you're trying again to do here. Your supposed opinion on the credibility of citations you don't like is worth approximately zero in my estimation. Consensus is something can be reached only in good faith, and I don't think you know what good faith is.

I won't warn you again. Next, you did not cite two sources in the the section I removed from the article, you cited one source - "PA Spotlight" - not exactly a high quality mainstream source. And from that article, you cherry picked Dickinson's opinion, ignoring two other opinions, one by Roddy which called Stickman’s decision “fairly moderate,” and one by Bruce Ledewitz, a constitutional law professor at Duquesne University, who said it's far from a given that  the Third Circuit will overturn Stickman’s decision. Bottom line: You need to do at least one of the following thee things: (1) Get consensus on this page to include the materiel that was already removed by two editors or (2) find a source that says "Stickman's decision was widely criticized" or (3) balance your one-sided characterization with opposing vies, in order to preserve WP:NPOV Trying to reconnect (talk) 04:01, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I added citations 7 and 8. Only 8 was cited for the quotation because that is the source that quote came from. As for your bizarre allegation that PA Spotlight is neither high quality nor mainstream, I already dealt with that. You're simply wrong, but you either refuse to read what they say about themselves on the linked page or you refuse to accept the reality of what the news service is. That reflects upon your seriousness and bona fides. My inferences about you are based upon your ridiculous claims here, as well as upon the many similar complaints that other W editors have lodged against you. That is the opposite of "baseless". Stickman's partisan view is already represented in his ruling, therefore adding further partisans cheering him on does little to improve the article. As I said, there are other criticisms of Stickman in the Spotlight article as well as in the Slate article - more facts that you perversely continue to deny.

Get consensus for you position, or it's out- WP:ONUS Trying to reconnect (talk) 20:07, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Obviously you won't agree with a position that you're set against. But you do not have consensus on your side, no matter how often you portray yourself as the voice of the community; you alone are trying to drum up support for deleting this information, whereas I and others accept its inclusion. You personally don't get to dictate.

Both me and Marquardtika have objected to this content, while you seem to be the only one trying to edit war it back in, without consensus. Trying to reconnect (talk)
 * Nonsense, Marquardtika accepted its inclusion once another editor stepped forward to tell him he was wrong to say it was non-pertinent. You are the only one edit-warring to remove it, just as you are the one who has been accused repeatedly in recent weeks of disruptive editing for ideological purposes. Nobody is backing up your edit war.


 * I'm getting really lost in this WP:WALLOFTEXT. IP address, please start signing your posts. Better yet, start an account instead of posting from multiple IP addresses. Makes it easier to keep track of who is who. Then we can try to have a discussion about the merits of including various content. Marquardtika (talk) 21:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Struck through sock edits. Doug Weller  talk 09:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Ha. So the IP posting above was blocked in an LTA case. So most of the discussion above was between two LTA accounts (Trying to Reconnect and the IP). Marquardtika (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Analysis of ruling in Butler v. Wolf
Should the analysis of Stickman's ruling in Butler v. Wolf include multiple points of view from legal sources, or is the current description, describing it as relying on Lochner appropriate? Trying to reconnect (talk) 20:59, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

[Adding, to clarify and elaborate: would the text suggested by User:Tchouppy, work better than the current article version?] Trying to reconnect (talk) 19:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Have you even bothered to read any of the legal analyses of his ruling? Like the Slate article I cited? Stickman effectively ignored the 115 year old ruling that nearly everybody including most Republicans consider to be binding precedent, and instead ran with a recent dissenting opinion (!) by another Republican ideologue, as if a dissent has any jurisprudential force at all. There is no way around the fact that Stickman stuck his neck way out, particularly becaue the current Republican Supreme Court has refused to find any pandemic regulations in any state to be unconsitutional.72.86.136.179 (talk) 21:17, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have, and have included such, from one of the premier legal analysis sources out there - The National Law Review, which you blindly reverted with an edit summary that said 'deleted irrelevant material'. We've heard your position on this, now step back and let others voice their opinion. Trying to reconnect (talk) 21:23, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Once again you are acting in bad faith by making a travesty of my reasons for reverting most of your additions/subtractions. I did not "blindly revert", in fact I retained one substantive and useful addition you made (Wolf's intent to appeal). I deleted your insertion of a small town paper declaring that some business owners are happy with the ruling, which is neither surprising nor relevant, and I said explicitly that that is what I was meant by "deleted irrelvant material". As for your use of NLR, you employed it only to add the most minor of information - that Stickman's ruling drew upon a dissent of Alito. A dissent per se has no jurisprudential significance. None. You still have shown no evidence that you're read and understood the various pointed criticisms that legal experts have made of the ruling.


 * What you're doing instead, here, is asking others to help you to figure out what the core of Stickman's argument hinges upon. So, the question needs to be asked, why are you so determined to exclude criticism of a ruling that by your own admission you haven't even acquired the most basic understanding of? As for "stepping back and letting others voice their opinion", do you have any mirrors where you live? Why do you think your opinion matters so much when you don't understand what you're opinionated about? You could trouble yourself to read Stern's article at Slate, but apparently that is too much like work.72.86.136.179 (talk) 22:51, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No, what I'm asking others to do is opine on the what this section should look like. That's how Wikipedia works. Now step back and let this RfC run its course. Trying to reconnect (talk)
 * Ah, I see. An interesting board, populated mainly it seems by people who like to engage in edit warring and use the board to appeal to others to come help them make their case in whatever dispute they're nursing. I still don't understand why you insist on meddling in this article when you can't even evaluate for yourself what the precedents in question are. Here's a clue: Stern sums them up for you in plain English.72.86.136.179 (talk) 02:47, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm quite capable, thanks, but I am unlikely to persuade you. More importantly, we're do not write articles based on our own analysis of legal arguments, but rather by fairly representing all points of view presented by others in reliable sources, which you have failed to do. So the way Wikipedia works is that we now wait for other comments. Trying to reconnect (talk) 03:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You can't even accurately describe your own position. "we're do not write articles based on our own analysis of legal arguments" Actually, that is exactly what you try to do. You have been angling for days to remove info about the viewpoint that Stickman's ruling is jurisprudentially illegitimate - but now you claim to be in favor of representing "all points of view"?! And you're back once again to pretending that an investigative news cooperative created by the Inquirer is not reliable - because you want to delete a law professor's expressed opinion that you don't agree with. And simultaneously you're eager to insert quotes from some random local businessmen who have no particular legal training, as quoted in an obscure small town newspaper. Ridiculous.72.86.136.46 (talk) 14:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Please don't misrepresent things. I added material to the article form The National Law Review, not my own analysis of the decision, which is immaterial. Trying to reconnect (talk) 14:30, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You deleted the only quotation that criticized Stickman's ruling, and replaced it with a summary of the position that was a travesty. In the place of actual criticsim, you instead added a reference to cheerleading for Stickman by businessmen with no legal training. The material you took from NLR added virtually nothing of substance apart from a reference to a dissent of Alito, which of course has no standing in law either. Your own opinion of the ruling drives everything you've tried to do here and shapes both what you add and what you subtract. You are not only not trying to ensure that "all" viewpoints are represented, you are actively trying to ensure that the criticisms of Stickman are either excluded, minimized, or travestied. Ridiculously transparent is what you are.72.86.136.46 (talk) 00:32, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I initially deleted the entire section, because I believe it violates WP:UNDUE. Since you edit warred it back in without consensus, I tried to mitigate your POV-pushing by at least adding other viewpoints - namely, the NLR analysis, form a legal source beyond reproach, that doesn't t even mention Lochenr (because contrary to your POV-pushing quote, that was not the main focus of the ruling). Now step back and let others voice their opinion, we already heard yours. Trying to reconnect (talk) 01:14, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You deleted the entire quotation twice. You seem incapable of describing even your own behavior accurately/honestly. You definitely are not trying to include all viewpoints, but instead to exclude/minimize/travesty the views critical of this ruling. Reviving Lochner was the entire point of Stickman's ruling, citing Alito's irrelevant dissent rather than the actual precedent was the means to that end. I don't know why you think you get to push your own personal agenda and behave disingenuously, and then tell others to pipe down.72.86.137.171 (talk) 13:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)


 * IP, please register an account. It appears that one person is posting from multiple IP addresses to this talk page and article page. It makes it hard to tell how many voices we have in this discussion and it is going to make it hard to gauge WP:CONSENSUS. Please register for an account, thanks. Marquardtika (talk) 15:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not obligated to give WP my email address, nor does it make my contributions suspect that I don't have a pseudonym. My internet provider assigns related IP addresses randomly when I sign on. I'm sick and tired of having to defend their practices from WP editors who want to interpret random IP addresses as a sign of bad faith. And this issue is not difficult at all. One editor (whose talk page shows he's frequently accused of disruptive editing) is trying to delete references to fundamental criticisms of this ruling - while simultaneously claiming he wants to include "all" viewpoints and somehow is being prevented from doing so. It's nonsense, pure and simple. Stickman's viewpoint is already represented by quoting Stickman's ruling. It's just a question of whether his fellow ideologues will manage to exclude criticisms of that ruling.72.86.137.171 (talk) 21:28, 23 September 2020 (UTC)


 * You're doing a lot of name calling, including calling the subject of this article "an ideologue." You clearly have strong opinions about this that may be making it hard for you to edit impartially. I say cool down and let other editors weigh in. Marquardtika (talk) 03:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Because you yourself are impartial? Don't make me laugh. Stickman proved himself beyond any reasonable doubt to be a partisan when he (a) claimed that Lochner had not been repudiated, (b) dismissed the relevant precedent, Jacobson v. Mass., because it was decided long ago, and (c) cited instead the utterly irrelevant dissent of the ideologue Alito. One of the news reports I added to this article quotes Republicans admitting that Stickman is being ideological. So get off your high horse, my assessment of Stickman is well backed up by credible sources.72.86.137.171 (talk) 03:52, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, and when are you going to get around to criticizing the editor who keeps trying to delete the quoted, sourced criticism of Stickman while claiming that he actually wants to include all viewpoints? You're repeating that same editor's "pipe down" line, but oddly enough not directed toward him.72.86.137.171 (talk) 03:59, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok- I did a generic google search for stories regarding this ruling and looked at 20 to 30 articles from reliable news sources and the only sources to mention any specific criticism or mention Lochner at all are the two that the IP editor introduced. First of all, wikipedia is not a legal analysis blog- all rulings have criticisms and it's not wikipedia's job to go into specific legal disagreements of every case on the judge's page. Two it's not "widespread criticism" as IP editor claims if only a small fraction of the reliable sources are covering it. Yes, people are going to disagree with the ruling but that generic criticism discussion does not need to involve this Lochner stuff.

I believe the following would better represent the majority of the reliable news sources. On September 14, 2020, Stickman ruled that the restrictions on business activities and large public gatherings issued by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf to halt the spread of the coronavirus were unconstitutional, violating the right to freedom of assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment.[7][8] Stickman wrote that “There is no question that this country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort,” Stickman wrote. “But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment.”  Governor Wolf's office stated that "The administration is disappointed with the result and will seek a stay of the decision and file an appeal.... This decision is especially worrying as Pennsylvania and the rest of the country are likely to face a challenging time with the possible resurgence of COVID-19 and the flu in the fall and winter.” The Wolf administration filed an appeal for a stay of the ruling.

It is important to remember that Wikipedia is encyclopedic in nature and not a forum for every disagreement, criticism, or praise to be discussed.Tchouppy (talk) 16:45, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * That's because most of the existing news articles on the ruling have as one of their main focuses the fact that the Wolf administration announced quickly that it intends to appeal. It is emphatically not the job of WP to follow along in the path of journalists, writing about whatever the majority of them choose to write about. Nor is it inaccurate to describe the quoted criticism as widespread. Most legal analysis predicts Stickman's ruling will be overturned, and even his fellow partisans have felt obliged to take that as the starting point of discussion (how likely is it the controversial ruling will be reversed). It was indeed greeted with a massive eyeroll in the legal community for the reasons I mentioned: Stickman's refusal to deal seriously with the Jacobson precedent, or to acknowledge that SCOTUS has recently used Jacobson as the reason not to hear similar complaints about other state COVID19 regulations. On top of that, Stickman's dependence upon a dissent that has no standing as precedent in jurisprudence. It is the job of lower court justices to rule by applying precedent, not to make things up or turn to dissents the judge thinks should have persuaded other justices but didn't.
 * Your changes don't improve this article by deleting well-founded criticism. In fact, the final sentence you quote suggests that Wolf's justification for appealing is not the legal one - that the ruling is wrong about the law - but instead is about the pandemic. Wolf would not agree that he is violating the Constitution, but your rewrite suggests if anything the opposite, that he's willing to denigrate constitutionally guaranteed liberty under the pandemic circumstances. It's unnecessary to note that the pandemic continues.
 * To repeat the obvious, there is zero need to remove this sourced criticism of the ruling. "all rulings have criticisms and it's not wikipedia's job to go into specific legal disagreements of every case on the judge's page" It's pretty apparent that this purports to be no ordinary ruling, hence the fact that ideologues show up here trying to bolster it. This ruling claims that Lochner is not dead and buried (yes it is relevant here, because Stickman makes it the centerpiece of his ruling), and it claims that governments may not regulate businesses if their owners object that regulation infringes their liberty. The fact that you want to delete the existing quotation from his ruling mentioning Lochner is I think a give away about the aim of this rewrite. It's embarrassing to admit that Stickman said what he said about Lochner, and preferable to include instead grandiose but general rhetoric about liberty. Who can really critize liberty?72.86.132.24 (talk) 17:57, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * And I will add, after reviewing your talk page and your editing history, that I perceive you have already this summer engaged in at least one edit war trying to exclude or minimize the inclusion of information that is embarrassing to Republican politicians. In that case, you were trying to protect Congressman Steve Daines from himself, after he referred to residents of DC as if they were not "real Americans". Your mode of making that go away was first to try to delete the offending "real" quotation, and when that failed, to rewrite the section that took out the "real" quotation along with the quotation's criticisms and to replace it with superfluous "context" that muddied rather than clarified why the issue was controversial in the first place. In other words, you did with Daines exactly what you're proposing to do here - eliminate Stickman's controversial invocation of Lochner and along with it the criticism that it ignores precedent, and replace it with superfluous context pertaining to the ongoing contagion. It's almost as if the parade of partisans/ideologues continues to this page just as I said in my original posting.72.86.132.24 (talk) 19:14, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Continuing to personally attack those here who disagree with you is inappropriate and does nothing for your arguments. You continue to ramble on and accuse others of being idealogues. Instead of going back and looking at all the edits of those who disagree with you, you should be doing a better job of arguing your position.Tchouppy (talk) 19:43, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I've done a fine job articulating my position, which makes it all the more transparent what is going on when people show up and try to change the page to obscure rather than elucidate what makes this ruling remarkable. How is it an "attack" to point out that you or others have an editing record that parallels what you want to do here? That other editors have accused you or others of disruptive editing of a sort that parallels what would appear to be attempted disruptive editing here? I did not look at all your edits. I looked at your Talk page...which (not coincidentally) confirmed my suspicion about your proposed total rewrite of this section. It did not look accidental that your rewrite would efface any hint of what is actually controversial about Stickman's ruling, and your past record suggests that was indeed the intent of the rewrite. Whose fault is it that your past editing makes your current editing look suspect?72.86.132.24 (talk) 20:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Tchouppy’s suggestion above looks reasonable to me. does that version work for you? Marquardtika (talk) 03:33, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am ok with that. It looks like we have consensus for it, and can close this RfC and implement it. Trying to reconnect (talk) 14:04, 28 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Quelle surprise, the three editors with a record of partisan editing have reached "consensus" to impose a plainly partisan solution to the 'problem' that a criticism had been included of their fellow partisan's controversial ruling. There's a small problem however: "consensus" does not justify excluding information whose inclusion other editors have already expressed support for.72.86.137.189 (talk) 17:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't know that you need to close the RFC yet. I don't know too much about how RFCs work, but is it possible this one wasn't listed in all the spots it should be listed in? I ask because no uninvolved editors have come by to weigh in, and that usually happens with an RFC. I think it would be good to get more voices here. And you might try adding the suggested text to your RFC language so it's clearer to other editors what the proposal is. Marquardtika (talk) 18:51, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That's not entirely accurate, the RfC brought in who was not previously involved. I'll add his suggested text to my RfC statement. But yes, I'd have liked to see more comments -  I posted this RfC in Trying to reconnect (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Ah, you are correct, my mistake. When you start an RFC, doesn't it automatically alert relevant projects and some random selection of editors who have opted in? I don't remember ever starting one before, so sorry if I'm not very helpful. Anyway, there's WP:NODEADLINE, so let's just leave it open and see if anyone else comes along. Marquardtika (talk) 20:25, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Given Stickman's ruling is current stayed by the Third Circuit, pending appeal I think the section should stay as is at least until there is some ruling by the Third Circuit (I'm Australian so I'm not sure how your system works so excuse me if I've made a technical error). Wikipedia is not a running commentary. AlanStalk 04:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)