Fred has a nice round up on a terrible bill which has already passed in the legislature, which changes the rules regarding appeals on property assessments in Wisconsin.  The Journal wrote about this about a month ago when it had passed in the Assembly:

The measure, which Rep. Mark Gottlieb (R-Port Washington) sponsored, tightens procedures to be used in hearings before local review boards by giving taxpayers more time and better sources of information to prepare their cases.

In exchange for the new procedures, the bill would stop circuit courts from reopening the case completely if a taxpayer or community objected to the board's finding. Instead, the court could consider only whether the proper procedures were followed or look at information that became available after the board met. Now, the law allows the court to reopen the case completely.

Essentially, it changes the rules so that once your appeal goes to court, the court has to assume the assessment is accurate, and now only looks for procedural flaws in the decision.  A lot of people are up and arms about this.  It's a horrible law... and yet... I have a hard time feeling sorry for property owners around the state... especially the Republican ones.

This is really one more time when the legislature, the courts, and government in general, take away the basic due process rights of individuals.  Of course, when those due process rights are removed to be "harder on drunk driving", or restrict where people can live who have served their time for a particular crime, then due process is attacked as protecting the rights of criminals.  And so due process has eroded slowly over time, and you let it happen.

And now they're coming after you... and who is going to stop it?  Think about that.