FILE - Mike Huebsch, a former member of Wisconsin's Public Service Commission, enters a courtroom for a hearing at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wis., on March 1, 2011. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Thursday, July 7, 2022, sided with Huebsch, who did not want to testify in court about his personal relationships with utility companies building a new power line that he voted to approve. (M.P. King/Wisconsin State Journal via AP, File, Pool)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Thursday sided with a former member of the state Public Service Commission who did not want to turn over his cellphone in a fight over the approval of a new power line.

The court said there was no evidence that Mike Huebsch’s private communications with utility executives influenced his vote to approve the nearly $500 million project in 2019. Huebsch is a former Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and was a member of former Gov. Scott Walker’s Cabinet.

The Supreme Court ruled that an “appearance of bias” does not amount to a violation of due process, as opponents had argued.

The Supreme Court, in its 4-3 ruling, did not address the approval of the power line. Instead, the court said the lower courts were wrong to rule that Huebsch should have to turn over his cellphone to be searched for messages he may have sent or received with those connected to the power line project.

It also rejected arguments that Huebsch’s attempts to land a job with one of the utility’s building the line was improper, saying there were no facts to back up the claims.

Justice Brian Hagedorn called the allegations against Huebsch “meritless and borderline frivolous.”

Huebsch’s attorney, Ryan Walsh, called the ruling a “resounding victory.”

“His years-long nightmare is finally over,” Walsh said in an email. He said the ruling “sends an unmistakable message that campaigns of slander and innuendo against adjudicators and judges by unhappy litigants will not be tolerated.”

The court overreached in its ruling, said Howard Learner, who represented Driftless Area Land Conservancy and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation in the case. But Learner, the executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, said the ruling clears the way for the circuit court to rule on the merits of the PSC granting the permit for the power line.

PSC spokesman Matt Sweeney praised the ruling, saying it reaffirms the integrity of the commission’s process “and helps protect public servants against frivolous, unfair, and unfounded claims of bias.”

Construction of the power line has continued even though a federal judge ruled in a different lawsuit that it can’t cross the Mississippi River as planned.

In addition to Dairyland Power, others building the line are American Transmission Company and ITC Midwest. They argued that the power line is necessary to relieve congestion and improve reliability on the power grid while also facilitating a transition to clean energy.

Huebsch served on the PSC from 2015 to 2020. The line was unanimously approved by the commission in 2019. Opponents of the project, including the Driftless Area Land Conservancy, the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, Dane County and other local governments, sued in an attempt to block its construction.

Attorneys for the PSC had argued that if the ruling was allowed to stand, future rulings of the commission could be questioned under the same reasoning.

The court agreed with Huebsch’s argument that commission members enjoy a presumption of impartiality and that it is possible to set aside personal relationships when deciding cases. Huebsch also argued that the communications were purely personal ones between friends.

Those communications, some of which were done using an encrypted messaging app, included Huebsch’s attempts to land a job with Dairyland Power Cooperative. Is is one of the utilities behind the 102-mile Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line that is being built from Middleton, Wisconsin, to Dubuque, Iowa. Huebsch, who started a private consulting company, did not get the job.

Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost ruled in 2021 that the evidence created an “appearance of bias” and ordered Huebsch to submit to questioning. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling.

The circuit court was wrong to deny Huebsch’s motion to quash discovery and seize his phone, the Supreme Court said.

“There is no factual evidence of any wrongdoing,” Justice Patience Roggensack wrote for the majority. Justices Rebecca Bradley, Hagedorn and Chief Justice Annette Ziegler joined Roggensack in the majority.

Justice Jill Karofsky, writing for the dissenting justices, said the majority overreached with its ruling since the subpoena seeking Huebsch’s phone had been withdrawn.

“Inconvenience and the discomfort that comes with having private relationships exposed to public view simply are not enough to excuse a subpoenaed witness from his ‘duty to testify,'” Karofsky wrote. She was joined by fellow liberal Justices Rebecca Dallet and Ann Walsh Bradley.