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Gov. Tony Evers ran on a promise to legalize medical marijuana and to put recreational marijuana to vote through a statewide referendum. Clearly, this didn’t work out quite as he had hoped. Several roadblocks are in Evers’ way, starting with the Republicans’ last-minute efforts to undermine his power in the lame duck session and continuing with constant opposition from the Republican-controlled state Assembly and Senate. Despite that, the governor keeps pushing for cannabis reform, and he called out the Legislature during his 2020 state of the state address.
“When more than 80% of our state supports medical marijuana... and elected officials can ignore those numbers without consequence, folks, something’s wrong,” Evers said on Wednesday, Jan. 22, to a room full of state legislators. “The people who work in this building, who sit in these seats and who drive the policies for our state should not be able to ignore the people who sent us here. The will of the people is the law of the land, and by golly, the people should not take no for an answer.”
This led to the announcement of the creation of a non-partisan redistricting commission to redraw the state’s legislative maps in an attempt to undo Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin. On Monday, Jan. 27, Evers signed an executive order creating that commission, clarifying that its members cannot be elected or public officials, lobbyists or representatives of either party. Instead, the commission is supposed to be composed of experts and members of the communities whose interests depend on the fairness of those maps.
However, Republicans have already announced they will not take into account that commission’s maps; as the commission was created by executive order, their work is not legally binding. “He can form whatever kind of fake, phony, partisan process he wants to create, but I have no doubt in the end we will do it the way we always have,” Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said.
Cannabis Reform Depends on Election Results
Evers’ support for marijuana is not limited to words. Besides the state of the state address, he included cannabis reform in his latest budget proposal in an attempt to strong-arm the Republican-controlled Legislature blocking the way. His proposal would have legalized medical marijuana entirely and decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot for personal use, which would have made Wisconsin one of the most lenient states besides the ones where adult-use marijuana is fully legal.
But, of course, Republicans entirely removed the provisions from the final spending plan. In September 2019, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to legalize medical marijuana. Evers came out publicly in support of that initiative, but it stands little chance in the state Legislature; legalization seems impossible as Republicans will veto every initiative to reform cannabis laws.
Evers has three years left to bring about the concrete changes he promised. Currently, the state Assembly is heavily Republican (63 to 35), but every single seat in the body will be up for reelection on Tuesday, Nov. 3, so Democrats could conceivably seize control of the chamber. Similarly, the state Senate is up for grabs; with 16 seats up for reelection, Democrats only need to win 10 of them to gain control.
While a “Blue Wave” this year is not a certainty—especially after the 2018 election kept two-thirds of the state Assembly in Republican hands—a grassroots movement could uproot the Republicans’ hold on Wisconsin’s political system. In 2018, Democratic candidates to the state Assembly won the popular vote, earning nearly 53% of expressed votes, while Republican candidates didn’t reach 45%. Despite that, Republicans still won 63 out of the 99 seats in the Assembly—stealing a large majority of legislative power with a minority of ballots. The Democratic votes were largely concentrated in urban areas, while relatively few Republican votes often meant victory for the GOP in rural areas, given their gerrymandered districts.
The 2011 Republican-drawn electoral maps of Wisconsin went to the U.S. Supreme Court, who refused to hear the case despite Wisconsin having “one of the largest Republican tilts in the nation,” according to the Associated Press. The maps will be redrawn soon, and the results might determine the future of the Wisconsin Legislature, and, yes, whether Wisconsinites will see marijuana legalized in the Badger State anytime in the foreseeable future.
