It wasn’t a very good week for democracy in Wisconsin. But it was very revealing.
Last week, Republican legislative leaders rushed two bad-government bills through the Assembly that are so dangerous and disingenuous that they seem to beg elected officials to become corrupt. All Democrats recused themselves from voting on a bill that would so weaken the state’s campaign finance regulations that they would become meaningless and Republicans also advanced a bill gutting the Government Accountability Board (GAB), the nonpartisan ethics and elections watchdog. In addition, on Friday, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a bill that prohibits prosecutors from using the John Doe law to investigate potential corruption committed by politicians, the same type of investigation prosecutors were using to look into Walker’s links to allegedly independent special interest groups.
What’s the rush? As we explained last week, 2016 is a major election year and Republicans’ actions show that they are worried about how they’ll fare when they face the voters. It doesn’t look good for them. Just as the Assembly was rushing through the bad bills, on Wednesday Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and St. Norbert College released their new poll showing that 57% of Wisconsinites say the state is headed in the wrong direction; 60% disapprove of Walker and just 39% approve of him; and Democrat Russ Feingold has an 11% lead over U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea party Republican.
So instead of working to improve Wisconsin’s future, Republicans are doing everything they can to game the system so that they can remain in power even though they are deeply unpopular.
Fortunately, a handful of rational, fair-minded Republicans in the state Senate don’t share the Assembly leaders’ thirst for unearned power so they are putting the brakes—at least temporarily—on the two pro-corruption bills. We’ll have to see if their sense of decency prevails or if Wisconsin is truly “open for corruption.”
