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There was a very good reason when Wisconsin voters turned out in record numbers last November to defeat Republicans in every statewide election that it didn’t change the overwhelming 63-36 Republican majority in the state Assembly at all. Republicans had corruptly gerrymandered voting districts for Wisconsin’s Legislature to prevent legislative elections from reflecting the will of the state’s voters.
We’ve known that ever since 2012, when a federal appeals court judge declared the voting map unconstitutional, noting the boundaries were intentionally distorted to give Republicans a 54-45 majority in the Assembly with only 48% of the vote. The judge actually underestimated how extreme the distortion was. The corrupt Republican map was used that fall during appeal and an actual 48% minority vote for Republicans gave the party a 60-39 Assembly majority. That fraudulent majority has gotten worse since.
Republicans continued their ongoing corruption of democracy last year after losing every statewide office with about 48% of the vote. They held an emergency lame-duck legislative session to grab power away from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul before the state’s top elected officials could even take office. Republican legislators don’t need to win statewide elections if they can prevent a Democratic governor and attorney general from performing the jobs voters elected them to do.
All hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court would stop corrupt partisan gerrymandering from making a mockery of elections and voting rights in states like Wisconsin were dashed in June. Trump Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the other Republican court appointees to vote 5-4 that federal courts shouldn’t do anything at all to prevent dishonest partisan gerrymandering from distorting election results. The essence of the decision: Gerrymander away!
In the Dark of Night
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, the absurdity of Republican legislators, who don’t represent the majority of the state’s voters, interfering with the legal duties of the governor and attorney general continues to grow. The latest crisis involves one of those Republican laws passed in the dark of night requiring Kaul to get permission from Republicans on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee before reaching any settlements in legal cases.
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Voters elected Democrat Josh Kaul to be Wisconsin’s attorney general representing the state’s legal interests in criminal and civil cases. They did not elect any of the 81 Republicans in the Legislature, most of whom aren’t even attorneys, to take over any of the attorney general’s legal duties.
Now, potential legal settlements continue to pile up that could result in hundreds of millions of dollars for the state and even billions in a major, multi-state opioid case, and the law is not working. Kaul is stymied from even discussing confidential details of proposed legal settlements with legislators who cannot be personally trusted or legally prevented from publicly disclosing confidential information.
That’s why every other Wisconsin attorney general had the right to conduct his or her own settlement negotiations. Lawyers are legally and ethically bound to protect confidential information. State legislators are not. Journalists always know who will share confidential information. Whether those people are considered whistleblowers or leakers depends on how important the information is.
Gutting Health Care
A primary reason Republicans wanted to strip Kaul of the basic powers of his office was to prevent him and Evers from withdrawing from a multi-state Republican lawsuit aimed at destroying the health care benefits of the Affordable Care Act. That effort already failed. A federal appeals court dropped Wisconsin from that lawsuit, fulfilling one of the Democrats’ most popular election promises.
Multiple lawsuits remain in state and federal courts, challenging the constitutionality of all those lame-duck Republican laws interfering with Kaul and Evers carrying out their duties. That should be exactly the right venue to resolve constitutional disputes, but federal courts often allow the state court process to be exhausted before getting involved. Unfortunately, that once again shines a spotlight on the notoriously corrupt Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Since 2008, a rightwing majority on Wisconsin’s high court, whose elections are funded by millions of dollars from the state’s business lobby, has consistently ruled Republican legislators and Republican Gov. Scott Walker could legally pass any extreme legislation they wanted, regardless of the state constitution or legal precedents.
In the end, however, Wisconsin voters will have the final say in whether the voting districts to elect the state Legislature reflect the will of state voters after the 2020 census. The current Republican map, which was already corrupt when it was passed in 2011, is now nearly a decade out of date as well. Voters have already provided some protection for themselves by giving Gov. Evers veto power over another corrupt Republican redistricting in 2021.
The most important thing voters can do now is to continue organizing the largest election turnout in state history in 2020. That could once again give Wisconsin both a president and a Legislature representing the majority of state voters.
