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Wisconsin state capitol steps
The new Wisconsin Supreme Court is acting quickly to create fair voting districts throughout the state and end the corrupt gerrymandering by Republican legislators that has assured themselves lopsided legislative majorities in a state that is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans.
That’s exactly what a record turnout of voters demanded last April when they elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz making her the third progressive justice to defeat extreme rightwing opponents by double-digit margins to create a new court majority.
They were fed up with voting in grossly gerrymandered elections locking in two-thirds Republican majorities controlling the legislature at the same time voters were electing and reelecting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and casting more votes for Democratic legislative candidates than for Republicans.
Those cries of “Bloody murder!” you hear are from Republican legislators terrified they will have to run in fair elections for the first time in 15 years.
Fair Maps, Fair Voting
Two bipartisan election experts advising the court in drawing new legislative voting maps rejected the dishonest redistricting plans submitted by Republican legislators and the Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty, a rightwing law firm founded by the Bradley Foundation.
The legal consultants said both were unconstitutional gerrymanders that deserved no further consideration because they “preclude any potential for Democratic control of the legislature.”
“In a tied election, Republican candidates can expect to win on average about 26 more seats than Democrats” under the Republicans’ plan, they said. They called the proposal by the rightwing law firm a “stealth gerrymander” with an “extreme level of partisan bias.”
The consultants said four other plans submitted by Democrats, progressives and academic election experts were tilted somewhat toward Republicans, but they all created competitive elections so “the party that wins the most votes will win the most seats.”
Corrupting Democracy
Isn’t that the way elections are always supposed to work in a democracy? How did Wisconsin’s elections get so thoroughly corrupted in a 50-50 state? It was the same way the Republican party became so corrupted it no longer supports American democracy and now pledges its allegiance to Donald Trump.
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Before there was a Trumped-up U.S. Supreme Court abolishing constitutional abortion rights for women, there was as an extreme rightwing Republican majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court led by Michael Gableman, one of the most corrupt justices in state history.
Gableman’s openly racist campaign in April 2008 defeating the court’s only African American justice Louis Butler was an ugly exception in what became a landmark year for racial equality in national politics with President Obama’s election. But Obama’s historic victory and enthusiastic reelection four years later did little to alleviate the racist Republican backlash in the 2010 midterms against America’s first Black president.
Those were the notorious Tea Party midterms with Republicans waving caricatures of Obama with a bone through his nose dressed as a witch doctor in their vicious hate rallies. In Wisconsin, they elected Gov. Scott Walker and extreme rightwing Republican majorities in the Assembly and state Senate.
By then, Gableman’s election had created an equally extreme rightwing majority on the court eager to support dishonest Republican gerrymandering of state elections making it virtually impossible for Democrats to ever control the legislature.
Trump was impressed with the attention-grabbing value of the tea party’s racism before party leaders reined it in. He refused to rein in his own explicitly racist appeals to violent white supremacists. It only worked once in 2016 when few Democrats or Republicans expected such a vile candidate to get elected. America knows better now. A majority of Americans have turned out to oppose Trump and Trumpism and support democracy ever since.
Nationwide Opposition
The transformation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court perfectly tracks nationwide voter opposition to Trump’s destruction of American democracy one election at a time.
That began with voters in 2018 electing Democrats to control the House of Representatives. Wisconsin elected progressive Justice Rebecca Dallet by a 12% margin over her far-right opponent after Gableman chose not to run for reelection rather than face defeat.
Setting up Protasiewicz’s election to create a pro-democracy state Supreme Court for the first time in a decade and a half was Justice Jill Karofsky’s victory in April 2020 preceding Biden’s victory over Trump and Democrats winning Senate control.
Karofsky and Protasiewicz both defeated the same corrupt rightwing candidate Daniel Kelly. Kelly and Gableman tried to illegally throw out Biden’s election in Wisconsin. Kelly helped Republicans create fake Trump electoral votes and Gableman conducted a fraudulent investigation of election fraud urging the state to throw Biden’s votes.
Only one more election remains this year for American voters to protect democracy from Trump’s public promises to destroy it. The state Supreme Court is trying to make sure it’s a fair one.
Conservatives need to create a new political party. There’s nothing conservative about protecting a criminal president who attempted to violently overthrow democracy from prosecution.
