When Justice Jill Karofsky joins Justice Rebecca Dallet on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Aug. 1, they may have a lot more in common than just being the two most recent progressive judges to wallop rightwing opponents supported by Republicans to begin restoring integrity and the rule of law to the state’s politically partisan high court.
In April 2018, Dallet’s 12-percentage-point statewide political victory over conservative extremist Michael Screnock was a clear indication of the energized Democratic vote in November’s midterm elections that ended Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s political career and swept Gov. Tony Evers, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and other Democrats into every statewide office on the ballot.
Karofsky’s victory by 11 percentage points over Walker appointee Daniel Kelly could foreshadow the same Democratic energy in November’s election to end the political career of a dangerously incompetent Republican president who continues to put the nation at risk in one of the worst public health and economic crises in American history.
Wrath of Wisconsin Voters
This year it was Wisconsin Republicans, mirroring the cruelty and recklessness of President Trump, who brought the wrath of state voters upon themselves. Wisconsin was the only state in the nation where a Republican-controlled legislature refused to delay April elections or expand alternatives to in-person voting to protect the lives of their citizens in a deadly pandemic. Republican friendly majorities on the Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Court supported the intentional tactic of Republican legislators to make voting dangerous in the belief a low turnout would benefit Kelly, a rightwing state supreme court candidate.
Wisconsin Republicans keep inventing new ways to suppress voting by racial minorities and other specific groups that overwhelmingly support Democrats. They considered the deadly coronavirus hitting minority communities hardest too good to pass up. But the sheer inhumanity of requiring voters to choose between risking their lives or giving up their right to vote blew up in Republican faces.
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As John Carter, a 71-year-old retired African American bus driver who stood in line for three hours in Milwaukee to vote, told a Washington Post reporter: “I saw the line and thought, ‘Oh, my God. But I have to vote. I must stay here.’ That’s why so many people stood in those lines. They wanted change. They’re looking for a change.” Carter said he wanted to send that message to President Trump and Wisconsin Republicans.
About 70 percent of voters cast absentee ballots by mail, an enormous increase from the typical 15 percent. It would have been even more, but tens of thousands of voters failed to receive mail-in ballots requested weeks before Election Day from overwhelmed election officials. Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, said his mission for the next six and a half months is to make sure every Democratic voter requesting a safe mail-in ballot for November’s election receives one. “They were mad that Republicans were trying to weaponize coronavirus to steal an election,” Wikler said.
Visibly Shrinking Republicans
Proving just how great the backlash was against Republicans, Karofsky didn’t just dominate Kelly in the state’s Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison. She also swept the counties in southwestern Wisconsin that voted twice for President Obama before flipping for Trump in 2016. Karofsky also won three counties in the Fox Valley that have long favored Republicans, bolstered by increasing Democratic support in Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh.
Waukesha and Ozaukee Counties, the motherlode of Republican votes in Wisconsin, aren’t turning blue anytime soon. But Kelly’s poor performance continued the visibly shrinking Republican margin in the state’s reddest counties that cost Walker his job in 2018. Walker won Waukesha County by 46 points in 2014 declining to 34 points in 2018. Kelly won it by 23. Walker won Ozaukee County by 41 points in 2014 declining to 27 points in 2018. Kelly won it by 12.
No one who lived through the shock of Republicans electing a totally unfit, sleazy candidate caught on tape bragging about grabbing women’s genitals to the presidency should ever take defeating Trump for granted. Trump’s name on the ballot will attract white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other unsavory characters who usually have little interest in civic engagement. With Trump recklessly pushing the resumption of business as usual in this country while still failing to provide massive national testing necessary to assure public safety, electing a competent, intelligent president has never been more urgent.
Wisconsin is widely considered to be a key state in determining whether that happens in November. Its voters just risked their lives to put their partisan Supreme Court within one vote of a majority protecting everyone’s Constitutional rights instead of approving even life-threatening Republican political tactics to suppress their opponents’ right to vote.
Every voter interested in good government should work actively to build on that success in November to remove the most dangerously incompetent, ignorant president we have ever had in such perilous times.
