As I understand the situation, two Republican state lawmakers resigned to join Gov. Scott Walker’s administration this past December. The Governor did not call special elections to fill the seats, and constituents (with the help of Eric Holder’s voting advocacy group) sued.
Yesterday a Walker-appointed judge ruled that the State must hold special elections to fill the seats. In response, Republican leaders in the legislature said they would take up a bill to change the current election law so that the seats would remain empty until the next scheduled election in November, leaving those districts without representation for roughly a year.
I have seen some writings stating that the existing law regarding special elections was poorly worded enough that Walker’s original position could be interpreted as justifiable. Still, once the judge ruled against the Republican stance, their next move just seems unconscionably partisan. They’re using the typical excuses about the expense of elections, and what a waste they would be with November coming up so soon.
Anyone have more knowledge about this? I’m willing to hear counter-arguments, but it looks to me like the Wisconsin GOP is so hell-bent on maintaining control at any costs, that they’ll deny citizens representation in the legislature rather than take the chance of more Democrats getting elected.
I think that’s giving Walker’s interpretation more credit than it deserves. The relevant part of the statute reads:
Walker’s argument is that since the vacancies occurred in December 2017, they didn’t occur “before the 2nd Tuesday in May in [2018]” because they occurred in 2017, not 2018, and he only therefore has to call special elections for 2018 vacancies. I guess you could make this argument with a semi-straight face, but the judge rightly pointed out that as a matter of policy and interpretation that read doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, since by any definition a vacancy that happens in 2017 occurs before 2018.
There is a court order extant. They are not going to follow the court order based on the prospect of changing the law to something that they believe would have resulted in a different ruling?
IANAL but it seems to me that even if they changed the law the ruling still holds until they bring a new case forward overruling the current one in face of changed laws.
If that is correct then the WI legislature and the executive branch would be acting unconstitutionally. But apparently they can get away doing that?
When does the legislative session run in Wisconsin? I’ve heard the argument that (at this point) the replacements won’t be seated before the end if the legislative session, so why bother? That argument falls flat given that the vacancy would approach or exceed a year under Walker’s intended plan.
Not only is 2017 before 2018, but vacancies are ongoing things, not one-time events. Even if he wasn’t required to fill the vacancy in 2017, the moment the clock struck midnight on January 1, there was a vacancy in the year before the election.
It’s hard to understand given the massive and enthusiastic popularity of the GOP/Trump in Wisconsin. One would think that such a public demonstration of awesome would be a good tonic for the Pubbies, an encouraging result would be certain and beneficial. Unless there is something wrong with my premise…
Ah! I see it now. Public support is so utterly massive such demonstrations as elections are pretty much superfluous, the public will be offended by such an expensive and futile demonstration. Yes, that must be it…
They are testing the waters and the boundaries of our democracy. If they can get away with this step, then the next gets easier. They want to normalize the idea that the govt gets to choose when and who gets to choose the govt.
The refusal to even give a hearing for the nomination Merrick Garland based on the rationale that President Obama only has a year left on his term and thus it was some kind of unfair advantage tells you every damn thing you need to know about how the Republican leadership in Congress views democratic norms as articles of convenience to be invoked when they suit their purposes and ignored when they don’t. I’ve long had problems with the Democratic party in terms of transparency and corruption in plain sight (including their own gerrymandering to skew votes for their districts) but their worst offenses are jaywalking compared to everything the GOP has done in the last couple of decades, and especially since 2008. The GOP has gone from being a mouthpiece for social conservatives but pragmatic on most practical issue to acting in blatant offense against the basic principles of democratic governance. We are fortunate to have a Constitution that in most ways is pretty unambiguous in protecting basic freedoms of expression and public policy that tends to support transparency in the election and ballot process, but that only goes so far when one party has the desire, funding, and control to undermine or ignore laws and norms.
… was despicable and was against previous tradition and expected norms of behavior but a least was a legal action. Not acting upon a court ruling that compels you to act? That is something completely different.
Is it, though? I suppose you can argue part of “advise and consent” of the Senate is to reject any nominee who is obviously unsuited for the job, but the argument of Garland’s competence or experience was never at issue; the only rationale put forward was that it was somehow “unfair” for an outgoing President (with still nearly a year in his term) to nominate a candidate for the Supreme Court, which left the court without its full complement of justices and hindered its ability to resolve split judgments. At a minimum, the Senate was not doing its collective job by not making the effort to see the vacancy filled as expediciously as possible.
And of course, the notion that they were just preventing Garland from having a public hearing because it was a waste of time due to his unsuitability is given lie by the nomination and hearing of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education (or any number of other Trump candidates wholly unsuited by experience and temperment for their roles, but DeVos couldn’t even answer basic questions about education terminology or the department’s role in managing student loans). Even if you are a Republican you should be outraged at Congressional Republicans refusing to do their damn jobs. Unless, of course, you are one of those people who think the best way to fix government is to burn it all to the ground and replace it a giant wall and some fantasy version of hyperconservative ideologues who will take us back to the halcyon days of 1953 when men were men, women were in the kitchen, and dark people didn’t get all uppity about being marginalized and occasionally lynched.
No, not at this point. However it is expected that one or more special sessions of the legislature will be called before the November election. And the people of the affected districts deserve representation during any such special session.
And a straightforward reading of the relevant law would seem to mandate a special election to fill such vacant seats for the purpose of providing representation during those special sessions of the legislature.
Absolutely - when I quoted the statute above I don’t know if I was really strong enough about how stupid I consider this argument. It’s probably just enough to not get sanctioned for making it, but any reasonable statutory interpretation mandates that you have to call a special election in this situation.
I don’t have any special knowledge about Wisconsin state senate roles, but in general in addition to actual legislative duties legislators of all types are expected to do a lot of gladhanding and other constituent-facing stuff, including helping out people who are stuck in various state bureaucracies and need someone to write a letter on their behalf. And there are probably various business and industry people who want face time to lobby for things in the next session, or want to talk about who knows what. Not having someone to do these things for you for over a year is not necessarily a trivial inconvenience depending on who you are and what you need. And these are GOP districts, right? There are probably some ambitious GOP politicos who want to run for these seats too.