On Friday of last week, a Wisconsin circuit court judge ordered Gov. Scott Walker to stop acting like a totalitarian dictator and call special elections for two vacant state legislative seats. Judge Josann Reynolds—who was appointed by the failed GOP presidential candidate in 2014—was very clear that Gov. Walker was breaking the law. Well, Gov. Scott Walker, like the rest of the Republican Party, seems to feel that the Constitution and the laws of our land are only good if the minority Party of white supremacists are in office. The first move they made was to begin the process of creating a law that would make the law Scott Walker is breaking null and void. As The Nation’s John Nichols explains, the scramble to defend against the Democratic “blue wave” by not allowing elections is very real, and very desperate.
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Walker and Republican leaders in the legislature are still looking for ways to avoid following the existing law. On Tuesday, they announced a plan to rewrite state statutes so that governors would no longer be required to call special elections to fill legislative vacancies “as promptly as possible.” Under the Republican rewrite of the statutes that was unveiled Tuesday, legislative vacancies occurring after early December of odd-numbered years could be left unfilled until the regular November election of the following year.
This legally-dubious attempt to overturn a judge’s order by writing a new law would radically alter rules that have been in place for decades—and in some cases more than a century—for holding prompt special elections. Yet, Republican legislative leaders plan to call an extraordinary special session April 4 to pass the legislation, and Walker says he will sign it immediately. Then, if the special elections have been called by the governor in order to a contempt of court ruling, Walker allies suggest, the governor will then cancel them.
That’s. Incredible. There’s a reason that Scott Walker was the first and quickest Republican to get steamrolled by Donald Trump this past primary season: he managed his campaign like he’s managed Wisconsin, by driving it into the ground. People in Wisconsin are finished with Gov. Walker, but he’s hoping to wait them out, and he’s willing to end the democratic process to stay in power.
“The Republican-led efforts to prevent court-ordered special elections from being held is the height of corruption and the public should not accept this abuse of power,” argues state Senator Jennifer Shilling, the La Crosse Democrat who leads her party’s caucus in the legislature’s upper chamber.
The Republican Party’s “best” governor, with the most “conservative” values.