It’s cold out, but it’s December, and that’s kind of December’s thing.
Nothing like a little statehouse action to warm those cockles, though. So let’s bask in the warmth of the righteous ire at Republican lawmakers’ latest villainy.
Freeze Frame: However cold it may be outside, it’s nowhere near as cold as the icing Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Michigan are giving the voters of their states.
Campaign Action
- Wisconsin is the cake-taker here (speaking of icing … sorry), with GOP lawmakers going full North Carolina on incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
- JIC you were busy doing other things two years ago, here’s the short version of what North Carolina Republican legislators did to kneecap incoming Democratic governor Roy Cooper:
- Cut his appointment power from 1,500 posts to just 300
- Required (GOP-controlled) Senate approval of his cabinet appointments
- Made their unconstitutional laws harder to appeal to the (then-newly Democratic-majority) state Supreme Court
- Stripped the governor of the power to appoint appoint a majority of members of his own party to the state elections board
- Put Republicans in charge of the election board in all general election (even-numbered) years.
- Cooper immediately sued over this legislation when he took office, and significant parts of it have been rolled back. State Republicans have yet to give up on their quest to usurp gubernatorial control of the election board, though.
- Wisconsin Republicans took their lesson well from their southern brethren.
- Late afternoon last Friday, lawmakers released the bills they’d be voting on in this week’s “extraordinary session.”
- The bills received committee hearings Monday.
- Hundreds of Wisconsinites signed up to speak against the bills; just one person spoke in favor of them.
- On Tuesday, Republicans launched a marathon floor session that lasted all night, resulting in final votes on the bills in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
- So what do these garbage bills actually do? Glad you asked!
- Narrow the early voting window to just two weeks (it’s as long as six in some metropolitan areas—places where, not at all coincidentally, record-setting midterm early voting turnout helped elect Evers)
- Weaken the office of the state attorney general by stripping it of some of its powers and shifting them to the legislature (by the by, Democrat Josh Kaul was just elected to fill this post)
- Prevent Evers from dismantling the controversial Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, which manages the way the state doles out tax breaks and incentives to businesses
- Prevent Evers from banning guns in the state capitol
- Limit the Evers administration’s role in the rulemaking process by which new laws are implemented
- Strengthen a Medicaid work requirement that Evers was considering ending.
Wisconsin Republicans took to Twitter to justify their usurpation of gubernatorial power.
… a veto. This literally describes a veto—something GOP lawmakers are none too eager about Evers having.
Cool It Now: Wisconsin isn't the only place where Republican lawmakers are trying to kneecap their incoming Democratic governor. In neighboring Michigan, GOPers are up to similar shenanigans.
- They’re not doing it marathon sessions in the dead of night, but Wolverine State Republicans are moving methodically forward with bills undermining the incoming Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state.
- The measures would
- Strip Secretary of State-elect Jocelyn Benson of her authority to oversee elections and enforce campaign finance law by creating a hilariously-if-it-weren’t-so-cynically named “Fair Political Practices Commission,” an entirely new body made up of three Republican three Democrats, virtually ensuring that the commission would deadlock over any decisions and be completely ineffectual
- Allow the legislature to intervene in lawsuits, a power currently reserved only for the attorney general (a post that will soon be held by Democrat Dana Nessel)
- Dictate how the secretary of state selects members of the bipartisan redistricting commission voters elected to create via ballot measure just last month
- Outgoing GOP Gov. Rick Snyder refuses to say whether he plans to sign any of these bills when they inevitably land on his desk.
Cold Weather Blues: Okay, so, let’s pretty safely assume that the outgoing Republican governors of Wisconsin and Michigan will sign these garbage bills into law.
What’s a new Democratic governor to do?
Sue, of course.
- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper sued to overturn his Republican legislature’s latest attempts to usurp his authority, mostly on separation-of-powers grounds.
- He’s been largely successful, though the GOP legislature keeps rephrasing and passing the same laws in the hopes that they'll find a wording that survives state Supreme Court scrutiny.
- Cooper, however, has the benefit of a Democratic-majority North Carolina Supreme Court.
- Govs.-elect Evers and Whitmer will sue to have these new laws overturned, no doubt about it. But they have a problem.
- Both the Wisconsin and Michigan state supreme courts have Republican/conservative majorities.
Out In The Cold: Last week, I wrote in this space about how Michigan Republicans are gutting the minimum wage and paid sick leave measures they approved in September specifically to keep them off the ballot and reasonably guttable by the legislature.
This week I’ve got some fun updates!
- Not only did GOP lawmakers exempt tipped workers from the $12/hour minimum wage, but they also delayed implementation of the hike to 2030.
- Yes, you read that right. 2030. 20freaking30.
- And not only did Republicans exempt any company with fewer than 50 employees—that’s most companies in Michigan—from having to provide paid sick leave for the workers, but they’re also requiring employees work at the same place of employment for at least a year before receiving that benefit.
- These measures await Gov. Snyder’s (likely) signature.
Cold Sweat: Republicans in Michigan are super busy this month. They’re also moving to both gut public sector unions and hurt Democratic campaign efforts.
- GOP lawmakers are rushing legislation through the lame duck session that would require public sector unions to hold re-certification elections every other year—but specifically in even-numbered years.
- The measure also requires that these time-consuming and expensive re-certification election efforts take place between Aug. 1 and Nov. 30 of those even-numbered years—a stretch of time during which union members would likely otherwise be volunteering for political campaigns and doing get-out-the-vote work.
- It’s no coincidence that, historically, union involvement in elections tends to benefit Democrats.
Gotta admit, this is pretty clever. Diabolical, but clever.
Welp, that’s all the bad news for this week. You should go warm yourself up, maybe knock off early for the week and spend tomorrow stockpiling firewood or knitting scarves or moving south. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I’m sure she won’t mind.