“It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready.”
—Sarah Kay
RUDE.
Because I’m certainly not ready (especially since I realized that Thanksgiving was somehow only a week ago), and I would have appreciated being consulted on the matter.
But much like Republican state lawmakers’ attempts to subvert democracy, women’s right to determine what happens to our own bodies, and COVID-19 safety measures, time keeps on keepin’ on, so here we are, in December, whether we like it or not.
December is also generally synonymous with the holiday season, a time associated with joy and generosity, but statehouse Republicans are in more of a taking mood than a giving one.
Campaign Action
Give It To Me: As an erudite consumer of this missive, you’re likely no stranger to Wisconsin Republicans attacking democracy in pretty fundamental ways.
When a state has Democrats winning statewide elections (Tony Evers in 2018 and Joe Biden in 2020 are just two recent examples) but grotesquely lopsided GOP representation in its legislature (Wisconsin Assembly: 38 D/61 R; Senate: 12 D/20 R), a lot of voters’ voices are being effectively silenced because they’re not being represented in the state capitol.
- … not to mention in Congress, where Republicans have a 6-2 advantage in Wisconsin’s House delegation.
GOP lawmakers in the Badger State enjoy their artificial majorities because of the extreme partisan gerrymander they passed on party-line votes a decade ago, when Republicans had complete control over the process.
- Advocates of fair redistricting and elections hoped that having a Democratic governor would result in less heinously gerrymandered maps this time around.
It was an adorable, silly hope, because Wisconsin Republicans are … Wisconsin Republicans.
- As expected, GOP lawmakers drew another set of unfair, unrepresentative maps and passed them out of the legislature.
- And as expected, Gov. Evers vetoed them.
- This kicked the process to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where conservatives have a 4-3 majority thanks to Justice Brian Hagedorn’s narrow victory in 2019.
- To his (tiny bit of) credit, Hagedorn hasn’t always sided with his conservative colleagues on the state’s highest court.
- But he did this time—thus ensuring continued Republican hegemony over a true swing state for another 10 years.
- On Tuesday, the court’s conservative majority issued a ruling saying it would use a "least-change" approach to redrawing the state's election districts.
- Under this deceptively neutral-sounding approach, the court will adjust the current maps (among the most gerrymandered in the country, according to experts) to achieve population equality between districts, purportedly making any necessary adjustments to existing district lines as minimal as possible.
- The conservative majority's decision to insist on “least-change” maps—a method not found anywhere in state or federal law—directly conflicts with the "compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivision boundaries" requirements set forth in the state constitution, since the current legislative districts are "the *least* compact districts in WI's modern history and split the *most* counties."
- The majority also failed to precisely define the concept of "least-change."
- Do they mean fewest changes to districts' existing boundary lines?
- Or moving the fewest people from one district to another?
- Or both?
- Or something else entirely?
This legal saga isn’t quite over yet, but don’t get your hopes up.
- Wisconsin Republicans are all but certain to enjoy their artificial majorities in the state legislature for another decade.
But of course, they’re not satisfied with a skewed playing field.
Gives You Hell: In the Badger State, elections are overseen by a bipartisan elections commission made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.
- The current commission head (a nonpartisan position) is Meagan Wolfe, a 10-year veteran of the agency (and its predecessor, which Republicans dismantled in 2015 because it kept catching them doing bad things).
- Wolfe was appointed director by the commission in 2019 and confirmed unanimously by the Republican-controlled Senate for a term ending in 2023.
- Wisconsin GOPers seemed just fine with her until 2020, when myriad lawsuits and recounts failed to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the state.
- Since that presidential election, at least 10 GOP lawmakers have called for the resignations of Wolfe and/or other elections commissioners.
- If Wolfe were to bounce, the state Senate would likely select her successor, who would no doubt be more sympathetic to their partisan preferences.
And of course, all this bullshit is on top of GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ “investigation” into a bunch of nonsense charges invented by a Trump-supporting sheriff and other Trump allies.
Meanwhile, you should absolutely be freaking out about the crop of Trump-supporting, democracy-undermining candidates queuing up to run for positions in key states that would give them a terrifying amount of influence over elections and how they’re run.
Anyway!
They Don’t Give A F*** About Us: The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that could well spell the end of Roe v. Wade and access to safe, legal abortion across large swaths of the country, so of course reproductive rights are on my mind.
- This case concerns a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortion at 15 weeks “except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality.”
- And yes, reproductive freedom advocates are extremely worried.
- That “15 weeks” metric means that the Mississippi law applies even before the fetus is “viable” (capable of surviving outside the uterus), which makes this case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) an appealing vehicle to the 6-3 conservative SCOTUS majority to overturn existing precedent that an abortion patient gets to make the final decision whether to “terminate her pregnancy before viability.”
- Unless at least two conservative justices surprise the snot out of … well, everyone, this case potentially provides SCOTUS with a vehicle to overrule Roe v. Wade in its entirety and permit outright bans on abortion.
- And if bans on abortion were to become constitutional, the healthcare landscape in the United State would change overnight … literally.
- According to the Guttmacher Institute, eight states retain enforceable pre-Roe abortion bans in their code:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin.
- Also, 12 states have laws on their books that would trigger automatic bans on abortion if Roe were overturned:
- Arkansas
- Idaho
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah.
And as an erudite consumer of this missive, you probably don’t need me to point out that the thing that all of these states have in common is a GOP-controlled legislature.
- On the flip side, 15 states and the District of Columbia (which should be a state, of course) have laws on their books that explicitly protect the right to obtain an abortion:
- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- New York
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Washington.
you get three guesses as to what those 15 states have in common but the first two don’t count
We’re living in a world where Democratic-majority state legislatures might soon be our last and only hope for protecting reproductive freedom and women’s right to exercise autonomy over our own bodies.
Academically, should Roe fall, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out politically over the next few years.
… but to be honest, it’s kinda tough to think about this academically at the moment.
Never Gonna Give You Up: Fashion is rather cyclical in nature—everything in your closet that’s out of style now is going to be the cool retro thing in a few years.
Apparently some Republicans think that infamous former GOP Sen. Joe McCarthy is back in style, too, and they’ve begun to air him out and wear him in public.
- Arizona GOP Sen. Wendy Rogers, a notorious Trump stan, tweeted a photo of McCarthy over the weekend and urged people to “be more like” him and “[g]et rid of the communists.”
- Of course, we all know that “socialist” and “communist” are favorite Republican epithets for Democrats—and Rogers is especially fond of throwing “communist” around as a synonym for “Democrats.”
Totally rational. Not at all weird or scary from someone who makes laws.
Speaking of scary people who make laws …
You Give Love A Bad Name: Romantic relationships in the workplace: always a Terrible Idea.
But the heart wants what the heart wants, and Michigan Republican Rep. Steve Marino and Democratic Rep. Mari Manoogian … dated.
The “brief” relationship ended in 2019, but the drama, apparently, was just beginning.
… thanks to Marino.
- Earlier this year, Manoogian accused Marino of harassing and abusing her after the relationship ended.
- She produced numerous scary texts (he said he’d make it his "life mission to destroy" her, said he hoped her "car explodes on the way in," and warned her to "hide on the House floor") supporting her allegations to both state police and the GOP House speaker, who immediately removed Marino from his committee assignments.
- A judge granted Manoogian a protective order, and since mid-September, Marino has only been allowed on the House floor with a security escort when Manoogian is present.
- Now Marino is asking a judge to toss the PPO, citing “legislative privilege” because their texts sometimes also addressed House business.
No matter what happens … ugh what a shitshow.
It didn’t work out, dude. Move. On.
(… preferably from the legislature entirely)
Welp!
That’s a wrap for this week.
I truly hope your December is off to a rad start.
And here’s hoping it gets even better!
You deserve a nice month.
Because you’re important.
We need you.