Lame-duck Wisconsin GOP goes on late-night lawmaking rampage after losing executive

[johnhoftb]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...arder-to-vote/

TL;DR:

They stripped the ability of the governor to make administrative changes to state laws and prohibits governor from making key Legislative appointments

Prevents the incoming Democratic Secretary of State from leaving any of the state's ongoing lawsuits without Legislative approval.

Approved 80 appointments, most of which without a hearing.

Put a hard 2 week limit on early voting, wheras before, it was up to individual counties. This past election, the two largest counties in the state, Dade (which holds the capitial Madison), and Milwaukee (guess), had 6 week early election periods, which led to a heavy voter turnout.

Gotta love that smell of dead democracy because radicals are sore losers.

After an all-night legislative session marked by raucous debate, Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature voted on Wednesday morning to limit the power of the state’s incoming Democratic governor and make it harder for Wisconsinites to vote.

The new legislation, which is expected to be signed by outgoing Gov. Scott Walker, limits the ability of incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to make administrative changes to state laws and prohibits the governor from making key legislative appointments. It also prevents incoming Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul from withdrawing from federal lawsuits initiated by the state without legislative approval, likely blocking Kaul from removing Wisconsin from a multi-state lawsuit by Republicans challenging the Affordable Care Act. The legislature also approved more than 80 last-minute appointments from Walker, many of which had never received a hearing.

One of the most controversial sections of the bill, passed during the lame-duck period before newly elected officials take office, would limit Wisconsin’s early voting period to two weeks. Currently, Wisconsin counties can decide when to begin early voting, and Democratic-leaning cities like Madison and Milwaukee allowed six weeks of early voting in 2018, which helped lead to record turnout for a midterm election.

Democrats pledged to sue, noting that the last time Wisconsin cut early voting, in 2014, a federal court struck the law down and said it was intended to “suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans.”

“Wisconsin has never seen anything like this,” Evers said in a statement. “Power-hungry politicians rushed through sweeping changes to our laws to expand their own power and override the will of the people of Wisconsin who asked for change on November 6th.”

Democrats won all five statewide elections in Wisconsin in 2018, and Republican leaders admitted they passed the lame-duck plan to limit the power of Democratic officials. Without the new laws, “we are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. (Walker criticized lame-duck sessions before he took office in 2010.)

Republicans are undertaking similar efforts to undermine Democratic power and restrict access to the ballot in lame-duck sessions in other key swing states. In Michigan, Republicans have introduced bills to take power away from the newly elected Democratic governor and secretary of state while weakening a ballot initiative enacting Election Day registration. In Ohio, which passed a major ballot initiative in May requiring congressional redistricting reform, Republicans have introduced a proposal to make it nearly impossible to put citizen-led initiatives on the ballot in the future. And in North Carolina, where Republicans first stripped power from the Democratic governor in a lame-duck session in 2016, the GOP legislature is rushing to pass a new voter ID law before Republicans lose their supermajority in January while also pushing another bill that would give Republicans control of county election boards in election years.

These lame-duck moves are part of a broader strategy by Republicans in Wisconsin and elsewhere to hold onto power by weakening the democratic process. Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which first went into effect in 2016, disenfranchised tens of thousands of disproportionately Democratic-leaning voters and helped President Donald Trump carry the state. The redistricting plans passed by Wisconsin Republicans in 2011 are among the most gerrymandered in the country: Republican assembly candidates received 46 percent of statewide votes in 2018 but retained 64 percent of legislative seats. In other states, like Arizona, California, and Florida, Republicans have falsely accused Democrats of stealing elections and called for a premature end to the counting of ballots. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, it appears that Republicans actually committed major election fraud to help a Republican narrowly win a congressional race.

The message from Republicans is clear: They’ll do what they can to give themselves a structural advantage in an election, and when those efforts fail and Democrats manage to win, they’ll pass laws to effectively nullify those Democratic victories.

[NoiseTank13]

But both sides clearly do this.

[roxfm]

Lol.... So much for 'freedom'

[Omega10]

Lol.... So much for 'freedom'

Yeah this is just plain evil There is no other word to describe it

[Sunseeker]

Congrats Wisconsin, you flipped red and this is what you get.

[Deus Mortis]

What a scummy thing to do, and bet you $10 when the dems do it back you will see Fox News go crazy over it.

[Daethz]

Im happy, I hope they strip the governor of all powers and make it nothing but a title.
This democrat wants to raise the gas tax by a dollar, last time they raised it they also didn't use a penny of it to fix the roads.
It's always "We will increase taxes to fix this!" and then they increase the taxes and don't fix anything.

[Omega10]

Im happy, I hope they strip the governor of all powers and make it nothing but a title.
This democrat wants to raise the gas tax by a dollar, last time they raised it they also didn't use a penny of it to fix the roads.
It's always "We will increase taxes to fix this!" and then they increase the taxes and don't fix anything.

Fighting policies you disapprove of by destroying democracy is just plain sick and disgusting. And in the long run these disgusting actions do a LOT more damage to America than even the worst case scenarios of the policies they are meant to be "protecting" us from.

As you and your band of thugs continue these no-holds-barred actions, more and more pressure will be applied to keep you from ever having the least bit of power. You just proved without a shadow of a doubt that you are NOT TRUSTWORTHY ENOUGH TO BE GIVEN EVEN THE LEAST SEMBLANCE OF POWER. 2018 was the beginning of the destruction of your way of thinking. 2020 will be a few more nails, and afterwards we will just continue to build.

Why do you hate America so much?

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Im happy, I hope they strip the governor of all powers and make it nothing but a title.
This democrat wants to raise the gas tax by a dollar, last time they raised it they also didn't use a penny of it to fix the roads.
It's always "We will increase taxes to fix this!" and then they increase the taxes and don't fix anything.

You should be stripped of citizenship and thrown the fuck out of this country.

[Daethz]

Fighting policies you disapprove of by destroying democracy is just plain sick and disgusting. And in the long run these disgusting actions do a LOT more damage to America than even the worst case scenarios of the policies they are meant to be "protecting" us from.

As you and your band of thugs continue these no-holds-barred actions, more and more pressure will be applied to keep you from ever having the least bit of power. You just proved without a shadow of a doubt that you are NOT TRUSTWORTHY ENOUGH TO BE GIVEN EVEN THE LEAST SEMBLANCE OF POWER. 2018 was the beginning of the destruction of your way of thinking. 2020 will be a few more nails, and afterwards we will just continue to build.

Why do you hate America so much?

We could always burn down our own country when he raises the gas tax like france is doing right now.
The liberal cities of Madison and Milwaukee elected this governor, nearly everyone outside of those places did not vote for him.
Im starting to think its time to implement a Electoral College for all state elections to give non-city people more say in their government.

- - - Updated - - -

You should be stripped of citizenship and thrown the fuck out of this country.

We should burn down all cities and violently remove liberals using our second amendment's provided firearms, Close and Militarize the borders and make it so each new immigrant has to be voted on by the state legislature, individual votes for individual citizenship grants.
Two can play at that buddy.

[Felya]

We could always burn down our own country when he raises the gas tax like france is doing right now.
The liberal cities of Madison and Milwaukee elected this governor, nearly everyone outside of those places did not vote for him.
Im starting to think its time to implement a Electoral College for all state elections to give non-city people more say in their government.

We should burn down all cities and violently remove liberals using our second amendment's provided firearms, Close and Militarize the borders and make it so each new immigrant has to be voted on by the state legislature, individual votes for individual citizenship grants.
Two can play at that buddy.

Can you go to Syria and do this? Maybe Afghanistan?

[Daethz]

Can you go to Syria and do this? Maybe Afghanistan?

Burn down all the cities there? I think between terrorists and americas dronestikes we have already done that.
Sadly middle eastern extremist religious "conservatives" are completely different than american conservatives so it wouldn't work at all there.

[Derpling]

We could always burn down our own country when he raises the gas tax like france is doing right now.
The liberal cities of Madison and Milwaukee elected this governor, nearly everyone outside of those places did not vote for him.
Im starting to think its time to implement a Electoral College for all state elections to give non-city people more say in their government.

- - - Updated - - -



We should burn down all cities and violently remove liberals using our second amendment's provided firearms, Close and Militarize the borders and make it so each new immigrant has to be voted on by the state legislature, individual votes for individual citizenship grants.
Two can play at that buddy.

You need professional help. Or at least to be stripped of voting rights.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

We should burn down all cities and violently remove liberals using our second amendment's provided firearms, Close and Militarize the borders and make it so each new immigrant has to be voted on by the state legislature, individual votes for individual citizenship grants.
Two can play at that buddy.

First off, I'm no "buddy" to an anti-democratic fool. Second, it's telling that you respond to a well reasoned removal of a person who doesn't believe in the most basic of values in how democracies function with violence visited on your political "enemies."

Fucking fruitcake.

[Felya]

Burn down all the cities there? I think between terrorists and americas dronestikes we have already done that.
Sadly middle eastern extremist religious "conservatives" are completely different than american conservatives so it wouldn't work at all there.

Yes, go and burn down terrorists, instead of America... that’s exactly what I mean... That way, you burn each other down and America doesn’t get harmed.

[Daethz]

I get the feeling half the people posting in these threads are from california, the state with the nations highest tax rates that can't even clean up a forest to prevent massive global record breaking fires because cleaning up dead twigs "hurties the environments omg!!"

[Omega10]

We could always burn down our own country when he raises the gas tax like france is doing right now.
The liberal cities of Madison and Milwaukee elected this governor, nearly everyone outside of those places did not vote for him.
Im starting to think its time to implement a Electoral College for all state elections to give non-city people more say in their government.

- - - Updated - - -



We should burn down all cities and violently remove liberals using our second amendment's provided firearms, Close and Militarize the borders and make it so each new immigrant has to be voted on by the state legislature, individual votes for individual citizenship grants.
Two can play at that buddy.

I thought it would take a bit of work to get you unhinged and write stupid toxic stuff. I was wrong.

[Daethz]

Yes, go and burn down terrorists, instead of America... that’s exactly what I mean... That way, you burn each other down and America doesn’t get harmed.

America gets harmed every time a liberal teacher is allowed to speak to children.

[Felya]

America gets harmed every time a liberal teacher is allowed to speak to children.

Not as much as you burning them... wtf?

[GreenGoldSharpie]

I get the feeling half the people posting in these threads are from california, the state with the nations highest tax rates that can't even clean up a forest to prevent massive global record breaking fires because cleaning up dead twigs "hurties the environments omg!!"

And we all know you're an undemocratic authoritarian who doesn't belong here. Stupid easy to trigger you into raving insane, murderous shit, though.