In Wisconsin, democracy itself is on the ballot

[Nevilledog]

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Steven Greenhouse
@greenhousenyt
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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called an emergency special session of the GOP-led legislature to repeal the 1849 ban on abortions even for rape & incest

The GOP Senate president gaveled the session in & out in 14 seconds—The Assembly did the same in 25 seconds

washingtonpost.com
Opinion | In Wisconsin, democracy itself is on the ballot
Here's why the governor's race in the Badger State is the new front line.
12:51 PM · Aug 13, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/11/wisconsin-governors-race/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/so1pW

*snip*


Evers’s time in office has been defined by nonstop, house-to-house fighting. The legislature has tried to torpedo him since before he took office. After losing the 2018 election, lame duck Scott Walker signed bills to curtail his successor’s administrative powers. This June, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court allowed GOP appointees to stay on state boards and commissions after their terms expired because the GOP-controlled Senate had not confirmed Evers’s nominees to replace them. In Wisconsin, one Republican hand washes the other.

In response, Evers has vetoed 144 bills since taking office 3½ years ago, shattering a record that stood since 1928. He has rejected significant restrictions on abortion access, voting rights and public benefits. Evers, who calls himself the “goalkeeper,” blocked legislation this spring that would have let people carry guns into schools and churches. “If there’s a different person sitting in my chair, every single one of those bills will come back,” Evers told me between rallies in Green Bay and this Milwaukee suburb.

Focus groups show that the voters who will decide this election perceive Republicans as crazy but Democrats as weak. To activate his base and win over independents, Evers has gone out of his way to convey that he’s a fighter, whether for abortion rights or the sanctity of elections themselves.

Polling shows nearly 6 in 10 Wisconsinites believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, but the state has a ban on the books from 1849 without exceptions for rape or incest. (That was a decade before the Civil War.) The law has been dormant since 1973, but state courts are now considering whether more recent limitations on the procedure invalidated the original law.

*snip*

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[They_Live]

2. k & r n/t

[NullTuples]

3. Sooo, if I'm reading this right...

The Governor called the session to repeal the 1849 ban on abortion but both houses of the legislature are GOP dominated and voted no on repealing the ban, thus keeping in place the 1849 ban on abortion.

All this article shows is that 6 of 10 voters want abortion to be legal but that's not who they voted into office.

What's missing is showing that the gerrymandering in place is allowing representatives to run the legislature that do not reflect the vote counts.

[Nevilledog]

4. Umm.... All of that is in the article

[NullTuples]

5. I read it. It's confusing, at least to me. So I was asking for confirmation.

A legislature voting against the wishes of an opposite party governor is not news.

What was missing completely was an analysis of whether that legislature was acting in accordance with the vote counts that put them in office. In other words, is the gerrymandering so bad in Wisconsin that 6 in 10 voters are voting Democrat but Republicans control both houses of the legislature? That's not actually reported on, only that 6 in 10 voters don't want abortion banned.

[Nevilledog]

6. Because the article is about the abortion issue.

I think it would be a physically impossibility to gerrymander to the point that only 4 out of 10 voters represented the winning party.

Here's an interesting article about Wisconsin districting

https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2021/02/why-do-republicans-overperform-in-the-wisconsin-state-assembly-partisan-gerrymandering-vs-political-geography/

[NullTuples]

7. Thanks. I figured with a title like "democracy is on the ballot" it was about democracy

[crickets]

8. Good luck to Tony Evers. I hope he keeps the governorship. nt