Not to be outdone by the US Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is, once again, back on its shit.
This week, the Wisconsin high court ruled 4-3 that Republican political appointees can refuse to leave and hold their offices for as long as they want, at least until a Republican is elected governor.
Yes, quite literally. The outcome in Wisconsin v. Prehn is a rule that will only benefit the justices’ fellow Republicans.
In 2015, Scott Walker appointed Frederick Prehn (who owns a gun shop, because of course he does) to the state Natural Resources Board. Board members serve staggered six-year terms, and Prehn’s term was up in 2021. Prehn, however, just decided he was going to stay in his seat, because fuck you is why. And since the Republican state Senate refused to confirm any of the Democratic governor’s appointees in his place, the state supreme court let him.
This isn’t just about the NRB, though Prehn and his GOP buddies are pretty excited about continuing to use the board to do things like bring back wolf hunting. It’s part of a larger scheme by Republicans to stop Democrats from holding any power in the state, even when they win statewide elections. And now, that ratfucking has been heartily endorsed by the state supreme court.
So that’s just lovely, isn’t it?
Here’s the thing about Wisconsin: It’s almost a perfectly purple state, if you look at the voters. We’re a swing state in presidential elections, go back and forth in gubernatorial elections, and have both the lovely Tammy Baldwin and the Dumbest Republican in the Senate as our US Senators. But you wouldn’t know this from looking at our state legislature.
Can you guess why? CAN YOU?!
That’s right! Extreme gerrymandering that goes against the very principles of representative government!
Wisconsin has been called the most gerrymandered state in the country for good reason. In 2018, for example, Democrats received 54 percent of the popular vote for the state Assembly and won just 36 percent of the seats. Not great.
So, despite having a relatively moderate, swingy electorate, Wisconsin has an extreme rightwing legislative branch. And Republicans are gonna do what Republicans do, so the mega-gerrymandered Republican Legislature does everything in its power to obstruct Democrats who win statewide office. And since Governor Tony Evers beat that cretin Scott Walker in 2018, it has done just that. After Evers won his election but before he was sworn in, the Legislature held a special session specifically to strip him of some of his power.
Four years later, the Wisconsin GOP is continuing to do everything it can to stop the democratically elected governor from governing. Like Henry Redman at the Wisconsin Examinerobserved a year ago, “Wisconsin Republicans are using quirks in state law to retain power over the administrative levers of government — extending the control gained during Scott Walker’s governorship deep into Gov. Tony Evers’ term.”
With the two appointments Governor Evers was set to make to the NRB, the balance of the board would have shifted to Democrats. (One might not think that the state natural resource board is a place likely to spark constitutional crises that strike at the heart of our republican system of government, but here we are.) So Republicans, who no longer believe in the most basic tenets of democracy, decided to simply take what they couldn’t win at the ballot box and stage a coup. Prehn refused to vacate his seat when his term expired and barred Evers appointee Sandra Naas from doing her job.
It should go without saying that refusing to leave your appointed office because another party won an election shouldn’t be, you know, a thing that happens. In Wisconsin, gubernatorial appointees can assume their seats prior to their Senate confirmation. Additionally, appointees can remain in their seats after their term has expired, until there is a new nominee. But in this case, there is a nominee. It’s just that the anti-democracy state Senate refuses to confirm her.
Now, according to the state’s highest court, Republican appointees can serve for however long they want, in order to block any Democrats from ever assuming their appointed positions. The court’s conservatives used Senate Republicans’ blatant obstructionism as their excuse for the ruling, saying that no one can force the man whose term expired more than a year ago to leave his post until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate. Which the Senate has no intent of ever doing.
The court’s rightwing justices made this ruling knowing full well that there is no chance of it benefiting anyone but Republicans for the foreseeable future. This spring, it chose new legislative maps that are even more gerrymandered than the 2011 Scott Walker version. With these maps, Republicans in the supreme court secured Republican control over the state Legislature until at least 2031. And now, even when Democrats win statewide elections, Republicans know that they can simply throw a fit and refuse to leave the office with impunity. (Who does that remind you of?)
With these decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has cemented continued Republican rule over the state, regardless of who actually wins elections.
So that’s bad
It’s awful. Mirroring its federal counterpart, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has become the judicial branch of the Republican Party.
BUT!
Unlike the US Supreme Court, which is fucked beyond reason or belief for the foreseeable future, there is hope for the Wisconsin Supreme Court! The next supreme court election is April 2023, when rightwing Justice Patience Roggensack’s seat is on the ballot. The balance of the court will be decided in this election and an additional liberal justice would flip most of the court’s major decisions to the side of democracy.
Wisconsin’s April elections are for nonpartisan offices and tend to have very low turnout. Next April, the balance of the state’s highest court will depend entirely on getting out the vote.
Everything is terrible right now. But at least in Wisconsin, there is still a sliver of hope.
Vote like your life depends on it; it very well might!
[ Wis. Sup. Ct. / Wis. Examiner ]
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