There was a protest about this in Madison last night that had decent turnout. A couple state representatives spoke, and I believe the Wisconsin Secretary of State did as well.
There was a protest about this in Madison last night that had decent turnout. A couple state representatives spoke, and I believe the Wisconsin Secretary of State did as well.
They did the exact same thing in North Carolina, when a democrat gained the governorship last year. Standard republican tactics, if democracy would threaten their power, they undermine democracy.
They did the exact same thing in North Carolina, when a democrat gained the governorship last year. Standard republican tactics, if democracy would threaten their power, they undermine democracy.
What's the end game though? I don't get it. All this does is make them less and less popular. That will make it even harder to pull these kinds of tricks in the future. I just don't see what...
What's the end game though? I don't get it. All this does is make them less and less popular. That will make it even harder to pull these kinds of tricks in the future. I just don't see what exactly they hope to accomplish with this shit.
The end game, insofar as there is one, is permanent minority rule, in a sort of inverted totalitarian state, that while maintaining the basic appearance of a democracy, is not one in any real...
The end game, insofar as there is one, is permanent minority rule, in a sort of inverted totalitarian state, that while maintaining the basic appearance of a democracy, is not one in any real sense of the word. A state where voting ceases to have meaning beyond the legitimization of the regime.
They've been working towards this since at least Bush v Gore, when the SCOTUS voted 5-4 along party lines to halt the recount and appoint Bush president against the wishes of the voters. I feel like that opened a lot of people's eyes to what could be accomplished with dodgy application of government powers.
They're trying to achieve this end through a variety of means. First, you've got information warfare. There's fox news, conservative talk radio, and the alt-right internet presence, these serve the purpose of constructing an alternate reality for their base to live in, so that they don't know about the consequences of Republican rule, and can't be reached by rational arguments that contradict their constructed reality. Their base consists of something like a third of the population, so they also have to try and convince the other two thirds that voting is pointless. As long as they can manage to sufficiently demoralize about ~15-20% of potential voters, they can keep winning elections, and this strategy of weaponized apathy has been depressingly effective for decades.
But just in case people eventually wise up to this, once republicans are in power, they use government action to try and stop people they don't want to vote from voting. This is where you get things like gerrymandering, or the voter ID laws that were put in place after key provisions of the voting rights act of 1965 were struck down along party lines in a 5-4 decision (noticing a pattern here?).
As you can tell, this would all be much more difficult without Republican control of the judicial branch, which has been one of their biggest and most successful projects of recent years. The judicial branch represents a great opportunity, since appointments are for life, and it's very difficult to remove a judge once they've been appointed. While almost half of the supreme court now consists of the appointments of unelected presidents, the party's also been on the ball in keeping Democrats from appointing lower court justices as well. It wasn't just the SCOTUS seat, McConnell blocked all judicial appointments from the Obama administration in its last couple of years. This means that, sans a sweeping, unprecedented wave of judicial impeachments, there's going to be arch-conservative judges knocking around in government for decades to come. Considering how many affirmations of our rights derive from court cases, such as same sex marriage, abortion, the right to an attorney, the rest of the Miranda rights, and so on, this is... not good, and will give fuel to the argument of "see, your vote doesn't count", perpetuating the cycle.
So to sum up, their goals are to seize as much power and do as much damage as possible in order to muck up the government enough to demoralize and/or disenfranchise enough voters that their base can propel them to victory.
In this case and North Carolina's, what they're hoping to pull off is something like: people elect a democratic governor -> republicans neuter the office of the governor -> governor does nothing, because they can't -> democratic voters are demoralized and think their vote doesn't matter because of the do-nothing governor -> democrats don't vote enough next election, republicans recapture the office.
To stop their opponents from passing laws and changing society in ways they don't approve of. Simple as that. They'll work out how to get back into government later. For now, it's sufficient to...
What's the end game though?
To stop their opponents from passing laws and changing society in ways they don't approve of. Simple as that.
They'll work out how to get back into government later. For now, it's sufficient to stop the other mob from doing too much damage while they're in office.
If I recall correctly, aren't a lot of electoral districts in America gerrymandered in the Republicans' favour? They'll get back in. And then they can roll back these restrictive laws.
This effort is part of it actually, they're essentially taking the strategy they used against the Obama administration and repeating it on a smaller scale. Which is to utterly hamstring the...
They'll work out how to get back into government later.
This effort is part of it actually, they're essentially taking the strategy they used against the Obama administration and repeating it on a smaller scale. Which is to utterly hamstring the opposition through any available means, leading to an opposition that manages to fulfill few or none of its promises or goals, leading to disaffected democratic voters, leading to republicans winning the next election.
Yes, and very few are more gerrymandered than Wisconsin. This doesn't particularly enter into in this case however, as the Governor's election is by popular vote, and the Republican's didn't lose...
If I recall correctly, aren't a lot of electoral districts in America gerrymandered in the Republicans' favour?
Yes, and very few are more gerrymandered than Wisconsin. This doesn't particularly enter into in this case however, as the Governor's election is by popular vote, and the Republican's didn't lose control of either house in the Wisconsin state legislature this year.
Are there any states/countries/etc. with laws preventing certain lame-duck behavior? I realize lame-duck sessions need authority to govern during the transition period, but I'd be curious about...
Are there any states/countries/etc. with laws preventing certain lame-duck behavior? I realize lame-duck sessions need authority to govern during the transition period, but I'd be curious about existing models for curtailing their powers.
Here in Australia, we have what's called "caretaker conventions". When a Prime Minister (or Premier or Chief Minister) advises the Governor-General (or Governor) to dissolve the federal (or state...
Are there any states/countries/etc. with laws preventing certain lame-duck behavior?
Here in Australia, we have what's called "caretaker conventions".
When a Prime Minister (or Premier or Chief Minister) advises the Governor-General (or Governor) to dissolve the federal (or state or territory) parliament and hold an election, the PM continues on in the office of Prime Minister until the results of the election are known - which can be a couple of months later (the election campaign may run 4-6 weeks, and it may take up to a week or two for the votes to be counted after the election). During this time, the Prime Minister retains the full authority of their office.
However, we have conventions (not laws, but conventions are very strong and hold legal weight in the Westminster parliamentary system) which say that an outgoing government should not make any major decisions or enact any major laws during this so-called "caretaker" period, when the government is merely taking care of business pending the election outcome. They can do "business as usual" things to keep the place running, but they can't make any significant changes during that time. In the case of the federal government at least, these conventions are even documented.
This doesn't stop some governments making major announcements up to the day before the caretaker period - but woe betide any government that takes significant action during that caretaker period! Especially because the caretaker period usually coincides with the lead-up to an election, meaning voters can still vote against a government that breaks the caretaker conventions.
Breaking the caretaker conventions, while it may not be illegal, would probably bring a government down in Australia. That's a strong incentive for governments not to break those conventions.
A convention is stronger than a norm but weaker than a law. A lot of how Westminster parliamentary systems (like those in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) operate is based...
A convention is stronger than a norm but weaker than a law.
A lot of how Westminster parliamentary systems (like those in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) operate is based on unwritten conventions that date back centuries. The United Kingdom's constitution is famously undocumented, and is a cobbled-together hodge-podge of written law and unwritten conventions. Even though Australia has a written constitution, our system of government still relies heavily on unwritten conventions. Most strikingly, there is no mention of a Prime Minister in our constitution, but this role is central to how our government operates.
Even though conventions are unwritten, they're "baked in" to the Westminster parliamentary system - like the unproven axioms which underpin the whole of mathematics (noone ever proved that if a=b then b=a). It's just assumed that there will be a Prime Minister - and if there ever wasn't one, we would have to make one, because this is one of the unwritten conventions of the Australian system of government.
We then create laws which assume these conventions' existence, giving them implicit legal standing. For example, there are probably Australian laws which refer to a "Prime Minister", even though this role officially doesn't exist in our written constitution. This gives the convention that there will be a Prime Minister an implied legal basis.
Conventions are stronger than norms, but aren't written like laws.
How about the most popular governor in the country, Charlie Baker? I've never voted for him, but the worst things I can say about him are that I disagree with his position on marijuana...
How about the most popular governor in the country, Charlie Baker? I've never voted for him, but the worst things I can say about him are that I disagree with his position on marijuana legalization even though he eventually signed off on it, and he sort of tacitly supported Geoff Diehl, the awful senate candidate who predictably lost to Elizabeth Warren by 20+ points.
There was a protest about this in Madison last night that had decent turnout. A couple state representatives spoke, and I believe the Wisconsin Secretary of State did as well.
When do we move from being aware of problems to actually fixing them?
They did the exact same thing in North Carolina, when a democrat gained the governorship last year. Standard republican tactics, if democracy would threaten their power, they undermine democracy.
What's the end game though? I don't get it. All this does is make them less and less popular. That will make it even harder to pull these kinds of tricks in the future. I just don't see what exactly they hope to accomplish with this shit.
The end game, insofar as there is one, is permanent minority rule, in a sort of inverted totalitarian state, that while maintaining the basic appearance of a democracy, is not one in any real sense of the word. A state where voting ceases to have meaning beyond the legitimization of the regime.
They've been working towards this since at least Bush v Gore, when the SCOTUS voted 5-4 along party lines to halt the recount and appoint Bush president against the wishes of the voters. I feel like that opened a lot of people's eyes to what could be accomplished with dodgy application of government powers.
They're trying to achieve this end through a variety of means. First, you've got information warfare. There's fox news, conservative talk radio, and the alt-right internet presence, these serve the purpose of constructing an alternate reality for their base to live in, so that they don't know about the consequences of Republican rule, and can't be reached by rational arguments that contradict their constructed reality. Their base consists of something like a third of the population, so they also have to try and convince the other two thirds that voting is pointless. As long as they can manage to sufficiently demoralize about ~15-20% of potential voters, they can keep winning elections, and this strategy of weaponized apathy has been depressingly effective for decades.
But just in case people eventually wise up to this, once republicans are in power, they use government action to try and stop people they don't want to vote from voting. This is where you get things like gerrymandering, or the voter ID laws that were put in place after key provisions of the voting rights act of 1965 were struck down along party lines in a 5-4 decision (noticing a pattern here?).
As you can tell, this would all be much more difficult without Republican control of the judicial branch, which has been one of their biggest and most successful projects of recent years. The judicial branch represents a great opportunity, since appointments are for life, and it's very difficult to remove a judge once they've been appointed. While almost half of the supreme court now consists of the appointments of unelected presidents, the party's also been on the ball in keeping Democrats from appointing lower court justices as well. It wasn't just the SCOTUS seat, McConnell blocked all judicial appointments from the Obama administration in its last couple of years. This means that, sans a sweeping, unprecedented wave of judicial impeachments, there's going to be arch-conservative judges knocking around in government for decades to come. Considering how many affirmations of our rights derive from court cases, such as same sex marriage, abortion, the right to an attorney, the rest of the Miranda rights, and so on, this is... not good, and will give fuel to the argument of "see, your vote doesn't count", perpetuating the cycle.
So to sum up, their goals are to seize as much power and do as much damage as possible in order to muck up the government enough to demoralize and/or disenfranchise enough voters that their base can propel them to victory.
In this case and North Carolina's, what they're hoping to pull off is something like: people elect a democratic governor -> republicans neuter the office of the governor -> governor does nothing, because they can't -> democratic voters are demoralized and think their vote doesn't matter because of the do-nothing governor -> democrats don't vote enough next election, republicans recapture the office.
To stop their opponents from passing laws and changing society in ways they don't approve of. Simple as that.
They'll work out how to get back into government later. For now, it's sufficient to stop the other mob from doing too much damage while they're in office.
If I recall correctly, aren't a lot of electoral districts in America gerrymandered in the Republicans' favour? They'll get back in. And then they can roll back these restrictive laws.
This effort is part of it actually, they're essentially taking the strategy they used against the Obama administration and repeating it on a smaller scale. Which is to utterly hamstring the opposition through any available means, leading to an opposition that manages to fulfill few or none of its promises or goals, leading to disaffected democratic voters, leading to republicans winning the next election.
Yes, and very few are more gerrymandered than Wisconsin. This doesn't particularly enter into in this case however, as the Governor's election is by popular vote, and the Republican's didn't lose control of either house in the Wisconsin state legislature this year.
Are there any states/countries/etc. with laws preventing certain lame-duck behavior? I realize lame-duck sessions need authority to govern during the transition period, but I'd be curious about existing models for curtailing their powers.
Here in Australia, we have what's called "caretaker conventions".
When a Prime Minister (or Premier or Chief Minister) advises the Governor-General (or Governor) to dissolve the federal (or state or territory) parliament and hold an election, the PM continues on in the office of Prime Minister until the results of the election are known - which can be a couple of months later (the election campaign may run 4-6 weeks, and it may take up to a week or two for the votes to be counted after the election). During this time, the Prime Minister retains the full authority of their office.
However, we have conventions (not laws, but conventions are very strong and hold legal weight in the Westminster parliamentary system) which say that an outgoing government should not make any major decisions or enact any major laws during this so-called "caretaker" period, when the government is merely taking care of business pending the election outcome. They can do "business as usual" things to keep the place running, but they can't make any significant changes during that time. In the case of the federal government at least, these conventions are even documented.
This doesn't stop some governments making major announcements up to the day before the caretaker period - but woe betide any government that takes significant action during that caretaker period! Especially because the caretaker period usually coincides with the lead-up to an election, meaning voters can still vote against a government that breaks the caretaker conventions.
Breaking the caretaker conventions, while it may not be illegal, would probably bring a government down in Australia. That's a strong incentive for governments not to break those conventions.
A convention is stronger than a norm but weaker than a law.
A lot of how Westminster parliamentary systems (like those in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) operate is based on unwritten conventions that date back centuries. The United Kingdom's constitution is famously undocumented, and is a cobbled-together hodge-podge of written law and unwritten conventions. Even though Australia has a written constitution, our system of government still relies heavily on unwritten conventions. Most strikingly, there is no mention of a Prime Minister in our constitution, but this role is central to how our government operates.
Even though conventions are unwritten, they're "baked in" to the Westminster parliamentary system - like the unproven axioms which underpin the whole of mathematics (noone ever proved that if a=b then b=a). It's just assumed that there will be a Prime Minister - and if there ever wasn't one, we would have to make one, because this is one of the unwritten conventions of the Australian system of government.
We then create laws which assume these conventions' existence, giving them implicit legal standing. For example, there are probably Australian laws which refer to a "Prime Minister", even though this role officially doesn't exist in our written constitution. This gives the convention that there will be a Prime Minister an implied legal basis.
Conventions are stronger than norms, but aren't written like laws.
This is pretty enlightening. Thanks for taking the time to explain it all.
How about the most popular governor in the country, Charlie Baker? I've never voted for him, but the worst things I can say about him are that I disagree with his position on marijuana legalization even though he eventually signed off on it, and he sort of tacitly supported Geoff Diehl, the awful senate candidate who predictably lost to Elizabeth Warren by 20+ points.
There might be just one left.