On Sept. 14, the Wisconsin senate voted to remove the state’s nonpartisan elections chief Meagan Wolfe. Attorney General Josh Kaul’s office filed a lawsuit to effectively block this vote.

Also on Sept. 14, Planned Parenthood announced that it is resuming efforts to provide access to safe and legal abortion in Wisconsin after it had been denied for more than a year in the state. And in another Sept. 14 newsworthy action, the Republican majority in the Wisconsin legislature proposed a new non-partisan redistricting model, that Attorney General Josh Kaul told NPF Statehouse Reporting fellows he has “significant concerns with.”

“We’re a state where a lot of what happens here becomes a model for what happens in other states and around the country.”

His lessons from the front line of state government:

‘Attacks on democracy’

“Now, state law says that in Wisconsin, a majority of our election commissioners, there are six of them, need to vote to appoint an administrator. A vote was taken, three people voted in favor, but three abstained, making clear that they didn’t want to put a new appointment before the Senate. And under state law, I believe it’s very clear that there was no appointment effectuated. But despite that, our Senate held a hearing. (Former Supreme Court Justice Michael) Gableman himself testified among other folks who were engaged in election denial and our state Senate took a vote to purportedly remove our administrator. Now, she remains in office, she continues to do her job … But the fact of the matter is that attacks on our election system remain in effect now and frankly are probably at a higher level than they were even going into the 2020 election. So, protection of democracy, I believe really is the fundamental issue of this time in our nation’s history.”

“In my litany of attacks on democracy, I forgot to mention the big ongoing one, which is we just had an election this past spring for a Supreme Court seat. The new justice was seated about a month and a half ago, and there are threats to impeach that newly elected justice, who was elected by 11 points. I told you about my margins before. So 11 points in that perspective is pretty remarkable. If there is in fact an impeachment effort that goes forward, I think there is almost certainly going to be litigation quite possibly in multiple different forums.”

‘History Matters’

“I grew up with the adage that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. But that adage has taken on much more urgency in the last few years than it has historically. If you look at what has been happening, for example, with the targeting of vulnerable minority groups in this country, it’s important that Americans know the historical parallels that are happening when we talk about the targeting of immigrants, the targeting of transgender individuals, but also the LGBT community more generally, the targeting of the press who have been called by certain political actors, enemies of the state, the targeting of neutral election administration. There are historical parallels for what’s happening here and there is real danger that goes with that kind of targeting of individuals. Highlighting that, highlighting the similarities between what we have seen from certain political actors and what’s happened in other countries, sometimes in autocratic regimes, I think is vitally important as we have a national discussion about democracy and what the future of this nation holds.”

‘Context Matters’

“I just mentioned the example with Meagan Wolfe…. When this vote was taken on the administrator, one of the headlines that I saw, and this is not verbatim, but it gives you the sense is, “Senate votes to fire Administrator Wolfe.” Now if you’re a citizen reading that, you probably would think from that headline, and let’s be honest, nobody reads past the headlines, right? I can’t say that in front of journalists, but a lot of the news people is (are) getting is from the headlines. What you’d come away from that thinking is there’s going to be a new election administrator. But, in fact, to me the story is the legislature, which less than 10 years ago, created this new commission.”

Access the full transcript here.

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