Pandemic-Caused Mail-in Ballot Push Reduces Effect of Frank Easterbrook Opinion Against Voting Rights

Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin pro-voting advocates are urging citizens to act now in an effort to help voters cast their votes and have their votes counted.

Public and private initiatives protecting this foundational right come as anti-voting forces aligned with the Republican Party use the COVID 19 crisis, litigation and sabotage of the U.S. Post Office to decrease voter turnout.

Prior to the Coronavius COVID 19 pandemic, Wisconsin voting rights workers noted with concern a then-pending voting rights case, decided in June 2020, Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs, (Nos. 16-3003, 16-3052).

Judge Frank Easterbrook, the anti-voting forces' go-to judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, penned a bizarre opinion in this appellate circuit now overrun with Republican-appointed judges thanks to Senate Democrats' and Pres Obama's political incompetence.

Easterbrook writes that statutory discrimination against minorities is not discriminatory if discrete demographics vote in a similar political fashion and reside prominently in urban jurisdictions, Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs, (Nos. 16-3003, 16-3052), (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). 

So, Easterbrook reasons, the Voting Rights Act and the First Amendment lose force if people who can be measured by the same ethnicity, also vote in an identical political fashion as targeted by statute.

Easterbrook reinstated Republican-enacted restrictions against early voting.

But the pandemic makes in-person, early voting a risky proposition.

Now, a massive, pandemic-induced absentee-ballot effort seeking to overcome other Republican anti-voting efforts likely will blunt the effect of anti-early-voting efforts like Luft by promoting early, mail-in ballots.

This pandemic, second-order effect on voting rights thus can be seen in isolation this election cycle as a happy accident following Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs.

Though Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs reinstated Republican-enacted restrictions on early, in-person voting, the decision is likely to have less importance now that a massive push for mail-in absentee voting has been launched after the pandemic hit.

The nonpartisan counteroffensive against Republicans is joined by election clerks in metro voting districts notes In These Times, pointing to public-private partnerships that have emerged in reaction against the Republican Party, (WISC-TV).

Justices on 7th Circuit Do Duty for Racist GOP — Slash Voting

Wisconsin voting rights workers worked to defend citizenss against
Republican-enacted voter obstruction laws. Molly McGrath (L), a
voting rights attorney with the ACLU, works with Madison residents
to get the IDs they need to vote under Wisconsin’s restrictive
voter-ID law. (Courtesy of Molly McGrath)

Madison, Wisconsin —You should have seen Wisconsin voters streaming into metro voting precincts after a voting rights victory in the Summer 2016, (One Wisconsin Institute v. Jacobs, [Thomsen] (16-3091).

With black hair and dark skin, voters sometimes teamed-up with white women just to stick it in good folks' collective face; and ole-time Wisconsin values looked frayed as Gov Scott Walker (R) was knocked out of office in 2018.

Used to be, you only had to deal with black folks at Bucks games and visits to the Milwaukee Zoo. Now, you can find black folks in Fond du Lac marching down the street like they own the place.

God-fearing racists need not have worried.

Judge Frank Easterbrook is the racists' ace in the hole, though Easterbrook, and his propensity to play with loose with facts, proved an unpunctual card to play in Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs, (Nos. 16-3003, 16-3052), voting rights cases decided June 29, 2020, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Easterbrook's job, as he sees it, is to diminish voting rights, and devise new ways for Republican legislators to stop minorities to vote.

Reports Rick Hasen, election law expert, on Easterbrook's I-see-no-racism-here June 2020 opinion from the Seventh Circuit: [Hasen's analysis should result in a code-red response, as 2020 will be the most comprehensive voter-obstruction project since the Civil War].

[W]ith no explanation for the 3-year delay ... overall this is a very voter-unfriendly decision (and I say that not necessarily because of the holdings but because of the dismissiveness of the panel’s approach to voting rights issues and what it means for future challenges).

Some details:

This appeal is complicated: it comes from two separate cases where various election laws were challenged as unconstitutional, a violation of the Voting Rights Act, or both. Some of the decisions of the lower court judges were inconsistent, and some of the issues, came up to the 7th Circuit in earlier challenges to the voter id aspects of the law.
Judge Easterbrook, as is his style, gives breezy and superficial treatment to many of these voting issues, making the three year delay in a unanimous case all the more inexplicable.

The opinion starts out with a very troubling discussion of Judge Adelman’s findings that some of these restrictive Wisconsin voting laws were passed with racial and partisan animus. The 7th Circuit found little direct evidence of racial discrimination and then suggested, in a very troubling way, that making it harder to vote on the basis of party is perfectly acceptable. ('If one party can make changes that it believes help its candidates, the other can restore the original rules or revise the new ones. The process does not include a constitutional ratchet.'). In support of this terrible idea, Judge Easterbrook cites the Rucho case from the Supreme Court, which held that there are no judicially manageable standards to separate permissible from impermissible consideration of party in redistricting. But that did not carry over into voting rules, like rules for early voting, and the Supreme Court has never held that partisan animus provides a legitimate basis for discriminatory voting rules.

Making matters even worse, Judge Easterbrook dismisses without analysis the argument that discriminating against Democrats when so much of the party is made up of racial minorities can in some circumstances be a form of racial discrimination. ('The record does not show that legislators made any of the changes because Democratic voters are more likely to be black (or because black voters are more likely to support Democrats). The changes were made because of politics.').

What Easterbrook's dismissive opinion does is give the green light to Republicans to stop as many black and brown people as possible from voting, as long as their party-line-enacted statutes and elected Republicans do not explicitly state 'stop black and brown voters.'

Two U.S. District judges in Wisconsin see Republican voter obstruction differently.

For example, Judge James Peterson writes in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, [Jacobs] (16-3091).:

[I] find that 2013 Wis. Act 146, restricting hours for in-person absentee voting, intentionally discriminates on the basis of race. I reach this conclusion because I am persuaded that this law was specifically targeted to curtail voting in Milwaukee without any other legitimate purpose. The legislature’s immediate goal was to achieve a partisan objective, but the means of achieving that objective was to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans. Thus, I conclude that the limits on in-person absentee voting imposed by Act 146 fail under the Fifteenth Amendment, as well as under the Anderson-Burdick analysis.

In sum, Wisconsin has the authority to regulate its elections to preserve their integrity, and a voter ID requirement can be part of a well-conceived election system. But, as explained in the pages that follow, parts of Wisconsin’s election regime fail to comply with the constitutional requirement that its elections remain fair and equally open to all qualified electors.

No rational person in Wisconsin disputes that the intent and effect of the Republican transformation of Wisconsin election law is to obstruct voters, except Easterbrook and fellow Republican judges on the Seventh Circuit.

So, for example, Waukesha County clerk Kathleen Novack (R), commenting on increased early-voting hours, opined in May 2016, that there "too much access to the voters as far as opportunities," (The Capital Times).

Novack added, when asked about increased municipal early-voting efforts in Madison and Milwaukee: "There has to come a point where it’s just giving over-access … to particular parts of the state." Novack wanted to stop early voting opportunities for Madison and Milwaukee, where most black and brown people live here.

Wisconsin Republicans know that four new Trump-appointed judges to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit—vetted by the Federalist Society to whom Trump outsources vetting of judicial appointments—will sustain the Republican Party position against voting rights.

Stopping non-Republican voters from voting is a strategic initiative for Wisconsin Republicans.

The  grave threat to democracy is existential. See See Twenty of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy. They're scared. "If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast."

In less than three months in late September, absentee voting begins for the November General Elections.

Republicans know their only chance for victory is to suppress the total vote of non-Republicans, a commitment about which they hold no shame, and that Frank Easterbrook supports on the bench, (Wisconsin State Journal).

And Wisconsin racists are happy.

Record Early Voting in Wisconsin Spring 2019 Election, Reports One Wisconsin Now

Madison, Wisconsin — Bad news for Wisconsin Republicans. Good news for everyone else.

The Republican Party is losing its war on voters. In particular, the Republican effort to shutter early-voting sites is faltering.

From One Wisconsin Now:

Early and absentee voting in the April 2019 election has reached record levels for a non-presidential primary Spring election, according to statistics compiled by the Wisconsin Election Commission. As of April 1, over 132,000 Wisconsin voters had cast a ballot early or absentee for the Spring election, exceeding the 2018 Spring election’s roughly 107,000 early votes cast.

"It’s simple, voters vote when given the opportunity to vote," said One Wisconsin Institute Executive Director Analiese Eicher. "Expanded hours and satellite locations for early voting are making participating in our elections easier and more convenient, and voters all across Wisconsin are taking advantage of the opportunity in record numbers."

A July 2016 ruling in the federal voting rights lawsuit One Wisconsin Institute, et. al. v. Thomsen, et. al. struck down a number of voter suppression laws adopted by then-Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature. Judge James Peterson specifically found the GOP imposed limits on early voting were racially discriminatory.

After the ruling, both urban and rural municipalities throughout the state were able to offer the convenience of early voting in the evening, on weekends and at multiple locations at their discretion to meet the needs of voters in their community.

State Republicans subsequently attempted to reimpose early vote restrictions in a lame duck session they convened after losing every statewide office on the ballot in the November 2018 election. In enforcing his earlier decision and enjoining the re-imposition of early voting limits Judge Peterson wrote, "This is not a close question: the three challenged provisions are clearly inconsistent with the injunctions that the court has issued in this case."

Eicher concluded, "Early voting is popular, effective and legal. Now it’s time for the Wisconsin Republicans to drop their efforts to stand in the way of people participating in our democracy and admit it’s also here to stay."
#

Republican Party Aims Threaten Liberty and the Rule of Law

Illustration by Victor Juhasz in Rolling Stone Magazine

Madison, Wisconsin — Researching how metro voting districts, freed from Republican-imposed voting restrictions by a 2016 federal civil rights case, expanded early voting, it's clear non-partisan Wisconsin election officials were concerned Republicans would retaliate against cities and towns for the municipal sin of too many residents voting against Republican candidates for office.

The officials' concern is warranted.

The Republican Party addresses individual political and electoral activity as illegitimate if the outcome is adverse to Republican Party interests — a fundamentally unconstitutional policy scheme in American election law.

Though Republicans were too frightened to impose new voting restrictions before the 2018 general election, Republican legislative leaders planned to and did impose restrictions after the election, in brazen defiance of a United States district judge's injunctions in One Wisconsin.

In a December lame-duck session, Republicans passed new laws as though One Wisconsin were never litigated, and no federal injunctions existed.

Yesterday, the same judge, U.S. District Judge James Peterson, who just 18 months earlier found Republican restrictions on voting rights unconstitutional, made quick work of the Republican Party's legislation in his order and opinion.

The Republican defiance of the federal injunctions was near certain to draw a rebuke from Judge Peterson. It did.

Notes Ed Treleven in the Wisconsin State Journal:

In his order, Peterson wrote that arguments by the state about the dissimilarity between the newly passed law and the limits on in-person absentee voting that Peterson barred were not persuasive.

'If the court accepted defendants’ argument, it would mean that a legislative body could evade an injunction simply by reenacting an identical law and giving it a new number,' he wrote.

Wrote Peterson in his five-page judicial analysis:

This is not a close question: the three challenged provisions are clearly inconsistent with the injunctions that the court has issued in this case (p. 1).

Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, Robin Vos, dismissed the order without reference to Peterson's reasoning.

Reports WISC-TV:

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos answered a question from News 3 about the ruling while walking down the hallway. He said 'surprise, surprise' that a 'liberal' judge from Dane County would strike down the ruling. He did not elaborate further.

I asked @SpeakerVos about the ruling from a federal judge striking down the limits on early voting as he walked down the hallway at the Capitol.

He said “surprise, surprise” that a “liberal judge from Dane County” would strike down the ruling. #news3

— Rose Schmidt (@RoseSchmidtTV) January 17, 2019

Such dismissive posture that a federal judge is a "liberal" echoes the worst of 1950s desegregation fights in the deep south when southern politicians declared federal judges were illegitimate.

Wisconsin Republicans are betting that four new Trump-appointed judges to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit—vetted by the Federalist Society to whom Trump outsources vetting of judicial appointments—will ultimately sustain the Republican Party position against voting rights.

The four judges are expected to be hostile to voting rights, and were nominated because of their rightwing jurisprudence and fidelity to the Republican Party.

The Trump-nominated judges are: Amy C. Barrett, Michael B. Brennan, Michael Y. Scudder, Jr., and Amy J. St. Eve.

It's a hell of a gambit.

Wisconsin has a new pro-voting rights attorney general who likely will alter the state's position on federal voting rights litigation.

In the meantime, the Republican Party effectively thumbing their noses at the federal judiciary hearing election law and Constitutional cases does not help the Party's weak case on voting rights.

The stakes are high, and continued Republican defiance of judicial authority should draw some measure of judicial censure and increased public concern.

Wisconsin Republicans' Lame-duck Act Against Voting Struck Down by Federal Judge

Federal judge strikes down Republican-enacted voter
restrictions in Wisconsin

Judge: "This is not a close question"

Madison, Wisconsin — A Republican attempt to obstruct voters in Wisconsin metro districts was struck down today in a terse five-page opinion and order.

The case is ONE WISCONSIN INSTITUTE, INC., CITIZEN ACTION OF WISCONSIN EDUCATION FUND, INC., RENEE M. GAGNER, ANITA JOHNSON, CODY R. NELSON, JENNIFER S. TASSE, SCOTT T. TRINDL, MICHAEL R. WILDER, JOHNNY M. RANDLE, DAVID WALKER, DAVID APONTE, and CASSANDRA M. SILAS,Plaintiffs,v.MARK L. THOMSEN, ANN S. JACOBS, BEVERLY R. GILL, JULIE M. GLANCEY, STEVE KING, DON M. MILLS, MICHAEL HAAS, MARK GOTTLIEB, and KRISTINA BOARDMAN, all in their official capacities.

Reports Patrick Marley in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

U.S. District Judge James Peterson concluded the new limits on early voting are invalid because they so closely mirror ones he struck down as unconstitutional in 2016. His decision also threw out parts of the lame-duck laws affecting IDs and other credentials that can be used for voting. 

"Today’s court ruling is a victory for the citizens of Wisconsin and a rebuke to their defeated former governor and his cronies in the state legislature. Every voter in the state should be asking one question: why are Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature so afraid of the people they claim they want to represent? Though we are heartened by this decision we will continue to fight any further efforts designed to undermine democracy in Wisconsin or any other part of our nation," said former United States Attorney General Eric Holder, with the National Redistricting Foundation, a major voting rights group, (Huffington Post).

Wisconsin Republicans have attacked voting rights the last eight years in a sweeping legislative initiative aimed at voters who tend to vote non-Republican.

In 2018, Republicans lost ground in metro voting districts across the state following a sweeping federal court order against its legislative effort, reported Craig Gilbert in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Without stopping voters in major population jurisdictions, Republican Party political power in Wisconsin is imperiled.

Concludes U.S. District Judge James Peterson:

Plaintiffs contend that 2017 Wisconsin Act 369, enacted by the Wisconsin legislature in December 2018, violates injunctions issued in this case in 2016. So plaintiffs seek an order enforcing the injunction against three provisions of Act 369:
(1) limits on the time for in-person absentee voting;
(2) restrictions on the use of student identification cards for voting; and
(3) a time  limit  on  the  validity  of temporary  identification  cards issued  under  the  ID  Petition
Process . Dkt. 330. The court will grant plaintiffs’ motion to enforce the injunctions.
This is not  a  close  question:  the  three  challenged  provisions  are  clearly  inconsistent  with
the injunctions that the court  has issued in this case, (p. 1).

Notes Ari Berman in Mother Jones: "This is the second time a federal court has blocked Wisconsin Republicans from cutting early voting in the state."

The 2016 federal litigation is One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, now before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

With the election of a new pro-voting rights attorney general and governor, Wisconsin is now in a position to take a rare pro-voting rights stance in federal litigation, a change from the last eight years.

The voting rights win was celebrated by litigators and voting rights workers minutes after the decision was released.

BREAKING: Wisconsin federal court stops GOP effort to restrict voting rights. Big win for the @PerkinsCoieLLP political law team on behalf of @onewisconsinnow and @RedistrictFdn. pic.twitter.com/e81IEJGkw9

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) January 17, 2019

Federal judge tosses latest GOP attacks on voting in WI! "The Republican attacks on voting rights were unconstitutional when they were passed, they were unconstitutional when the judge struck them down and they are unconstitutional now.” -- One Wis Now Exec Director Scot Ross

— One Wisconsin Now (@onewisconsinnow) January 17, 2019

Gov Walker's Brazen Defiance of Federal Court Risks Wrath of Judiciary in Wisconsin Voting Rights Case

U.S. Dist Judge James Peterson ruled for voting rights,
and against Republican-enacted voting restrictions
in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen. Peterson's
judgment of Aug 1, 2016, and his judicial authority are
now focal points of open defiance by Wisconsin
legislative Republicans and Gov. Scott Walker (R).

Madison, Wisconsin — Defeated Gov Scott Walker (R) signed sweeping lame-duck legislation aimed at limiting the powers of non-Republican elected officeholders and Wisconsin voters (Wisconsin State Journal, the Capital Times, Associated Press), Wisconsin State Senate, 2018 Dec. Extraordinary Session).

Wisconsin Republicans' hubris, echoing Walker's 2018 dismissal of his affirmative duty to call special elections (Robert Dallas Newton Jr. v. Scott Walker), reveals a pathology that now targets the legitimacy of the federal judiciary in Senate Bill 884, signed by Walker as Wisconsin Act 369.

Beyond its routine foolish reading of the rule of law and the law of the case (One Wisconsin Institute, et al v. Thomsen consolidated with Frank v. Walker), in signing Senate Bill 884, Walker has engaged in legitimatizing legislative effrontery that challenges the authority of United States District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The Wisconsin Republican position: Yes, yes, U.S. Dist Judge James Peterson, you and your appellate-circuit friends get very excited in offering your two cents on election law and One Wisconsin Institute, but we Wisconsin Republicans are very busy here, so run along, now.

As the One Wisconsin Institute (and the National Redistricting Foundation) engage in major federal and state litigation against Wisconsin Act 369 that restricts all Wisconsin early-voting to two weeks before Election Day, Republicans have been silent on the fact that the federal judiciary has already ruled this scheme to be unconstitutional, racially discriminatory and pretextual (misrepresentative in legislative purpose)—high bars to achieve for voting rights advocates.

In One Wisconsin, U.S. District James Peterson ruled much of the Republican transformation of Wisconsin election law and many Republican "arguments for its restrictive voting rules [are] pretexual [misrepresentative], and really aimed at giving Republicans advantage in elections," as noted by Rick Hasen, an election law expert living in California (see Becker, The Capital Times, Mal Contends, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, Mal Contends, Moritzlaw, Rick Hasen, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen).

Argue the plaintiffs, One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund, as noted at Election Law at Moritz:

Count I: Violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
Count II: Undue Burdens on the Right to Vote in Violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Count III: Disparate Treatment of Voters without a Rational Basis in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Count V: Abridgment or Denial of the Right to Vote on the Basis of Race in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment

The One Wisconsin Institute and the National Redistricting Foundation (Eric Holder's group), will soon be making the case for the Constitutional rights of Wisconsin voters in federal litigation to uphold Judge Peterson's prior ruling. Wisconsin Republicans cannot just pretend this case hasn't already been adjudicated.

Wisconsin Republicans

To understand Wisconsin Republicans' psychology, one needs to consider the Party has become so self-entitled and brazenly dishonest, Republican believe, for example, a mere federal judge who issued a pro-voting rights decision in U.S. District Court in 2016 is no impediment to stopping voters who dislodged the Republican anti-voting rights governor and attorney general.

In Republican land the more audacious the lie, the dismissal of established law, and the will of the people, the more Republican self-congratulations.

Republicans can be understood as an underground corporate, Evangelical and white-power movement that seized governmental power with a secret agenda on which it did not campaign, and now schemes to impose its authoritarianism in every corner of government insulated from democratic will and the rule of law.

George Packer calls Republicans a "insurgency" steeped in "institutional depravity" (The Atlantic).

Abe Lincoln called such insurgencies a "conspiracy to seize power" (Nichols, The Nation).

By the way, even as the Republican Party has become an outlaw player in American government, the press still refers to the Party as "conservative," and to voting rights advocates, for example, as "liberal." Absurd. Political writers still cannot drop 'conservative' as a continuing term of description.

In any event, the Republican Party's justification of its voting crackdown, uniformity and fairness, has already been found to not have any rational basis.

We Republicans disagree . . . , is not likely a compelling position to assume in challenging the federal judiciary ruling still being adjudicated in appellate court, during a period when the federal judiciary has grown skittish about the primacy of the rule of law prevailing against executive branch and Party claims of monarchical power.

Scott Walker disagrees of course:

pic.twitter.com/sXcNICpX20

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) December 11, 2018

Scott Walker leaves as he governed: with no regard for the wishes of the people of his great state. Totally obedient to the special interests and his party. To lead you have to be bigger than that. https://t.co/3seTUyHsV5

— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 14, 2018

When he signed the #WIGOPpowergrab bills, Scott Walker sealed his fate.

The outgoing governor will be remembered only for the harm he has done. And that is the most tragic legacy imaginable for a failed politician. https://t.co/I70xZmLoey

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) December 15, 2018

Wisconsin Republicans Want to Close Early Voting Sites for Weeks in Desperate Move to Clamp Down on Voters in Lameduck Session

Federal litigation would likely doom anti-voting measure

Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Republicans are going to consider several anti-voting measures in an extraordinary session of the lameduck legislature, the Wisconsin State Journal reports today.

The anti-voting measures include a proposed clampdown on voting that would effectively shutter early voting sites for weeks.

A similar early voting clampdown was found unconstitutional and "pretextual" (misrepresentative) in the Summer of 2016 in a sweeping opinion in U.S. District Court, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen.

That federal voting rights court case, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, is now before the full United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Wisconsin Republicans risk offending some Republican-leaning appellate judges in the Seventh Circuit because Republican justification of consistency is identical to its past justifications of "uniformity," ruled to not serve a rational state purpose by U.S. Dist Judge James Peterson in One Wisconsin.

Also complicating new Republican-enacted restrictions against voting is the election of Democratic Party Attorney General Josh Kaul. 

Republicans are unlikely to prevail in statewide races here if free and fair elections continue in the voter-friendly manner of post-One Wisconsin.

In One Wisconsin a U.S. District judge ruled much of the Republican transformation of Wisconsin election law and many Republican "arguments for its restrictive voting rules [are] pretexual, [misrepresentative], and really aimed at giving Republicans advantage in elections," as noted by Rick Hasen, an election law expert living in California, (see Becker, The Capital Times, Mal Contends, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, Mal Contends, Moritzlaw, Rick Hasen, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen).

The Seventh Circuit includes four new judges who were nominated by Donald Trump.

The four judges are expected to be hostile to voting rights, and were nominated because of their rightwing jurisprudence and fidelity to the Republican Party.

The Trump-nominated judges are: Amy C. Barrett, Michael B. Brennan, Michael Y. Scudder, Jr., and Amy J. St. Eve.

Wisconsin Republicans' Voter Obstruction Looms in 2018 Mid-terms

Republicans talk a good game about the flag,
but when it comes to protecting voting and
the substantive liberties of Americans,
Republicans are a grave threat to democracy.

Urban types have 'too much access to voting,' say Wisconsin Republicans

Madison, Wisconsin—Since 2011 Wisconsin Republicans and only Republicans have transformed election law to benefit Republicans and diminish voters' right to vote.

In U.S. District Court in July 2016, a federal judge, James Peterson, in a sweeping opinion found several Republican-enacted statutory changes to election law pretextual, which is legalese for deceitful and misrepresentative, (One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen).

But stopping non-Republican voters from voting is a strategic initiative for Wisconsin Republicans. The urgent and grave threat to democracy is existential. See See Twenty of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy. They're scared. "If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast."

As the mid-term campaigns for 2018 begin, Republicans know their only chance for victory is to suppress the total vote of non-Republicans, a commitment about which they hold no shame and indeed are proud as it serves to install Republicans against popular opinion.

On The Rachel Maddow Show last night, a segment points to a new analysis on Republicans rigging the Wisconsin 2016 election, a feat to they hope to repeat in 2018, (Berman, Mother Jones).

This is critical reading for citizens concerned about the health of our Republic under attack by the Republican Party.

Notes Berman:

The voter ID law was one of 33 election changes passed in Wisconsin after Walker took office, and it dovetailed with his signature push to dismantle unions, taking away his opponents’ most effective organizing tool. Wisconsin’s Legislature cut early voting from 30 days to 12, reduced early voting hours on nights and weekends, and restricted early voting to one location per county, hampering voters in large urban areas and sprawling rural ones. It also added new residency requirements for voter registration, eliminated staffers who led statewide registration drives, and made it harder to count absentee ballots.

Republicans were explicit about the purposes of these changes as well. On the floor of the state Senate, Grothman said of extended early voting hours in heavily Democratic cities like Madison and Milwaukee, 'I want to nip this in the bud before too many other cities get on board.' (Roughly 514,000 Wisconsinites voted early in 2012; they favored Obama over Mitt Romney by 58 to 41 percent, according to exit polls.) The county clerk of conservative Waukesha County said early voting gave 'too much access' to voters in Milwaukee and Madison. Judge Peterson later ruled the early voting cuts had been passed 'to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans.' 

Republicans will continue their attack against voting in 2018.

A looming target is the city of Madison's effort to offer voting for voters and a continuing effort to educate citizens about their legally strong voting rights, a political and civil crime in Republican-land.

See Madison, Wisconsin Fights Republican Voter Obstruction, and 2017 Spring primary election draws record-breaking early voting in Madison.

From The Rachel Maddow Show:

Scale of Voting Obstruction Project Is Not Acknowledged

Consider Wisconsin election law and the failure and refusal of elected representatives, bureaucrats, corporate press and most of the judiciary to note the intent behind unconstitutional voter obstruction, beyond passing comment. The voting rights community is small and its prospects are not heartening.

On the racist, voter obstructionist side, we have Wisconsin Republicans.

Wisconsin Republicans, and only Republicans, crafted the transformation of Wisconsin election law since they assumed elected office in 2011. This is a fact of Wisconsin public policy, and is noted in the July 2016 opinion in the voting rights case, One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)). (Worth noting, as well, is Judge James T. Peterson's silly and polemical characterization of Republican-enacted election law changes as "election reforms." [See page 8. "Since [2011], Wisconsin has implemented a series of election reforms. These laws covered almost every aspect of voting: registration, absentee voting, photo identification, and election-day mechanics." What's Peterson going to do later when the Republican-enacted photo voter ID is further litigated, adopt the Republican Hans von Spakovsky, and John Fund's talking point, 'Easy to vote, hard to cheat,' as his own? (Mal Contends) (Mal Contends).])

Peterson's bending over to find no fault with Wisconsin Republican motives in his One Wisconsin opinion, [Peterson found some fault], ignores both the intent and the effect of Republicans' work to block voters. Republicans stopped 10,000s of voters living in the black sectors of Milwaukee from voting so mission accomplished in election 2016, but with not enough help from Peterson protecting voters.

Effect of Republican Voter Obstruction Laws

Election law scholars, Lawrence Tribe, Ned Foley, Rich Hasan and Chris Carson, weigh in on the question of obstruction effect on voters this week.

A citizen's right and ability to vote is worth considering under the assumption that the political appointees, federal judges like Peterson, are political animals, and upon assumption to the bench do not suddenly become dispassionate Constitutional geniuses. Federal judges most often can be best understand as politicians in robes, and as such write opinions that are politic. Broadly so legal-political commentary and analysis written by politicians have he same defect.

Very rarely will readers find in the judiciary or the academy a finding of fact that Wisconsin Republicans for example, and only Republicans, craft law after law to obstruct the vote, and use new election laws to administer elections in an unconstitutional fashion.

I've yet to find widespread note that Wisconsin Republicans' legislative objective is to frustrate, aggravate, and obstruct as many minority, young and disabled voters as possible in an effort to suppress the total vote in favor of the Republican Party, (Mal Contends).

It should not be surprising that Lawrence Tribe's comment on voter obstruction has been met with widespread hostile commentary. Tribe writes, "Call it what you like, but the # of voters turned away for not having required forms of ID exceeded margin of T’s victory in MI, Pa and Wis."

It takes a major social-scientific investigation to quantify the phenomenon of voter obstruction, because protecting voting just is not in the cards of American political culture. But Tribe is certainly correct from data in the Milwaukee black and brown areas alone.

Wisconsin Republicans have since 2011 worked to transform every corner of government into Republican operations, (Mal Contends) (Mal Contends).

One of the first Republican-enacted changes to with respect to the adminstration of Wisconsin election law was the Republicans' concerted effort in 2011 to staff 3,500 polling places with Republican partisans, to further the objective of obstructing the vote of undesirables.

The lack of acknowledgement and challenge to this Republican attack on the foundation of American democracy should send chills through the political world. I don't believe this is the case, and we should all thank Lawrence Tribe and Chris Carson for noting the scale of the Republican voting obstruction project.

Who are the Republicans staffing your local polling place? Ask your local municipal clerk to find out. Tape record the conversation, the recording may come in handy.

In the meantime, check out the conversation in Ned Foley and Rich Hasan's sites. A great conversation, but one which omits the prospects for voting for 10,000s of black and brown Americans.

Federal Judge Stops Republican Voter Obstruction Laws That 'Transformed Wisconsin’s Elections'

Sweeping voting rights win in Wisconsin in
One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen - Jenny Dye and Scott
Ross of One Wisconsin, a named co-plaintiff,
celebrate on Friday - Image: One Wisconsin

Judge rules Wisconsin Republicans sought partisan advantage by denying rights of Wisconsin voters, going so far as to discriminate on the basis of race in Milwaukee

Wisconsin Republicans' voter obstruction laws took a massive blast from United States District Judge James D. Peterson in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324) (Moritzlaw).

Peterson issued a sweeping order finding Republican-enacted, (and only Republican), election laws unconstitutional in a major win for voting rights in Wisconsin.

"Wisconsin’s voter ID law is part of 2011 Wis. Act 23, enacted the year after Wisconsin Republicans won the governorship and majorities in both houses of the legislature. Act 23 was the first of eight laws enacted over the next four years that transformed Wisconsin’s election system," writes Peterson. (p. 2).

Writes a noted election scholar, Rick Hasan, in his early and the first-published analysis of Peterson's 119-page opinion at Hasen's Election Law site:

Among other things, the court has ordered that expired but otherwise valid student id cards will be valid for voting. This is yet another win for voting rights activists in the past few weeks. The trial court enjoined the following WI laws:

• most of the state-imposed limitations on the time and location for in-person absentee voting (although the state may set a uniform rule disallowing in-person absentee voting on the Monday before elections);
• the requirement that ''dorm lists' to be used as proof of residence include citizenship information;
• the 28-day durational residency requirement;
• the prohibition on distributing absentee ballots by fax or email; and
• the bar on using expired but otherwise qualifying student IDs.

This is a pretty sweeping opinion, which rejects many of the state’s arguments for its restrictive voting rules as pretexual, (misrepresentative), and really aimed at giving Republicans advantage in elections. The judge was particularly skeptical of measures which made it harder to vote in Milwaukee, with its large population of minority voters, and to a lesser extent, Madison, a liberal stronghold in the state.

The One Wisconsin decision was preceded by hours by another major voting rights win against Republicans in North Carolina, (Mother Jones). Another federal voting rights case in Wisconsin, Frank v. Walker, preceded One Wisconsin by days, (Mal Contends).

Both cases and One Wisconsin are major wins for voting rights and defeats for Republicans voter obstruction.

Concludes Peterson in One Wisconsin: "The evidence in this case casts doubt on the notion that voter ID laws foster integrity and confidence. The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities. To put it bluntly, Wisconsin’s strict version of  voter  ID  law  is  a  cure  worse  than  the  disease," (p. 4).

Republican attacks on Milwaukee early voting are discriminatory

The Court held the Republican-enacted law limiting Milwaukee's in-person absentee, (early voting), voting "intentionally discriminates on the basis of race," (p. 42). Writes Peterson:

Based on the evidence that plaintiffs have presented, the court finds that Wisconsin’s restrictions on the hours for in-person absentee voting have had a disparate effect on African Americans and Latinos. The court also finds that the legislature’s justification for these restrictions was meager, and that the intent was to secure partisan advantage. Finally, the court finds that the legislature specifically targeted large municipalities — Milwaukee in particular —intending to curtail minority voting. ...

[Republican] Defendants  contend that [Senators] Grothman and Fitzgerald were simply trying to achieve a measure of statewide uniformity because smaller  towns were unable to afford the extended hours that Milwaukee was offering. That explanation is hard to credit. ...

The acknowledged impetus for this law was the sight of long lines of Milwaukee citizens voting after hours. Yet instead of finding a way to provide  more  access to voters in small towns, the legislature responded by reining in voters in Milwaukee, the state’s most populous city, where two-thirds of its African American citizens live. ...

Combined, these findings lead the court to further find that the legislature passed the provisions restricting the hours for in-person absentee voting motivated in part by the intent to discriminate against voters on the basis of race. The legislature’s ultimate objective was political: Republicans sought to maintain control of the state government. But the methods that the legislature chose to achieve that result involved suppressing the votes of Milwaukee’s residents, who are disproportionately African American and Latino. The legislature did not act out of pure racial animus; rather, suppressing the votes of reliably Democratic minority voters in Milwaukee was a means to achieve its political objective. But that, too, constitutes race discrimination. Ketchum v. Byrne, 740 F.2d 1398, 1408 (7th Cir. 1984) (“We think there is little point for present purposes in distinguishing discrimination based on an ultimate objective of keeping certain incumbent whites in office from discrimination borne of pure racial animus.”), (pp. 42-45)

From One Wisconsin Institute:

MADISON, Wis. — Today, federal Judge James Peterson issued a ruling in the federal voting rights lawsuit One Wisconsin Institute Inc., et al v. Gerald Nichol, et al. One Wisconsin Institute and their co-plaintiffs have argued that a series of election law changes made by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-led state legislature were meant to and have the effect of making it more difficult to vote in Wisconsin, especially for minorities, young people, and voters who tend to support Democratic candidates.

Republicans defending the challenged provisions have claimed they are necessary to protect against voter fraud, despite the fact that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than to impersonate a voter. But behind closed doors, Wisconsin legislators discussed how the law would help Republicans by disenfranchising voters in Democratic areas.

Today’s ruling strikes down a number of the challenged provisions restricting voting rights of Wisconsinites, including restrictions on early voting hours and elimination of weekend voting; restrictions on use of student IDs for voting, and the 28-day residency requirement, among other provisions.

In regard to restrictions on hours for in-person absentee voting, the court specifically found that the law “intentionally discriminates on the basis of race…The legislature’s immediate goal was to achieve a partisan objective, but the means of achieving that objective was to suppress the reliably Democratic vote of Milwaukee’s African Americans.”

Scot Ross, executive director for One Wisconsin Institute, offered the following statements in response to today’s ruling:

“We argued Gov. Walker made it harder for Democrats to vote and easier for Republicans to cheat, and the judge agreed.

“The people behind the laws Judge Peterson has struck down sought to put their own partisan interests ahead of the rights of every American — regardless of race, party, or age – to cast their ballot as they so choose.

“Make no mistake about it, this is the strategy that has gone on for decades with Republicans. They want to do everything to create longer lines in urban areas and on college campuses, so that instead of accessing the franchise, voters simply go home because they can’t wait for hours and hours. This is their strategy, and there is not one piece of this attack on voters that can be seen as other than serving that end.”

“As the eyes of the nation are focused on the accomplishments and legacy of our nation’s first African American President and First Lady, Gov. Walker and his legislative allies refuse to accept the expanding diversity of our nation. Rather than make their public policy more inclusive, Republicans instead chose to rig the laws to rig the ballot box.

“Today’s decision is a huge win not only for the plaintiffs but also for democracy itself. We could not be more proud of this victory.”