GOP Legislature Altered Wisconsin Constitution Webpage; Changes Mislead on Voting Rights

Updated - New LRB page on Suffrage.

See the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB)'s response.

The Wisconsin Legislature Reference Bureau webpage on Suffrage, voting, has been changed while under GOP control since 2011.

The following misleading sentence has been added: "An Indiana statute requiring citizens voting in person on election day, or casting a ballot in person at the office of the circuit court clerk prior to election day, to present photo identification issued by the government did not violate constitutional standards. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181, 128 S. Ct. 1610, 170 L. Ed. 2d 574 (2008)."

This is the first time such a naked display of partisanship has been on display on what used to be a non-political webpage on the Wisconsin Constitution maintained under the auspices of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB). The URL is:  http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/wiscon/_12 .

Any Wisconsin document, record, history and archives should be examined to ensure that they have not been cleansed by the Republicans in Wisconsin government in the manner of a Soviet-based authoritarian regime. 

I have been told of other cleansing efforts that I cannot reveal for fear of GOP recrimination against whistle blowers holding appointed positions.

The GOP-added sentence to the Wisconsin Legislature's webpage on Suffrage is misleading for several reasons. 

1. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008) is a federal case based upon a facial challenge (a law asserted to be illegal or unconstitutional on its face) to an Indiana state law obstructing voting.  

Crawford relied upon the weak warrant to vote under the United States Constitution, not the Wisconsin Constitution. And the Crawford case included no social scientific evidence as was presented in
Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker (Case 11CV5492) (2012).

2. The Wisconsin Constitution—the topic of the Wisconsin Constitution's webpage—includes a strong, affirmative right to vote under ARTICLE III, Suffrage vis a vis the United States Constitution. (Hence, U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Keith Ellison's (D-MN) Right to Vote Amendment, explicitly guaranteeing Americans' right to vote in the U.S. Constitution." Hey, Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-White People), still waiting for your support of the Right to Vote Amendment in light of your unshakable commitment of voting rights.

3. The Wisconsin Constitution explicitly specifies the type of laws that may be enacted to regulate elections, enumerating the specific conditions under which the qualifications of voters (electors) may be changed by the enactment of laws under Section 2, and only Section 2. Anything outside this scope and the legislature has to change the Wisconsin Constitution.

This GOP pretension that the federal case, Crawford, controls Wisconsin state voting rights case is a disingenuous political talking point, hawked by Wisconsin's GOP Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen and other GOP politicos.

As Judge David T. Flanagan writes in striking down the GOP Photo Voter ID bill in July 2012 in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker (Case 11CV5492):

The Crawford decision has very little application to the dispute now before this Court, however, for three primary reasons. First, this case is founded up the Wiscosnin Constitution which expressly guarantees the right to vote, while Crawford was based upon the U.S. Constitution which offers no such guarantee. Second, the Indiana law is less rigid than Act 23, and noted by the U.S. Supreme Court, offered alternative voting opportunities to voters who lacked the Photo ID. Finally, Crawford came to the Court based upon a flawed factual record, lacking the substantial evidence that has been offered by the plaintiffs in this action. This case is based on a claim that Act 23 violates the Wisconsin Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution. The people of Wisconsin may choose to assure to themselves rights under their own constitution that differ or exceed those guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, State v. Doe, 78 Wis 2d 161, 172 (1977). The question of what is permitted and what is protected by the Wisconsin Constitution is the issue before this court and that issue was not before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Crawford case.

This is not the first time Van Hollen and the Republican Party have lied about federal law and federal case law in order to obstruct voting rights on the state level.

See Van Hollen's and the GOP 2008 efforts at voter suppression in which Van Hollen's similarly ridiculous effort was tossed out of court.

In the 2008 case, (J B Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board (GAB) et al) Van Hollen tried to create a new Wisconsin constitutional qualification to vote by fiat: A perfect match of the spelling of voters' names in state bureaucracies, after assuring fellow Republicans he would commence this frivolous legal action at the 2008 Republican National Convention held in Minneapolis, as first reported by WisPolitics in a scoop that includes audio.

Several former judges serving on the GAB Board would have failed Van Hollen's new constitutional standard proposed in 2008, as this GOP effort drew wide ridicule.

"Nothing in state or federal law requires that there be a data match as a prerequisite for a citizen's right to vote," Judge Maryann Sumi said in dismissing Van Hollen's lawsuit that tried to use the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) as a voter suppression tool.

Our corrupt attorney general, up for reelection on 2014, will not give up his Party's project of denying the voting rights of Wisconsin citizens; and neither will the Republican Party now holding sway in the gerrymandered state legislature.

Wisconsin Crackdown on Public Displays of Anti-Scott Walker Thought

Capitol Police Officers David Davis and Justin Clemens react
to the recitation of Article 1 Section 4 of the
Wisconsin State Constitution. Photo by Lisa Wells

If you live in Wisconsin, politically opposing Scott Walker at the ballot box or at the state capitol building is presumed by Republicans to be illegitimate, civilly incorrect and illegal, and possibly a criminal offence.

Scott Walker-appointed judges get defeated at the ballot box, and Walker terms this "unfortunate," causing Walker to issue the incredible public statements that he will not fill judicial vacancies in Dane County, Wisconsin unless would-be judges agree to not run for reelection. This because voters decided to vote for the wrong candidate.

Now, as Jason Huberty reports: "After a two-month lull, the Walker Administration’s crackdown on dissent in the Wisconsin State Capitol has kicked back into high gear. On Thursday April 4th, six Capitol Police officers marched down the stairs of the State Street entrance to the Capitol and handed out nine long-form complaints to three participants of the Solidarity Sing Along," a group that meets at Noon at the capitol on weekdays and sings for an hour.

Capitol Police march down the capitol stairs
to deliver new citations for singing.
Photo by Dawn Henke.

Judge after judge has thrown out of court citations issued by Walker's Department of Administration against Wisconsin citizens who sing "We Shall Overcome," and other subversive songs for this one hour at the capitol, and as Huberty notes stopping singing has resulted in "nearly seventy dismissals and zero successful prosecutions."

So now, a new tactic by Walker (who really, really wants to stop this singing) is to have "new long-form complaints (citations) ... issued from the office of the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ)," as Huberty notes, working in conjunction with the state capitol police.

Not one capitol police officer has refused to go along with this ridiculous and unconstitutional crackdown on people who disagree with Scott Walker.

Wisconsin Constitution, Article One

Not one Republican officeholder has said, 'what in the hell are you doing?'

Not one Republican officeholder or Tea Partier has said, 'look at the Wisconsin Constitution (for starters): "The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged."

Not one editorial in local broadcast television has spoken out against Walker and his attempt to silence dissent.

State capitol police, the Wisconsin Department of Justice, the Wisconsin Department of Administration are committing 1,000s of work hours towards stopping displays that petition the Wisconsin government under Scott Walker.

Don't Scott Walker and our corrupt, Republican attorney general really have better things on which to expend Wisconsin resources than stopping singing?

Few, outside of progressive media, and civil rights groups and attorneys such as Lester Pines have spoken out in defense of fundamental constitutional rights.

Instead, we have today's Wisconsin State Journal lede editorial, headlined:  "National buzz bodes well for Wisconsin," referring to Scott Walker's efforts to be mentioned as a presidential candidate for 2016.

David Prosser Chokes Woman Colleague

Multiple sources say Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser (R-Wisconsin) grabbed fellow justice, Ann Walsh Bradley, by the neck and briefly choked her on June 13, the day before the Court corruptly ruled [4-3] against collective bargaining rights of state public employees and the open meeting clause of the Wisconsin Constitution. Justice Bradley also affirmed the attack.

Update: Two Wisconsin Agencies Now Investigating Alleged Judge-on-Judge Assault

Bill Lueders of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reports:

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers last week, according to at least three knowledgeable sources. But other sources have offered a conflicting account, and Prosser on Saturday declared that the claims, once investigated, will be 'proven false.'

Details of the incident, first disclosed Saturday morning in a joint report by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, remain sketchy. The sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing a need to preserve professional relationships.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in an article published late Saturday, reported that the incident took place in Justice Bradley’s chambers on June 13, the day before the court issued its decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees.The sources who spoke to the Center and WPR said an argument about that ruling culminated in a physical altercation in the presence of other justices. They say Bradley purportedly asked Prosser to leave her office, whereupon Prosser grabbed Bradley by the neck with both hands. ...

In March, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reportedthat, in a disagreement over a case last year, Justice Prosser had called [Chief Justice] Justice Abrahamson a 'total bitch' and threatened to 'destroy' her.

Prosser is the former GOP speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly and is known to occasionally becoming unhinged. See video: David Prosser Gets Butchy, Ahh Bitchy.

Prosser won reelection by less than one percent after a 13-year former Assembly Republican caucus computer specialist [and now County Clerk of heavily GOP Waukesha County] who last year insisted—over the objections of I/T experts concerned about integrity of election data—that her election results collection-tallying system must be placed under her personal control for "security" (MJS) reasons claimed to have found 14,315 votes two after election day that tipped the race to her old boss, Prosser, after an incident in which she claims to have personally failed to save some election results. Prosser won the April race with some 7,000 votes out of some 1.4 million cast.

We have said before here that Prosser is a quarrelsome man who lost his 1996 race as a Republican nominee for congress in the right-leaning Wisconsin 8th district because he was a bad cultural fit for the bigoted milieu of traditional gender roles that predominates in Northeast Wisconsin. See also National ReviewTries to Masculate David Prosser.

This guy does not like women, an attribute typical of the self-loathing, closeted Republican.

If Prosser were to resign, a special election next April would be held.