Independence Day Means Resist, Vote and Fight

Emboldened American racists feel free to act out and display
antipathy towards those with dark complexions. The crowd
at the Make America Great Again rally in Minnesota on
June 22, 2018 joined the president in jeering and outrage.
Photo by Tom Brenner, the New York Times

Madison, Wisconsin — A University of Wisconsin at Madison press release reminds the community that residents can vote absentee now in the coming Aug. 14 state and congressional primary elections.

Gov Scott Walker (R) and legislative Republicans (and only Republicans) passed dozens of voter obstruction laws making voting and registering more difficult.

Communities like UW-Madison are fighting back by helping voters cast ballots.

Wisconsin Republicans realize their only chance of hanging onto to power is to obstruct voters who are likely to vote against Republicans. Voter obstruction is a brazen, partisan project, and like Walker' effort to block elections and close early-voting sites reveals a hostility to democracy and liberty, the foundation of our society.

The sight of black voters casting their Article III right to vote under the Wisconsin Constitution is appalling to Republican white supremacists who dominate the Party. I witness this hostility every Election Day.

Republicans see young, black and brown folks canceling proper, informed white votes as illegitimate. White supremacists on Madison's southwest side and in the city of Fitchburg's City Hall, for example, have worked as enthusiastic partners in the Republican voter-obstruction project.

The Republican strategic war against voting in 2015 (Wisconsin Act 261) outlawed most municipal Special Registration Deputies, (except for care homes), who formerly could resister voters and verify residency and voter identity.

At the annual Wisconsin Republican convention this Spring, Republicans vowed to stop same-day voter registration and out-of-state college voters because of the anti-Republican bent of these two demographics.

The July 3 UW-Madison news release is reproduced below. The release offers a step-by-step guide to absentee voting.
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You can vote now in the August primary election

It’s not too early to vote in the Aug. 14 primary election.

Offices on the ballot are governor, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, odd-numbered Wisconsin State Senate seats, and all Wisconsin Assembly seats.

You can request an absentee ballot now using your spring 2018 Madison address, so even if you’re away for the summer (or don’t want to go to the polls), you can still be a Madison voter (If you have graduated and have no plan to return to Madison, you should re-register wherever you are moving).

What to do:

• Snap your ID: Take a picture of your voter ID (Wisconsin driver’s license, passport, or student voter ID). If you’re using the student voter ID, visit go.wisc.edu/verify and take a screenshot of your enrollment verification.
• Email your request: Send the pictures to voting@cityofmadison.com. Use the subject line “August Absentee” and include your name, your current Madison address, and “send me a ballot.”
• Be sure to say if you’re already registered to vote; if not, you can send the registration form in now, too.
• Finally, give the mailing address or email where you are now. If the delivery address or method changes, just email voting@cityofmadison.com
• Questions? Email voting@cityofmadison.com

Want to vote in person? Already you can vote in-person absentee at the city clerk’s office, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Room 103, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday until Aug. 10.

Most other in-person absentee voting sites don’t open until late July or early August, including three on campus.
#

Wisconsin Republicans Vow to Stop Same-Day Voter Reg and Out-of-state College Voters

Wisconsin Republicans keep up
their effort to stop voters from voting

Wisconsin Republicans vowed to further block voters in a resolution at their annual convention in Wisconsin Dells this weekend.

The Republican delegates passed a resolution that would halt out-of-state college voters, and would end same-day voter registration, JR Ross reports.

Convention resolutions are a wish list of state Republicans, reflecting what Republicans wish were public policy.

Writes JR Ross on Saturday:

Delegates just approved resolution to end same-day registration and require voters to be registered at least 10 days before an election. Also, temporary residents (college students) would be required to vote in place of permanent residence. https://t.co/aJRyjmK71Z

— JR Ross (@jrrosswrites) May 12, 2018

That the Wisconsin Republican wish list is unconstitutional appears not to be a concern, notes Stephen Wolf.

Wisconsin Republicans plot to make voting harder & implement an unconstitutional restriction on out-of-state college student voters because they lean Dem. The Supreme Court guaranteed residential college students the right to vote at their school in Symm v. U.S. (1979) https://t.co/yUqMUmnsOf

— Stephen Wolf (@PoliticsWolf) May 13, 2018

Wolf notes the United States Supreme Court decision, SYMM v. U.S , 439 U.S. 1105 (1979), (Justia), that finds the denial of college students' right to vote violates federal law, and the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

Since 2011, Wisconsin Republicans have worked to enact a massive anti-voter legislative project, significant parts of which have been found to be unconstitutional, though a host of anti-voter initiatives remains in effect for the 2018 elections.

The Republican strategic war against voting in 2015 (Wisconsin Act 261) outlawed most Special Registration Deputies, (except for care homes), who formerly could resister voters and verify residency, and passed one of the nation's most anti-voter photo-ID laws.

This Spring Gov. Scott Walker blocked two special elections until Walker was forced by three different judges to hold the elections.

Wisconsin State Journal Shielded Scott Walker and Republicans in Blocking-elections Scandal

The Wisconsin State Journal fronted
for Scott Walker and legislative
Republicans in its coverage of
the unprecedented effort by the
Wisconsin GOP to block elections.

GOP election-blocking spectacle tamped down in news coverage of Madison daily

Madison, Wisconsin—Press coverage of Scott Walker and state Republicans' scheme to block two elections reveals the Wisconsin State Journal misled readers in what amounted to a propaganda exercise covering for the Wisconsin governor with laudatory or vague headlines, an examination shows.

On March 24, two days after Dane County Judge Josann Reynolds, (Branch two), ordered Scott Walker to call two special elections, and one day after Republicans vowed to enact legislation blocking the judicial order, the Wisconsin State Journal ran a banner, 3/4-inch headline reading "State GOP seeks swift action" in its print edition.

This March 24 headline misleads readers with the undefined "seeks swift action," omitting the fact state Republicans scrambled to continue to block elections, (as the news piece reports).

The Republican effort to block elections was an unprecedented project that involved legislative Republicans, Walker, and the Republican Dept of Justice. Republicans demonized the judiciary and an entire Wisconsin county, Dane County.

On March 28, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Walker denied extra time," after Judge Richard Niess humiliated DoJ attorneys in open court and legislative Republicans plotted their next move.

On March 29, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Gov won't appeal ruling," after a third judge in a state appellate court rebuffed Walker, excoriating Walker's failure to perform his duty, and after Republicans abandoned their scheme to change the special elections statute in a new special session.

On March 30, the Wisconsin State Journal ran the headline, "Walker: Two open seats to be filled," omitting that Walker blocked elections, was being ordered to call elections, and Walker's move is a reversal coming only after a third judicial defeat by three different judges, two of whom are Republican.
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In objective journalism, headlines should be accurate summations of a news piece.

Headlines should inform readers about major occurrences in continuing coverage, especially in a spectacular and rapidly developing story such as Wisconsin Republicans blocking elections and fighting judicial orders mandating elections be held.

Readers often will scan only headlines.

The Wisconsin State Journal copy editor(s) know these facts and chose to abandon journalistic obligations in service to the Republican Party in an election year.

Scott Walker Does Not Understand Democracy and Voting Rights even After Three Judges Attempt to Explain

Confirmed—Scott Walker is not very bright, and does not
know much about public affairs or democracy.

Madison, Wisconsin—Blocking elections. Blocking voters. Gerrymandering. Transforming election law.

The list of Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans and only Republicans' opposition to fundamental rights and democratic norms keeps getting longer and more alarming.

Scott Walker's hostility to voters is also insidious as again Wisconsin is revealed as vulnerable to anti-democratic forces, Republicans, dedicated to blocking elections and obstructing voters. [Voters and pro-voter election personnel can expect more harassment from white poll workers and municipal police on April 3, Spring General Election.]

State appellate judge Paul Reilly, (a Waukesha Republican), humiliated Scott Walker in denying Walker's desperate motion by pointing out, "Representative government and the election of our representatives are never 'unnecessary,' never a 'waste of taxpayer resources.'"

If Reilly were trying to edify Scott Walker, he would have better luck shouting at the wind.

Scott Walker does not understand what elections and voting rights are.

Every anti-Scott Walker citizen who warned the career pol who never held a real job is opposed to democracy was again proven correct this week.

Even after Reilly denied Walker's 11th-hour motion, a sullen and uncomprehending Scott Walker declared the two special sections he was forced to call are "meaningless," (WTMJ).

Some 229,000 Wisconsin voters will now have representation for June, July, August, September, October, November, December and part of January 2019, in accordance with the law and Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution.

To Walker, this is meaningless.

Scott Walker

Scott Walker is opposed to democracy. Scott Walker does not understand democracy.

Put simply Scott Walker is a lightweight, a ridiculous figure.

Today is Friday and Walker has failed to post executive order #280, calling for the special elections after his dereliction of his oath of office.

The Republican Wisconsin Dept of Justice also has not presented a news update of the unprecedented legal victory for voters against Scott Walker and the Dept of Justice.

Wisconsin should be blinking red.

Gov. unintimidated is now uninformed, unprepared, hostile, petulant and corrupt.

Time for Article VII, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution —
Impeachment

The court for the trial of impeachments shall be composed of the senate. The assembly shall have the power of impeaching all civil officers of this state for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors; but a majority of all the members elected shall concur in an impeachment. On the trial of an impeachment against the governor, the lieutenant governor shall not act as a member of the court.

Wisconsin Voters Get Win Against Scott Walker Who Blocked Elections

Scott Walker bows to judge, law and voters in humiliating defeat for gov facing reelection

Madison, Wisconsin—Gov. Scott Walker issued an executive order (#280, not yet posted) this morning to fill two legislative vacancies with elections in a victory for some 229,000 Wisconsin voters, democracy and the rule of law, (AP).

The bizarre action by Walker and legislative Republicans to block elections created an unprecedented spectacle confirming Wisconsin Republicans are still pursuing an anti-democratic, anti-voter agenda.

Walker confirmed last night he would call what he termed "meaningless" elections.

The so-called meaningless elections will ensure that 229,000 Wisconsin citizens have representation for June, July, August, September, October, November, December and part of January 2019.

Another election that begins June 30, (for citizens casting absentee ballots), will ensure citizens are represented by their chosen candidate from Jan 2019 to Jan 2021.

Democracy, elections and voting rights are not meaningless, except apparently in the minds of Wisconsin Republicans.

Walker's executive order comes some three hours before the deadline set by a judge last week demanding that Walker call two special elections in Robert Dallas Newton Jr. et al v. Scott Walker, (Dane County Case Number 2018CV000519).

The Walker blocks-elections scandal reveals again the vulnerability of Wisconsin to determined, anti-democratic political forces that achieve electoral success in part by rigging election law and obstructing voters.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans are trying to change the subject and flood social media in an attempt to deflect attention from another Scott Walker scandal.

Wisconsin State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald Lies about Overseas Servicemembers as GOP Blocks Elections

Updated:

AG @BradSchimel says Legislature is giving up its plans to pass a bill to cancel special elections. https://t.co/JmKUpEm4IN

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) March 29, 2018

Wisconsin State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, (R-Juneau, Wisconsin) spoke a blatant falsehood in defense of the unprecedented Republican effort to block elections disenfranchising over 229,000 Wisconsinites.

As reported in the Wisconsin State Journal today:

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, testified at the hearing that anywhere from 85 to 150 overseas voters, including some in the military, could be disenfranchised if the special elections proceed under the timeline set up in current state law. He noted there were no overseas ballots cast in the 10th Senate District special election in January, which was called 10 weeks in advance of the election.

"This is a real group that could be disenfranchised if this bill doesn’t pass," said Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is lying, lying to all Wisconsinites, including military and overseas votes.

Point One: Without special elections that Scott Walker has refused to call, all constituents of the two vacant legislative districts have been and are disenfranchised. Every constituent has been disenfranchised since Walker refused to call elections the last three-plus months.

Point Two: On a previous lie on March 23, Fitzgerald said, "After consulting with DoJ and other, we have decided it's best to move forward on an extraordinary session in order to clean up the statute on special elections ensure that it aligns with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act."

Bull.

The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) is a federal law with which Wisconsin is in full compliance, and is aligned.

MOVE mandates states and territories transmit ballots for federal elections "to absent uniformed services and overseas voters no later than 45 days before federal elections."

The next Wisconsin federal election is on Aug. 14. This means the state must mail ballots on or before June 30, 45 days prior to Aug 14.

If special state elections are held in June, May, or any other month, the state will continue to be in compliance with MOVE and related regulations and consent degrees.

MOVE does not apply to Wisconsin's Spring elections and special state elections because there are no federal elections involved.

Fitzgerald's latest ploy is a red herring meant to district from the fact he and Scott walker are illegally disenfranchising overseas servicemembers and 100,000s of other citizens for the benefit of the Republican Party.

That Fitzgerald is now disgracing the service of our armed forces by lying and blocking elections is a disgrace.

Wonder if Fitzgerald asked overseas servicemembers if they serve so Republicans can block elections.

Scott Walker Appealing Ruling He Must Call Elections

Update: See also AP report.

Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Party have gone to extraordinary lengths to block special elections.

Now, Republicans are going further.

In Robert Dallas Newton Jr. et al v. Scott Walker, (Dane County Case Number 2018CV000519), Scott Walker has appealed the ruling of Dane County Judge Richard G. Niess this morning, March 28, while moving on the legislative front to block all special elections.

Walker's move is an apparent attempt to further stall the elections that he has been ordered to hold in last week's judicial writ or order of mandamus.

Robert Dallas Newton Jr. et al v. Scott Walker, (Dane County Case Number 2018CV000519)

Wisconsin People Get Court Win Against Scott Walker Who Blocked Two Special Elections

Voters are entitled to vote in Wisconsin, judge tells Scott
Walker in unprecedented state court decision on
March 22, 2018. "To state the obvious, if the plaintiffs have a
right to vote for their representatives, they must have
an election to do so," Dane County Judge Josann Reynolds.

Update: Wisconsin AP reporter, Scott Bauer reports judicial mandamus order against Walker is expected to be appealed by Wisconsin DOJ.

Walker is attempting to continue to block the two special elections in question, as corporate media is silent; no editorial condemnation of Walker's unprecedented move against voters.
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Madison, Wisconsin—Gov. Scott Walker remains frightened of the Wisconsin people.

Voters, elections, open listening sessions, communities acting on behalf of residents, the University searching for truth—all are the bane of Scott Walker.

In an unprecedented ruling yesterday, Dane County Judge Josann Reynolds, (Branch two), ordered Walker, (who has sole authority), to call two special legislative elections that Walker was blocking, (Wisconsin State Journal, Salon).

Two legislative vacancies combined left some 229,000 Wisconsinites without representation, (Ballotpedia).

Walker fearing an anti-Republican voter tide told Wisconsin voters: No elections.

The Republican Dept of Justice made up what the Walker-appointed Judge Reynolds called arguments leading to "absurd" results.

The DoJ has gone dark and silent on press communications about the decision, despite its typical peripatetic use of its press office.

Josann Reynolds excoriated Walker's novel reading of the applicable Wisconsin statute, saying, "Defendant’s, [Walker's] reading creates a window of just four months in any two-year period in which special elections must be held and thus leaves open the possibility that residents of Wisconsin could go unrepresented for almost two years if any governor declined to issue an order calling for a special election," (Wisconsin State Journal).

The civil action on behalf of Wisconsin voters against Walker is a petition for a writ of mandamus, filed in late February.

A judicial writ or order of mandamus is extraordinary, and implies in this case that Scott Walker is not fulfilling the Constitutional obligations of his office, and that voters were deprived of their right to vote under the Wisconsin Constitution.

Readers searching for the mandamus order and opinion are advised to contact the Dane County Clerk of Courts and make a Freedom of Information request, or wait until someone posts the opinion that was being composed Thursday afternoon.

Voting Rights Battle in Fitchburg, Wisc; Pursuit of Poll Worker, Civil Rights Activist Proceeds

Fitchburg, Wisconsin Municipal Judge
Hamdy Ezalarab is a popular figure on the
 bench in Dane County, Wisconsin.
Photo is from 1969,
(Schmidt, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Memorial Union TerraceViews)

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Who knew advocating for voters would provoke the wrath of a handful of white bureaucrats of a small Wisconsin suburb?

If you knew Fitchburg aldermanic district number one like I do, you would know.

I've worked roughly 10 years as a poll worker in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, and voted at the same polling place for some 18 years.

Fitchburg is heavily segregated, stained by open racism, and my voting district's poll workers include a handful of white racists who loathe me, I calculate, roughly to the degree I regard them as miserable, xenophobic and deceitful.

The all-white Fitchburg City Clerk's office backs the racists, fervently.

On August 9, 2016, I was obstructed from voting by this group, and after I objected, citing election law and election authorities, I received a civil citation for disorderly conduct.

Why did this happen? The full context is I regularly embarrassed the City Clerk's office by pointing out defects in the operation of my polling place. I'll get specific in Dane County, (Wisconsin), Circuit Court.

The United States and Wisconsin Constitutions and state election law are diminishing under the white-power banner predominating among this small number of racists in our city.

On May 10, 2017, Fitchburg Municipal Court, (a fine, municipal judge), found me guilty of the civil citation, ordering no fine. No fine.

Clearly, I will avail myself of a jury trial in Dane County Circuit Court and appeal this bogus citation.

Not easy to hear racists, whom I explained are the "White Power Caucus," lie repeatedly in open court but at trial I followed advice of friends and more or less went along with a few objections.

I will prevail in Dane County Court in front of a jury, Dane County Circuit Court is a different forum.

Of note, before defamations from the City Clerk's office were ruled inadmissible, the City Attorney's office in the person of one asst. City Attorney Valerie Zisman, threatened in a conference in the hall to write a new citation for August 9, 2016, which is precisely what happened after court adjourned.

I am confident.

Now, however, I have two disorderly conduct citations, one going to Dane County Court, and the new citation in limbo for now.

The second citation was indicated by the City Atty's office in court, to which the judge replied, not in my court. The judge also stated, he was finished with the citation and the matter was closed, stating he had enough, (not a direct quote).

Stay posted. This may appear light stuff from a small, corrupt Wisconsin city. It's not light stuff. From an email sent by me to the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Aug. 5, 2016, four days before I was obstructed from voting on Aug 9, received the first two of four visits to our home by armed Fitchburg Police, and received the first of now two civil disorderly conduct citations:

From: Mike Leon [ ...]
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2016 8:42 AM
To: Lowe, Diane - ELECTIONS
Subject: Polling Place
Importance: High

Diane,

Could you email me a URL or GAB (WEC) memo that would indicate how many election inspectors are supposed to hand out ballots at a table in a polling place? I believe it to be two.

A ... chief election inspector in our polling place, where I worked on April 5, positioned one election inspector at the ballots table, and predictably quite a voter bottleneck ensued.

Other elections to my memory featured two inspectors on ballots.

I need a memo or other publicly available authority on this two-people-on-ballots question.

I emailed our election and city clerk, around late April on this but no one got back to me. They are not too crazy about questions RE what they regard as their apparent turf, though I believe myself as a resident and long-time election inspector to be a stakeholder.

Administering elections should be about rules and regulations, to my view.

Mike
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More to come. Much more.

Dershowitz on Innocent Man Case

Scalia's Catholic Betrayal
by Alan M. Dershowitz

I never thought I would live to see the day when a justice of the Supreme Court would publish the following words:

This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable.

Yet these words appeared in a dissenting opinion issued by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on Monday. Let us be clear precisely what this means. If a defendant were convicted, after a constitutionally unflawed trial, of murdering his wife, and then came to the Supreme Court with his very much alive wife at his side, and sought a new trial based on newly discovered evidence (namely that his wife was alive), these two justices would tell him, in effect: ‘Look, your wife may be alive as a matter of fact, but as a matter of constitutional law, she’s dead, and as for you, Mr. Innocent Defendant, you’re dead, too, since there is no constitutional right not to be executed merely because you’re innocent.’ ...

Voting Rights Ruling: No Racism Anymore

Social conditions on race are what the GOP says, not the Democratic-led Congress, and certainly not empirical data.

GOP hack Chief Justice John Roberts believes racism went the way of electronic vacuum tubes and during his tenure will seek to impose this belief on any area of law that he can.

That's the political reality under which the Voting Rights Act (VRA), Section Five was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday.

Passing the Voting Rights Act in 2006, Congress concluded racism exists. Wrong, the GOP says.

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) opinion is being hailed and bashed. But the Court [at least five members] makes clear it disagrees with the VRA's assumption about prevailing racism.

John Nichols sees the opinion pulling the teeth from the Voting Rights Act.

NAACP's John Payton and the ACLU's Steven R. Shapiro applaud the Court for preserving the Act and are grateful the Court rules on narrow grounds, instead of eviscerating the Act as the GOP wants.

But narrow grounds are the best the GOP could get because the GOP-desired opinion won't write—there is no intellectually honest reasoning for the desired opinion that overturns section five of the Voting Rights Act.

Overturning Section Five, the Court would have made Bush v. Gore in comparison a model of rigorous reasoning and apolitical detachment.

So the GOP judges did what they could: Chief Justice Roberts offers his GOP view of racial history and implausibly reinterpretes the Voting Rights statute to mean what the Court says, laying the grounds for a future GOP challenge.

The four rule-of-law judges went along because that's the best that they could get and Roberts threw them some language about the good that the Voting Rights Act has accomplished.

As noted by Tom Goldstein in SCOTUSblog, the "case that went before the Court was a vehicle chosen expressly to pose the constitutional question" by activist lawyers who believe that contrary to what Congress said [in reauthorizing the act by votes of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate in 2006 for 25 years], there is no need for the Act.

The constitutional question at hand is whether Congress overstepped its authority in deciding the Act is still needed.

But it's Congress' conclusion that racism exists that has the GOP upset.

The Court’s opinion says that Section 5 'imposes current burdens and must be justified by current needs.' And that the "statute’s coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old,” and “there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions." (NYT) This ignores the mountain of data that Congress used to justify reauthorization.

The GOP Court will go along with the GOP as much as it can without completely embarrassing itself.