Progressive Thinking

Federal Judge overrules Wisconsin Supreme Court, along with a state statute, that violated the rights of voters with disabilities to obtain assistance in the delivery of their absentee ballots.

MADISON—Yesterday was a day for celebration!

Federal Judge James Peterson ruled that a recent decision by the Wisconsin Supreme, along with a state statute, violated the rights of four voters with severe physical disabilities to obtain assistance in the delivery of their absentee ballots.

He granted summary judgment to these plaintiffs who brought the case (Carey v. WEC) and ruled that any disabled voter who needs assistance in the delivery of their absentee ballot can’t be denied such assistance.

At issue was a state statute that said that an absentee ballot must be “delivered in person, to the municipal clerk.” Also at issue was the Wisconsin Supreme Court July decision in the Teigen case that said voters themselves had to deliver that ballot to the clerk. The Wisconsin Supreme Court had also left unclear, in that decision, whether voters could get assistance in putting their absentee ballots in the mail.

Now voters with disabilities, if they need it, will be able to get assistance both in delivering their absentee ballot to the clerk and in putting their absentee ballot in the mail.

Judge Peterson, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, pointed out that the Wisconsin statute and the decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court had left voters with physical disabilities in a quandary.

He noted that they risked “imminent injury regardless of what they do. If they choose to comply with [the statute], they will have to forfeit their right to vote or attempt to vote in person with great difficulty and perhaps even at risk to their health and safety. But if plaintiffs violate [the statute] by obtaining assistance to vote absentee, their vote could be rejected, and they could be sanctioned for violating the law.”

This is an unacceptable bind to put any voter in, Judge Peterson ruled.

And he explained that the Wisconsin statute and the ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court collide head on with the protections under the Voting Rights Act.

“The Voting Rights Act is clear: disabled voters who need assistance in returning an absentee ballot are entitled to ask a person of their choosing for that assistance,” he wrote. He quoted the relevant section of the Voting Rights Act, which states:

“Any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter's choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.”

This conflict between federal law and state law also put voters with disabilities in a bind, the judge said. “Voters shouldn’t have to choose between exercising their federal rights and complying with state law,” he wrote. “But that is the position that plaintiffs find themselves in.”

But they no longer are in that position now because Judge Peterson pointed out that federal law takes precedent over state law. As he put it, the Voting Rights Act “preempts” the state statute.

And so he issued a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that Wisconsin must provide “third-party ballot-return assistance to disabled voters who require such assistance.”

This is a tremendous victory for voters with disabilities, for disability rights activists, and for our fundamental freedom to vote.

And it’s a bracing defeat for the rightwing justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court who so cavalierly dismissed the rights of disabled voters in Wisconsin.

It’s also an embarrassing defeat for the rightwing Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the Teigen case in the first place in an effort to erect barriers for all of us to have to clear in the exercise of our freedom to vote.

I send my congratulations to the four plaintiffs who courageously came forward and to Law Forward, the great pro-democracy law firm that represented the plaintiffs so brilliantly. And I send my congratulations to Disability Rights Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Disability Vote Coalition, which has pushed so hard on this issue.

It's a big victory, well-earned.

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Wife's involvement leaves no way Clarence Thomas can be a neutral arbiter in any future Jan. 6 cases says Executive Director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

MADISON - If he doesn’t resign, as Rep. Alexander Ocasio Cortez has properly asked him to, Justice Clarence Thomas at least needs to recuse himself from any cases dealing with the Jan. 6 uprising.

And he sure should have recused himself when he was the lone dissenter in a case earlier this year about the release of Donald Trump’s records relating to Jan. 6.

Because Thomas’s wife Ginni not only attended the “Stop the Steal” rally. She also sent a couple dozen text messages to Trump’s chief of staff urging him to do whatever it takes to keep Trump in power. Her texts were part of Trump’s records that were of issue in the case. Thomas had a clear conflict of interest, and he violated judicial ethics by sitting on the case and actually ruling in favor of Trump, thus shielding his wife.

There’s absolutely no way Clarence Thomas can be a neutral arbiter in any future Jan. 6 cases.

Thomas’s flagrant conflict of interest reminds me that here in Wisconsin, we need better recusal rules for judges and justices, too.

This matter has come up several times over the last dozen years. First, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in 2010 petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court to tighten its recusal rules. Instead of doing so, the conservative justices on the court chose to accept a rule, written by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association, which is essentially no rule at all. It says it’s totally up to the judge or justice whether to get off a case or not.

In 2015, in the John Doe II case against Scott Walker, the issue arose again. The special prosecutor was investigating whether Walker had broken the law by coordinating with outside electioneering groups during a campaign. Two of those groups were Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and Wisconsin Club for Growth. The special prosecutor asked two of the justices – David Prosser and a guy named Michael Gableman – to recuse themselves because they had benefitted from vast expenditures by those groups when they were running for office -- to the tune of $1.6 million to help elect Prosser and $2.26 million to help elect Gableman. But neither recused themselves. Instead, they sat on the case, ruled in favor of Walker, fired the special prosecutor, and shut down the investigation.

Then, in 2017, 54 retired judges in Wisconsin urged the Wisconsin Supreme Court again to tighten its recusal rules. The petition states: “As money in elections becomes more predominant, citizens rightfully ask whether justice is for sale. The appearance of partiality that large campaign donations cause strikes at the heart of the judicial function, which depends on the public’s respect for its judgments.”

The conservatives on the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected this petition, as well. Justice Rebecca Bradley claimed that it was an offense to even imagine that judges could be so corrupted: “ Every judge in Wisconsin should be offended by this. It attacks their integrity and character,” she huffed.

Then-Justice Shirley Abrahamson rebutted this naïve claim: “Due process requires recusal if there is an actual conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Abrahamson noted.

But to no avail.

So today in Wisconsin, just as on the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s up to the judge or justice to decide for himself or herself.

And there’s no transparency here, either.

Things are so lax in Wisconsin that that if I’m a lawyer in a case before a judge, I can give a check for $2,000 to that judge’s reelection campaign while he’s sitting on my case, and neither I nor the judge needs to inform the lawyer on the other side.

That’s an invitation to legalized judicial corruption.

And unlike Rebecca Bradley, I wouldn’t be surprised if some judges accept the invitation.

MADISON - We need accountability for the crimes against our democracy.

That means accountability for Donald Trump.

And it means accountability for anyone in Wisconsin who were co-conspirators in the coup attempt.

On Wednesday, our legal allies over at Law Forward asked Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to prosecute the Republican false electors. I write about that here:

Law Forward Asks DA Ozanne to Go After False Electors

On the legal beat, I also wrote about the horrendous decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court late last Friday that infringes on our freedom to vote:

Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Horrible Ruling on Drop Boxes and Ballot Delivery Assistance

And on the campaign finance front, we noted that Republican fundraising for legislative races in Wisconsin is far outpacing that of the Democrats:

GOP Lawmakers Had 4x More Cash Than Dems Entering 2022

This is what we do, day in and day out: We track the money, we expose the anti-democracy forces, and we advocate for a broad range of pro-democracy reforms so that everyone can have an equal voice.  

Thanks for supporting us in these efforts.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. If you’d like to send us a donation, you can do so by clicking here and pay with credit card or PayPal, or the old-fashioned way by sending us a check, made out to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, and mailed to our office at 203 S. Paterson St. Suite 100, Madison WI 53703. We really appreciate it!

On Monday, I testified before Senator Kathy Bernier’s Senate Committee on Elections, Election Process Reform, and Ethics about a bunch of anti-voter bills that I go into here:

A Barrage of Bad Election Bills

And yesterday, my colleague Iuscely Flores wrote about some important pro-voter bills:

Unlock The Vote to Eradicate Ages Old Jim Crow Legislation

So I’m hoping you’ll contact your legislators and urge them to support the good bills to Unlock the Vote and oppose the barrage of bad ones.

And also, please urge Gov. Evers to veto any anti-voter bills that land on his desk.

Go here for information on how to contact your legislator or the Governor.

Thanks for defending our freedom to vote!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Please send us a donation so we can keep fighting for our fundamental freedoms. It’s simply: Just click here. Or mail a check the old-fashioned way to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, 203 S. Paterson St, Suite 100, Madison, WI 53703. Thanks for your support!

Matt's testimony to the Senate Committee on Elections, Election Process Reform, and Ethics in Opposition to SB 934, SB 935, SB 936, SB 937, SB 939, SB 940, SB 941, SB 943, and SJR 101 on February 7, 2022

MADISON - Distinguished Chair and other Distinguished Members of this Committee:

I’m Matt Rothschild, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Since 1995, we’ve been tracking and exposing the money in Wisconsin politics, and we’ve been advocating for a broad range of pro-democracy reforms.

Before I get going, I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the tremendous public service that the chair of this committee has rendered in her career, first as a county clerk, then as a member of the Assembly, and most recently here in the Senate.

We may not agree on a lot of ideological issues, Madame Chair, but we certainly agree on the need to defend our democracy. I really appreciate your outspokenness on this bedrock principle, and your frank acknowledgment of the severity of the threat posed to our democracy by those who refuse to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 elections and instead peddle one lie after another and one smear after another for their own political gain or personal gratification.

You’ve been a profile of courage, and you’ll be missed, and I wish you all the best in your retirement.

I’ve got some specific problems with many of these bills, as well as with the Joint Resolution.

But rather than go tediously through that itemization, let me instead make a few general remarks and then offer just a couple germane points, if I might.

First, I would like to underline an observation that Republican Senator Rob Cowles has made about our elections. He noted that our elections are “safe and secure.”

Second, there has been a drumbeat of baseless accusations and character assassinations against the dedicated administrator and the tireless staff of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which has got to stop. It’s grossly unfair to them, and if it keeps up, we won’t be able to attract any talented people to administer our elections in this state.

And third, the endless fishing expedition being conducted by Michael Gableman and the constant smoke machine that some other partisans keep revving up about the November 2020 elections only serve to undermine the faith of the Wisconsin public in our elections and in our democracy.

That’s not healthy. And that’s got to stop, too.

And frankly, I worry that, when taken as a whole, the barge carrying all these new bills today may also be billowing out more smoke.

This is not to say that I disagree with everything in all these bills. Not at all. For instance, the bills by the Chair clarify a lot of processes and terms that needed clarification.

And I certainly agree that we should set clear rules for our elections, but let’s make sure that those rules are fair.
And let’s protect our freedom to vote rather than erect one barrier after another to the exercise of that fundamental freedom.

Unfortunately, some of these bills do erect such barriers.

First of all, two bills would make voting by absentee ballot more difficult for all voters in Wisconsin.

SB 935 would render an absentee ballot null and void for the pettiest of reasons. For instance, if I’m a witness for the absentee voter and I print my name, and I sign my name, and I put Madison, WI, down as my residence but I neglect to put my street down, should the voter I’m witnessing be disqualified because of that omission? The bill says yes, and that seems ridiculous to me. Even requiring a witness seems like a stretch to me, since the voter already is swearing about his or her identity. Now to make the witness have to fill out everything just right or the voter’s ballot is disqualified just adds another way to toss a perfectly good ballot into the waste basket.

SB 939 would prohibit the Wisconsin Elections Commission or any local clerk from sending out absentee ballot applications, en masse, to registered voters, as was prudently done during the pandemic. Our ability to exercise our freedom to vote by mail should not be needlessly curtailed by this blanket prohibition. Why shouldn’t the Elections Commission be allowed to do this? If we want more people to be able to exercise their freedom to vote in our democracy, sending everyone an absentee ballot application makes sense, in general. And in specific, it makes a whole lot of sense during a pandemic. But this bill would nix both those options.

Second, one bill would make voting by absentee ballot especially more difficult for those in residential care facilities or retirement homes.

SB 935 would paternalistically require the notification of relatives of residents in long-term care facilities or retirement homes as to when special voting deputies are going to be there. Residents don’t need their relatives looking over their shoulders when they’re voting. This is an invasion of their privacy. Unless they have a legal guardian, residents should not have their freedom to vote interfered with in this obnoxious manner. What if they don’t get along with “the relatives for whom the home or facility has contact information”? What business is it of the relatives, seriously?

SB 935 would also needlessly prohibit a personal care voting assistant from helping any resident of a residential care facility or qualified retirement home to register to vote. If the personal care voting assistant is there to help the resident fill out an absentee ballot, why can’t the assistant help the resident register to vote? That distinction makes no sense. Plus, nursing homes that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding are required to support the residents’ right to vote. That should include supporting residents who want to register to vote.

Third, one of the bills, SB 934, could erroneously toss voters from the voting rolls.

This bill would have the Wisconsin Elections Commission rely on the Electronic Registration Information Center (otherwise known as ERIC) to determine whether a voter has moved. Following that determination, the Commission must send a letter or a postcard to the voter. If the voter doesn’t respond, the voter becomes unregistered. The problem with this is that the Wisconsin Election Commission’s own data in 2020 showed that 7.07 percent of the voters who became unregistered because of ERIC’s data actually had never moved and were wrongly deactivated. Such a high error is not acceptable when it comes to our freedom to vote.

Fourth, several of these bills would hog-tie the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

SB 940 would allow the Joint Finance Committee to gouge the staff or the funds of the Elections Commission if Joint Finance, on its own, says that the Elections Commission or the Department of Transportation or the Department of Corrections or the Department of Health Services failed to comply with any election law. That would give Joint Finance a huge whip over the heads of the Elections Commission, with no decent check on that unilateral power.

SB 941 would give the Joint Finance Committee and the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules the authority to block federal funds and federal guidance, which will make it very difficult for the Commission to do its job. It’s also of dubious constitutionality: States aren’t allowed to disregard federal guidance on the conduct of federal elections, for instance.

SB 941 would also inject hyper-partisanship at the staff level by mandating that each major political party gets its own legal counsel on the staff of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The last thing we need is more partisan haggling at the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

SB 943 would require the Elections Commission to be nit-picked and hyper-monitored by the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules. Every week, the Elections Commission would have to give to JCRAR “all documents and communications from the commission that the commission issued in the previous week that are applicable to municipal clerks generally and qualify as guidance documents.” Are you going to allow the Elections Commission to do its job, or are you going to kill it by a thousand cuts?

So these are some of my biggest concerns.

Above all, I would appreciate it if we could all agree that:

1. The November 2020 elections were legitimate and move on,
2. The staff of the Wisconsin Elections Commission has been doing an admirable job under incredibly difficult circumstances, and
3. In Wisconsin, and in America, we all should have our freedom to vote protected.

Thanks for considering my views, and I welcome any questions you might have.

MADISON - I’ve been giving lots of talks lately about the dangerous threats to our democracy, and I wanted to share my latest one with you, which explores the roots of the anti-democracy movement we’re facing right now:

The Roots of the Anti-Democracy Movement

This week, our research team tracked the money that corporations gave to political parties and legislative campaign committees last year. Find out which companies gave the most here:

State Parties, Legislative Campaign Committees Accepted $1.3M in Corporate Contributions in 2021

And our research team profiled Betsy DeVos’s public school privatization group, which has spent more than $8 million in Wisconsin since 2010 to elect Republican legislators who will siphon off your tax dollars and give them to private schools:

Influence Peddler for February 2022 – American Federation for Children

Meanwhile, our Racial Equity and Economic Justice Advocate Iuscely Flores wrote about the misplaced priorities of Republicans in our legislature when it comes to combating crime:

We Say Defund, Republicans Say Fund, Fund Fund!

Thanks, as always, for supporting our work, and I hope you have a nice weekend.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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Matt Rothschild makes statement to the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections opposing the motion to enlarge the scope of the special counsel's role.

MADISON - I’m Matt Rothschild, the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Since 1995, we’ve been tracking and exposing the money in Wisconsin politics and advocating for a broad range of pro-democracy reforms.

We strongly object to this motion to enlarge the scope of the special counsel’s role for the following eight reasons.

Problem #1: This motion violates the separation of powers by giving the special counsel prosecutorial powers.

It would allow Gableman to interview citizens in private, behind closed doors with no legislative oversight. There is no statute or rule that allows for this type of private, quasi-deposition and secretive process, and the people of Wisconsin rightfully expect transparency in their lawmaking and from their legislature. The legislature is not supposed to be in the prosecution business. That role properly resides in the executive branch.

Problem #2: The special counsel has a preconceived bias that makes him unsuited for this job.

Just days after the election, Michael Gableman, at a partisan Republican rally, said: "Our elected leaders — your elected leaders — have allowed unelected bureaucrats at the Wisconsin Elections Commission to steal our vote.” Someone who has made such a slanderous accusation and has demonstrated such a preconceived bias should not be in charge of the investigation. The accuser should not become the prosecutor.

Problem #3: Staff members of the special counsel have the same preconceived bias that disqualifies them from their jobs and that reinforces the disqualifying bias of the special counsel.

Gableman’s chief of staff, Andrew Kloster, also has said that the election was stolen. What’s more, he said in April that conservatives need their own “irate hooligans” like the Proud Boys and “our own captured DA offices to let our boys off the hook.” This is an incitement to rightwing vigilante violence and to corrupt enforcement of the law! Other staff members are similarly biased. One of his investigators, Ron Heuer, is the president of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, which unsuccessfully sued to prevent the Wisconsin Elections Commission from certifying the election and sought instead to have the Republican-controlled Legislature pick the representatives Wisconsin sent to the Electoral College. These partisan biases could not be more glaring or more disqualifying.

Problem #4: The special counsel has shown that he does not have the background or skills necessary for this job.

The special counsel admitted in public that he doesn’t have “any understanding of how elections work.” So why he is in charge? He also has shown extraordinary sloppiness in the way he’s been doing his job. Example 1: He subpoenaed Dominion voting machines from Madison and Green Bay when neither Madison nor Green Bay uses Dominion voting machines. Example 2: He asked Green Bay and Madison for all information about voters held by their computer systems, but that could include information like birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and addresses. Voters have an expectation that their personal information will not be treated with such callousness.

Problem #5: The special counsel does not have the proper temperament for this job.

The special counsel interrupted and berated members of this very Committee in previous “public” hearings in a way that no witness in memory has gotten away with. Also at one of these hearings, the special counsel, by name, accused one of the most senior Capitol reporters in our state as being an “activist.” And the special counsel also said that State Senator Kathy Bernier, chair of the Senate Committee on Elections, should resign. Such outbursts reveal a serious character flaw that should disqualify Gableman from this office.

Problem #6: The special counsel is squandering the public’s resources with no endpoint in sight.

The office of the special counsel has already cost the taxpayers of Wisconsin $676,000. The boundless motion to expand his role would keep the meter running overtime. It’s the very definition of a blank check. Speaker Vos, who originally appointed Gableman, said that the special counsel should wrap up his work last October, and then the Speaker extended that to the end of the last year, and then to the end of this January, and then to the end of February. And now the Committee’s motion would extend it even further, with no end in sight. This constant shifting of the goalposts does a disservice to the public, and to the public’s wallet.

Problem #7: The special counsel is serving not the public interest but a narrow partisan interest.

The November 2020 elections are now more than 14 months old. Donald Trump went 0-60 in the courts, including 0-3 at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He demanded a recount in Dane County and Milwaukee County, and the recount found the same result. The Legislative Audit Bureau examined our elections, and according to Sen. Rob Cowles, co-chair of the Legislative Audit Committee, the audit showed that our elections are “safe and secure.” Even the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found that there was no widespread fraud. Sen. Bernier has denounced the endless beating of this dead horse as a “charade.” And yet it continues. Not in search of the truth, but for other reasons:

• to provide some post-facto justification for the Big Lie that spills out of Donald Trump’s mouth right after he says good morning
• to back up the regurgitation of that lie by the likes of Michael Gableman and others
• to feed rancid red meat to the zealous base of the Trump wing of the Republican Party
• and to keep that base agitated through the elections of 2022 and 2024.

Our tax dollars should not be squandered for such hyper-partisan purposes.

Problem #8: The special counsel’s ceaseless casting of aspersions about the legitimacy of the November 2020 elections undermines the people’s faith in our democracy.

There has been an unprecedented attempt, nationwide and here in Wisconsin, by the Trumpite wing of the Republican Party to sabotage our American way of political life. Never before have we seen a President not vow to have a peaceful transition of power. Never before have we seen anything like the Jan. 6 coup attempt. And still people like Michael Gableman claim that the election was “rigged.” These are like parents at a high school game screaming at the refs in the parking lot more than a year after the game ended. It would be pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous to our democracy and our freedom to vote.

Thank you for considering my views.

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Matt Rothschild of the Democracy Campaign exposes Republican activists and elected officials who schemed to subvert the Electoral College vote or who have continued to perpetuate the Big Lie.

MADISON - Here in Wisconsin, we’ve had our own collaborators in the Jan. 6 coup attempt by far right Trumpites.

I’m not even referring to the six Wisconsinites who were charged with crimes in the U.S. Capitol that day.

I’m referring, instead, to Republican activists and elected officials who schemed to subvert the Electoral College vote or who have continued to perpetuate the Big Lie and thereby sabotage the people’s faith in our elections to this day.

First, in December of 2020, a group of 10 Republicans took it upon themselves to “certify” that Trump had won the election here and they pretended to be Wisconsin’s electors to the Electoral College. Here is the list of these false and fraudulent “electors”: Carol Brunner, Mary Buestrin, Darryl Carson, Bill Feehan, Scott Grabins, Andrew Hitt, Kathy Kiernen, Kelly Ruh, Robert Spindell, and Pam Travis. (One of these, Robert Spindell, is actually on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which received a legal complaint last February from Law Forward to investigate all of these false electors, including Spindell.)

Then on Jan. 5, 2021, of all days, 15 Republican state legislators from Wisconsin (along with Republican legislators from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) signed a letter to Vice President Pence urging him to delay the counting of electoral votes for at least 10 days and allow the legislatures in these state time to decertify the electors who were sent to the Electoral College and to certify their own slates. (This was part of the plot that the Eastman memo had outlined for Trump.)

The Wisconsin legislators who signed this letter were:

Sen. André Jacque (R-DePere) and Reps. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls), Rick Gundrum (R-Slinger), Robert Brooks (R-Saukville), Cody Horlacher (R-Mukwonago), Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), Gae Magnafici (R-Dresser), Dave Murphy (R-Greenville), Jeff Mursau (R-Crivitz) Joe Sanfelippo (R-West Berlin), Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh), Tim Ramthun (R-Campbellsport), Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers), Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac) and Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego). (Note that Rep. Brandtjen is the chair of the Assembly Committee on Elections, where she has been holding one biased hearing after another to air her conspiracy theories.)

None of these elected officials, nor any of the false electors, has had to account for their disgraceful role in this sinister plot.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, we’ve continued to see denialism about Biden’s legitimacy (Rep. Ramthun introduced a resolution in November to retroactively decertify Wisconsin’s electors to the Electoral College), denialism about the subversion on Jan. 6 (see Ron Johnson), the introduction of anti-voter bills, and an all-out assault on the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Here are the goals of these anti-American efforts.

First, to keep feeding rancid red meat to the enraged Trumpite base so they will turn out in huge numbers in 2022 and 2024.

Second, to enact laws that will make it harder for people to vote, especially people who lean Democratic.

And third, to sully the reputation of the Wisconsin Elections Commission so badly that partisan Republican officials in the Legislature can destroy it and hand over the administration – and more dangerous still, the certification – of our elections to the Legislature itself or to a particular partisan official the Legislature appoints. In this way, Republican partisans could overturn the will of the people and decide, by fiat, who won the election, regardless of the actual vote count.

That’s what the Gableman fishing expedition is all about.

That’s what the wild accusations from the sheriff of Racine County, Christopher Schmaling (who was the featured speaker at a Women for Trump rally during the 2020 campaign here), are all about. Schmaling got into the act by saying that five of the six commissioners of the Wisconsin Elections Commission should be prosecuted for sending absentee ballots to people in nursing homes when Special Voting Deputies weren’t able to get in there.

This constant drumbeat of propaganda, amplified on rightwing talk radio, has infected much of the Republican Party, with 64% of Republicans in Wisconsin doubting the validity of last November’s election, according to a Marquette Law School poll late last year.

Many Republican officials, with the notable exception of Sen. Kathy Bernier, have been afraid to speak up and tell the truth, for fear that their base – or their party leaders – will punish them for it.

So they’ve created a monster here, and the monster is out of control, and it’s threatening to gobble up the Wisconsin Elections Commission and trample all over our precious ideal of fair elections in Wisconsin.

This is the legacy of Jan. 6 in Wisconsin. And it’s not pretty.

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Democracy Campaign's Matt Rothschild comments on the current anti-democracy madness in Wisconsin.

MADISON - In the waning hours of 2021, a Republican legislator in Wisconsin named Timothy Ramthun wasn’t chilling champagne or relaxing with his family.

No, he was still scheming to subvert our democracy.

Ramthun, who in November introduced a resolution to rescind Wisconsin’s Electoral Colleges votes that were certified on Jan. 6, introduced a bill on Dec. 30 that would permit the nullification of an election and the mandating of a do-over 30 days later in some circumstances.

Those circumstances include where the total number of absentee ballots exceeds the margin of victory, which, under his bill, would necessitate a forensic audit. (In the November 2020 elections, almost 2 million Wisconsinites voted by absentee ballot, and Biden won by about 21,000 votes.)

After such an audit, if the Wisconsin Elections Commission or the Attorney General or a district attorney “having jurisdiction over the matter determines that a violation of the laws relating to election threats, bribery, or fraud occurred,” then the election is null and void.

This is way off the charts. There’s no precedent for nullifying elections in Wisconsin.

And note that Ramthun has totally aced out the judiciary, which up to now has had the authority to resolve election disputes.

Ramthun sidelines the judges and would conveniently hand power over to partisan officials.

This is an assault not only on our right to vote but on the separation of powers and our very system of checks and balances.

The anti-democracy madness in Wisconsin has got to stop!

Audio Commentary

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MADISON - I’m urging you to give a gift this holiday season to defend our democracy.

You know it’s under attack by a militant, white nationalist, and cultish anti-democracy movement.

Here at the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, we’re doing all we can to call out this threat at the national level and especially right here in our state.

We’ve helped lead the way in the battle against gerrymandering. 

We blew the whistle on the anti-voting bills that were introduced.

We’ve been denouncing the Gableman fishing expedition at the top of our lungs.

And we even produced radio ads that ran all across the state to puncture the Big Lie. (One of the ads featured Milwaukee Bucks stars Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez!)

But we can’t keep doing this work without your support.

So, while you’re finishing up your holiday shopping, please send us a donation today so we can redouble our efforts to defend our democracy.

Giving us simple: Just click here.

Or you can send us a gift the old-fashioned way. Write your check and mail it to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign at 203 S. Paterson St., Suite 100, Madison WI 53703.

I look forward to hearing from you, and thanks for your support!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Your donation is tax-deductible when you itemize.

MADISON - I’m increasingly worried about the state of our democracy in Wisconsin.

All the propaganda about the 2020 elections is serving a sinister purpose, as I explain here:

The Scheme to Sabotage Our Vote in Wisconsin

Please write a letter to the editor of your local paper on this. And I’d be happy to edit it if you’d like. Just email me directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I’d also like to urge you to include the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign on your holiday gift list.

You know how doggedly we’ve been defending democracy here in Wisconsin: on the gerrymandering front, on these anti-voter schemes, on the threat from big and dark money in our politics, and on many other issues, including racism and economic inequality.

So I hope you’ll help us out with a donation (tax-deductible when you itemize) so we can push even harder on these issues in the year ahead.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for defending our democracy!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut, and you probably do, too, so I wanted to share with you my statement on the Rittenhouse verdict:

“This appalling verdict is a green light for white vigilante violence. It is yet another sign that there is no accountability in America, and no respect for the lives of people in the anti-racist camp. Look no further than the closing statement of Rittenhouse’s attorney, Mark Richards, who “I’m glad he shot Rosenbaum.” That is sickening! And so is this verdict. Rittenhouse will become even more of a hero to the far right. And there will be more Rittenhouses to come. The jury has sowed the wind, and the harvest will not be pretty.”

It may be open season on protesters now.

I’m deeply, deeply concerned that we’re headed toward a kind of civil war. Yesterday, while I was driving up to Wautoma to give a talk, I listened to rightwing talk radio, and they were already lionizing Rittenhouse, mocking any anti-racist protester in the vilest terms, and dismissing all liberals as idiots and fools.

And I’m reminded of the recent hideous comment by the audience member at the rightwing Turning Point USA conference who stood up and said, “When do we get to use our guns? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people.”

The Rittenhouse verdict is a spur to all those who want to go out and start using their guns against Black Lives Matter protesters or liberals in general, for that matter.

To counteract this threat, we need to be courageous. We need to protest nonviolently against this verdict despite the threats, we need to call out racism wherever we see it, and we need to try to reach two or three people in our lives who don’t always agree with us but are otherwise decent people and try to draw them away from the lures of the far right.

The fate of our democracy depends on us!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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GOP arrogance, and that kind of manipulation, cannot be allowed to stand.

MADISON - The Wisconsin Legislature will be voting on the newly rigged maps as early as Monday next week, so please contact your representatives and urge them to vote no!

In his testimony last week, Robin Vos confessed that he tilted the maps in his partisan favor, boasting that there was nothing in our Wisconsin Constitution to prohibit it.

That kind of arrogance, and that kind of manipulation, cannot be allowed to stand.

So please contact your legislators and tell them to vote against Senate Bill 621 and Assembly Bill 624.

Here’s how you contact your state legislators:

• Toll-free legislative hotline at 1-800-362-9472 (266-9960 in Madison).
• E-mail directory for Senators, click here.
• E-mail directory for Assembly members, click here.
• If you do not know your legislator's name or district, use the "Find My Legislators" form on the front page of the Legislature's website.

Thanks for your activism, and for supporting fair maps!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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At hearing, he admitted they tried to make the maps more favorable to Republicans in 2011. Now they may be able to draw maps that help them stay in power simply by moving lines.

MADISON - I spent five hours in the State Capitol yesterday for the hearing on the newly gerrymandered maps.

I was a little late getting into the hearing room because there was such a huge and amazing crowd of citizen activists who were also trying to get in. That was great to see!

When I got in, Speaker Robin Vos was in the middle of his testimony as the co-author of the bills (SB621/AB624). A few minutes later, while he was being questioned by the Democrats on the joint committee, he made a killer confession: He admitted that they tried to make the maps more favorable to the Republicans. “Was partisanship used? Yes,” he said.

That’s the whole ball game! We don’t want Republicans – or Democrats, for that matter – to be able to draw maps that help them stay in power simply by moving lines here or there on a map.

Three and a half hours later, I was able to give my testimony, which you can read here:

Reject Gerrymandered Maps

You can view a slightly improvised version on WisconsinEye's recording of the hearing starting at 12:59 p.m.

If you haven’t already, please contact your legislators, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to register your opposition to these bills.

We’re also concerned about the ongoing smearing of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the endless smoke machine about last November’s elections. Here’s what I wrote about the recent Legislative Audit Bureau report:

LAB Hatchet Job on Wisconsin Elections Commission

Thanks for your concern for our democracy!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Please support our urgent work with a tax-deductible donation today. Just click here.

MADISON - Meet the new gerrymander, same as the old gerrymander.

Wednesday, Speaker Vos and Majority Leader LeMahieu unveiled their new district maps for the state, and they’re just as bad as they were last time around, as I explain here:

Stop the GOP Re-Rigging of Our Maps

The bills were introduced as SB621/AB624 for legislative maps and SB622/AB625 for congressional maps.

>> A joint committee public hearing on the new maps has been scheduled for October 28 at 9 a.m. Plan to attend the hearing as well as the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition press conference prior to the hearing at 8:30 a.m. This will most likely be the only public hearing on the bills.

>> Please contact your state legislators before the hearing on October 28 and tell them to vote against these re-rigged maps. And urge Gov. Evers to veto these bills if they arrive on his desk.

We also have got to get rid of the filibuster. The logjam in Congress just stalled the Freedom to Vote Act, which is a crucial bill for safeguarding our democracy, as I noted here:

Pass the Freedom to Vote Act

My colleague, Iuscely Flores, wrote an important story this week about a package of bills in the state legislature that would address the gross disparities in maternal and infant mortality in Wisconsin. Please check it out:

Wisconsin Needs Birth Equity

>> You can use this online tool to contact your legislators to support Birth Equity in Wisconsin.

And we also published a piece about who is behind the ludicrous idea to have an open season on Sandhill cranes:

Ag, Hunting Groups Favor GOP Sandhill Crane Hunt Proposal

Thanks for reading, and thanks for taking action.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Please support our urgent work with a tax-deductible gift. It’s easy. Just click here. Thanks!

MADISON - The fishing expedition being conducted by Michael Gableman is disgusting, and I’m hoping you’ll write a letter to your local newspaper denouncing.

Here are some points to make, in your own words.

1. Gableman is biased. He said publicly after the election that it was stolen, so how can such I biased person be in charge of this investigation?

2. One of his aides made a grotesque incitement to rightwing violence and corrupt law enforcement. The aide, Andrew Kloster, was a lawyer in the Trump Administration. Here’s what he said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Conservatives need our own "irate hooligans" as well as prosecutors who will "let our boys off the hook."

3. This is an outrageous waste of taxpayer dollars. Vos has allocated $676,000 of our tax dollars for this, even though the vote was already recounted and certified. This is just a partisan ploy to placate Vos’s base, and we, the taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it.

Your letter should be 200 words or less!

To submit, just Google the name of your local newspaper and “letters to the editor,” and follow the instructions there.

Please send me an email if your letter gets published.

Thanks and good luck!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. If you’d like me to look over your letter or help you with it, just email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and I’d be more than happy to.

MADISON - I hope you can join us, and the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, on Sept. 27 for our Fair Maps Lobby Day.

Our two legislative priorities for the day are for legislators to take up the new district maps produced by the People’s Maps Commission and to pass legislation (AB395/SB389) that would give us independent, nonpartisan redistricting from now on.

And don’t worry: It’s not in person. Because of COVID, the Lobby Day will be a virtual event.

To get more information and to register, just click here: https://www.fairmapswi.com/events/legislative-lobby-day

The people are with us on this issue, as a recent poll shows:

Support for Banning Gerrymandering in Wisconsin Rises to 87%!

Another issue we’re working really hard on is voting rights. With the Wisconsin Voting Rights Coalition, we’re countering the bogus narrative that the election was stolen, and we’re campaigning against the anti-voting bills introduced in the Legislature.

Here’s a post I wrote about former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman warning about the dangers that Wisconsin will turn into Arizona:

Christine Todd Whitman Denounces Wisconsin’s “CyberNinjas 2.0”

And here’s a profile we put up of Representative Janel Brandtjen, the leader of what I call the Whack Caucus in the State Assembly:

Here’s a Quick Snapshot of “Big Lie” Backer Rep. Janel Brandtjen

I hope you enjoy these postings, and I look forward to seeing you on Sept. 27.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Please support our urgent work with a tax-deductible gift today. Just click here. Thanks!

MADISON - I went to Plover this Saturday to give a talk on the grave risk of authoritarianism that we’re facing, and I wanted to share it with you:

Overcoming Authoritarianism

A few days later, I heard Joe Biden give a tremendous speech on the same subject, and I wrote about that here:

Joe Biden’s Great Speech

I must have been in the mood for praising this week because I also hailed Gov. Evers for vetoing that horrible GOP bill on local redistricting. Here’s what I wrote:

Evers Thankfully Vetoes Delay in Local Redistricting

I hope you like this week’s offerings, and have a nice weekend!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. Please support our urgent work with a tax-deductible donation. Just click here!

MADISON - I hope you’re having a good week.

Here are two actions I’d like you to take:

1.     Tell your legislators to oppose Assembly Bill 369 relating to the timeline for local redistricting in Wisconsin following the 2020 federal decennial census.

This is a bill whose draft we were notified about last Friday as Memorial Day weekend was starting. It was formally introduced on Tuesday, the Assembly committee public hearing held yesterday, and it is on the agenda for a vote without a hearing in the Senate committee tomorrow morning! That’s far from adequate process. On substance, the bill would postpone the redistricting of local political districts until 2023. It would unconstitutionally disadvantage local communities, such as Madison, that have grown in population, and it would also let the State Legislature impose boundaries on local communities after that, which goes against the traditional way of Wisconsin, which starts the redistricting process from the local level on up, as I noted in my testimony here:

Don't Extend the Gerrymander

>>>Contact Assembly committee members and your legislators and strongly urge they oppose AB369.

2.     Sign the Fair Maps petition.

As part of the Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition, we’re encouraging all of our members to sign this petition demanding that our legislators pass nonpartisan redistricting legislation:

>>>Tell Your Legislators to Pass Fair Maps

Thanks for taking these two actions to keep the heat on the Legislature!

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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MADISON - This week, we filed an amicus brief in the case against Speaker Robin Vos and Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu for misappropriating your tax dollars to defend their plan to gerrymander our voting districts once again later this fall.

You can read our posting, with a link to the brief, here:

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Files Amicus Brief in Case Against Vos and LeMahieu

Earlier this week, we submitted three testimonies on some of the anti-voter bills that Republicans in the Legislature have introduced. You can read these here:

Don't Make It Harder to Vote Absentee

Don't Legalize Harassment of Election Officials

Don’t Turn Away Poll Workers

And speaking of these bills, I’d like to thank you if you’ve already contacted your legislators and urged them to oppose them.

>> If you haven’t done so yet, you can still take action to protect the freedom to vote in Wisconsin by opening our action alert email from yesterday. <<

I hope you have a nice weekend.

Best,

Matt Rothschild
Executive Director
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P.S. If you like the work we’re doing, please send us a tax-deductible gift by clicking here. Thanks!