'Breathtaking contempt': GOP blasted for working to silence Wisconsin opposition

The extent to which Wisconsin Republicans have used gerrymandering to solidify their grip on power shows “breathtaking contempt’ for residents, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote Friday.

Bouie writes for the Times in a column published Friday that since being swept into power amid the 2010 Tea Party wave, Wisconsin Republicans have gerrymandered the state's electoral map to create disproportionate representation in the Badger State.

The districting meant the GOP in 2018 gained supermajority legislative powers in the state Assembly, despite losing the statewide legislative vote by 8 percentage points (54 to 46) and losing all statewide elections that year.

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Bouie writes: “The gerrymandering alone undermines Wisconsin’s status as a democracy. If a majority of the people cannot, under any realistic circumstances, elect a legislative majority of their choosing, then it’s hard to say whether they actually govern themselves.”

And 2018 was no outlier.

Bouie notes that Republicans in 2012 captured 60 percent of the state’s Assembly seats despite garnering a minority of the statewide vote (46 percent) that year. They won 63 percent of the Assembly seats along with the governorship two years later with 52 percent of the vote, and 64 percent of the Assembly seats in 2016 amid a virtually 50-50 split.

And Bouie contends that Wisconsin Republicans are moving to effectively nullify the 2022 election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz that gave liberals a 4-3 majority in the state’s Supreme Court.

Wisconsin Republicans have floated impeaching Protasiewicz, but the state’s Democratic governor would then be allowed to replace her with another liberal. But the state’s GOP could delay an impeachment trial indefinitely, which would have the effect of suspending her right to vote.

Bouie writes that, “The court would then revert to a 3-3 deadlock, very likely preserving the Republican gerrymander and keeping a 19th-century abortion law, which bans the procedure, on the books.”

If successful, Bouie argues that the state’s GOP “will have created, in effect, an unbreakable hold on state government.”

Bouie writes: “It’s that breathtaking contempt for the people of Wisconsin — who have voted, since 2018, for a more liberal State Legislature and a more liberal State Supreme Court and a more liberal governor, with the full powers of his office available to him — that makes the Wisconsin Republican Party the most openly authoritarian in the country.”

Read the full article here.