Wisconsin once had a reputation for clean government. Even the Beltway Press and East Coast pundits who dismiss the Midwest as “flyover country” acknowledged as much, as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews did recently.

Thanks to eight years of Gov. Walker’s divide and conquer strategy and our gerrymandered Republican legislature preemptively stripping away power of our newly elected Democratic governor and attorney general, Wisconsin’s once proud reputation for clean government is shot. 

In the recent election, all statewide positions in Wisconsin were won by Democrats. Senator Tammy Baldwin, initially designated as a prime target for Republicans, won by a comfortable double-digit margin. Democrats won a majority of votes for the state Legislature. However, Republicans still control two-thirds of the Wisconsin Assembly and a majority of state Senate seats.

How could this happen? Easy — the decennial 2010 redistricting process was totally controlled by the Republican-led Legislature and Walker. With voting data and the aid of computer programming, it is easy enough to compact the Democrats into a few districts while spreading out Republicans into a majority of districts, thereby controlling a majority of seats — even while getting a minority of votes statewide.

As a result of gerrymandering that the US Supreme Court thinks is just fine, even though Wisconsin went Democratic, the Republicans still control the legislative branch of state government. 

But balancing Democratic executive power with Republican control of the legislature is enough for Wisconsin Republicans. The power-hungry Republican legislature copied the North Carolina playbook by enacting laws that strip away powers of the incoming duly-elected governor and attorney general.

Lame-duck Republican proposals included prohibiting Governor-Elect Tony Evers from withdrawing from a multi-state lawsuit challenging the federal Affordable Care Act. Other new laws shift power from the governor to the Legislature for appointments to the Wisconsin Economic Development Board that replaced the former Wisconsin Department of Commerce. This was, no doubt, in response to Evers’ legitimate criticism of the WEDC as it functioned under Walker.

The new law limits in-person absentee voting to two weeks in contrast to the previous 47 days allowed by some municipalities. Republicans insist this increases freedom because doors will now be open 24 hours a day. Sure, voters are now “free” to vote at 3:00 a.m. if they so desire.

Included in the Republican power-grab package was a proposal to separate the date of the next state Supreme Court justice election from the 2020 primary election. Their real, unstated, reason was obvious — the anticipated heavy Democratic turnout for the primary election would reduce the chance of the conservative justice to retain his seat. Separating these dates would result in an extra $8 million to hold that special election — no problem, Republicans reassured us. These are the same Republicans that objected to holding special elections for the open seats in 2017 because of the “extra expense.” 

This transparent Republican power grab brought hundreds of protestors to the state capital. County clerks throughout the state objected to holding a special election for the state Supreme Court. That proposal failed. The Supreme Court election will be held concurrently with the 2020 primaries.

Republican architects of this power grab expressed shock so many citizens would be so exercised over these mere “housekeeping matters.” With so many previous demonstrations against Walker’s malfeasance, they should know by now there is a segment of Wisconsin voters which object to such blatant power grabs. And when events of this nature hit the networks and major national newspapers, this medium-sized Midwest state gets attention for the wrong reasons. 

Evers appealed to Walker not to sign legislation that would diminish power of the executive branch. This was a necessary step, but it would have been safe to bet the mortgage Walker would sign.

It’s a tossup who gets the biggest “Pinocchio” for bald-faced lies in this disgraceful exercise. During his expected signing ceremony, Walker and Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald displayed a chart “proving” that “these bills do nothing to fundamentally diminish executive authority.” Of course, that ridiculous exercise in smoke and mirrors proved nothing of the sort. 

Walker further lied by insisting, “I like early voting.” Hey, he just signed the bill restricting it. His disingenuous alibi is he would “just like it to be fair.” So, what is unfair about Madison and Milwaukee extending early voting periods? As opposed to rural villages and townships, it is in the big cities where long lines are more likely to occur, and where extended voting periods are needed for convenience of voters. 

Making voting easier increases turnout. Walker and his Republican lackeys want to avoid that at all costs. 

Then we have the disingenuous nonsense displayed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. He lauded Walker’s signature as acknowledgement of “the importance of the Legislature as a co-equal branch of government.” We don’t need lectures by Vos about co-equal branches of government. If Vos and his Republican Assembly memembers were concerned about “excessive executive power,” they had eight years to address it. But as long as it was Walker in charge, they thought all was fine and dandy. 

Lest we tar absolutely all Republicans with the same brush, Todd Novak, who represents Monroe and the southwestern portion of this gerrymandered, carved up Green County, voted against these measures. For this, he deserves credit, notwithstanding that another Republican vote obviously was not needed to pass this witches brew of legislation that negates wishes of the voters. State Sen. Howard Marklein, a Republican of the 17th district covering Monroe, did the opposite, voting in favor of these changes.

Florida gave us two election fiascos, first in 2000 and again in 2018. Georgia and Kansas had secretaries of state running for governor concurrently while overseeing their own elections. North Carolina’s situation is so corrupt with its disappearing absentee ballots that they might even have to repeat the election — this, in addition to their playbook of stripping incoming Democrats of power.

Thanks to our Republican politicians, Wisconsin is now right down there with the worst of ‘em — our previous reputation for clean government is now in the tank. 

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.