#janet protasiewicz

[reasonsforhope]

It was a really, really good political news day today in the US (4/4/23)

For anyone who hasn't heard, not only did Trump get arrested, but also:

-We found out that the legal case against him in this prosecution (stormy daniels hush money case) is SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than people had speculated. Like, wow do they have receipts.

-In fact, the evidence was so entirely there that the new question on prime time news (well, at least on msnbc lol) is "Hey, why didn't the federal courts prosecute him for this already???)

-Trump FAILED UTTERLY in his attempts to rally mass protests and demands for "death and destruction" if he was arrested. There was no violence at the arrest at all, and as for Trump supporters? They failed to show up in any kind of numbers--reportedly only about a hundred people were protesting the arrest

-We (aka Judge Janet Protasiewicz) WON what is widely considered to be the most consequential election of 2023, a Wisconsin state supreme court election that handed control of the state supreme court to the left

-Because of that election win, it is now extremely likely that abortion will be legal in Wisconsin, and that Wisconsin won't be able to throw out electors in the 2024 presidential election

-ALSO bc of this, Wisconsin, the most gerrymandered state in the country, will probably get nonpartisan, accurate maps, which COULD FLIP THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES in 2024

-In Chicago, Brandon Johnson, union organizer and former teacher, won the election for mayor, in a decisive win progressives, esp for meaningful criminal justice reform and investment in mental health (whereas the other guy was campaigning on hiring hundreds of new cops and being super tough on crime)

#united states #us politics #wisconsin #supreme court #criminal justice reform #progressive politics #democrats #VOTING MATTERS #brandon johnson #janet protasiewicz #state supreme court #elections #gerrymandering #chicago #illinois #mayor #donald trump #trump indictment #trump arrest #alvin bragg #grand jury #manhattan #stormy daniels #good news #hope

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Thank you, Wisconsin!!

#wisconsin #wisconsin supreme court #abortion rights #janet protasiewicz

[yeahiwasintheshit]

THANK YOU WISCONSIN!

its what needs to happen in all purple states (and red... and hold fast in blue states)

#wisconsin #supreme court #janet protasiewicz #fuck conservatives #news

[tomorrowusa]

Wisconsin is ditching the GOP hyper-gerrymandered maps for its state legislature. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed a new set of maps into law which are vastly fairer.

Late last year the newly liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the gerrymandered maps. The court flipped after Judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated a MAGA opponent last April.

Under the previous maps, Republicans held about two-thirds of both the state Assembly and Senate. Under the new boundaries, the state Assembly and state Senate will likely see more balance between the two parties. Republicans currently hold 64 out of 99 state Assembly seats under the Republican-drawn maps. Under the new state Assembly map, the districts are more evenly split. The new map has 46 districts that lean Republican and 45 districts that lean Democratic. The eight districts left are likely to be a toss-up between Democratic and Republican candidates. Under the previous maps, Republicans hold 22 out of 33 state Senate seats. Under the new state Senate map, 14 out of 33 districts are Democratic-leaning, while 15 are Republican-leaning. Four districts are competitive, where either party has a fair chance of winning them.

You can't take back America without taking back the states. And you can't govern the states if you neglect elections for state legislature and state supreme court (in states where the court is elected).

Celebrate this victory for democracy by looking up who represents you in your own legislature. If you are represented by MAGA Republicans, contact your county or state Democratic Party and ask what you can do to help flip your district.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

#wisconsin #wisconsin legislature #tony evers #gerrymandering #wisconsin supreme court #janet protasiewicz #state government #maga republicans #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

[gwydionmisha]

#Janet Protasiewicz #Republicans #Wisconsin #Autocracy #News

[not-safe-for-democracy]

#wisconsin #youth vote #janet protasiewicz

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

#janet protasiewicz

[lookninjas]

Woke up to some good news on NPR this morning for a change.  Congrats to Justice Janet Protasiewicz!

#we stay and we fight #politics #wisconsin #janet protasiewicz

[bisexualbaker]

Congratulations, Wisconsin!

#wisconsin supreme court #wisconsin #us politics #united states politics #congratulations #go wisconsin #janet protasiewicz #iowa please follow suit #asap if you don't mind

[petits--oiseaux]

Motherfucking thank you to (55.7% of) Wisconsin for protecting my rights today

#actually crying #I didn't know how deep this would hit #janet protasiewicz #Wisconsin Supreme Court #dan kelly is a pos

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Aug. 3, 2023

"In the past 12 years, one political party captured the Legislature and has insulated itself from being answerable to the voters."

Voting rights organizations and law firms joined forces Wednesday to file a legal challenge against Wisconsin's aggressively gerrymandered state legislative maps, which have allowed Republicans to cling to power in the Assembly and Senate for more than a decade.

Filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Law Forward, the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, and Arnold & Porter, the petition argues that "Wisconsin's current legislative districts are unconstitutional in multiple ways," intentionally fragmenting Democratic voters in mid-sized cities and towns and giving Republicans an unlawful advantage.

The state's maps haven't changed much since 2011, when Republican lawmakers crafted GOP-friendly districts under then-Gov. Scott Walker.

"They are extreme partisan gerrymanders that violate multiple provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution," reads the new lawsuit, which was filed directly with the state Supreme Court. "The maps violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection because the Legislature, through these maps, has created superior and inferior classes of voters based on viewpoint, subordinating one class to the abusive fiat of the other. The maps also violate the constitutional guarantee of free speech because they retaliate against voters who express a political view by stripping them of political power."

The groups filed the challenge on behalf of 19 Wisconsin voters a day after liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in to the state Supreme Court, ending 15 years of conservative dominance. Protasiewicz criticized Wisconsin's maps as "unfair" during her campaign for the seat—the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

Jeff Mandell, a partner at Stafford Rosenbaum and board president of Law Forward, said Wednesday that "in the past 12 years, one political party captured the Legislature and has insulated itself from being answerable to the voters."

"Despite the fact that our legislative branch is meant to be the most directly representative of the people, the gerrymandered maps have divided our communities, preventing fair representation," said Mandell. "This has eroded confidence in our political system, suppressed competitive elections, skewed policy outcomes, and undermined democratic representation."

"We have endured 12 years of rule by right-wing interests," Mandell added, "and the voters of Wisconsin deserve fair representation."

"Legislators have no right to complete a term of office that was unconstitutionally obtained."

After a legal battle last year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court implemented Republican-drawn voting maps that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed in late 2021. Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Legislature tried and failed to override the governor's veto.

The new lawsuit argues that by imposing on the state the exact maps Evers vetoed, the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated the separation-of-powers principle.

The petition notes that the maps "did precisely what Republicans hoped" in 2022, "increasing their majority to 64 assembly seats (two shy of a veto-proof two-thirds majority) and 22 senate seats (a veto-proof majority)."

"An equally divided electorate yielded near two-third majorities for Republicans in both chambers," the petition adds.

The plaintiffs ask that the state's current legislative maps be redrawn and call for special elections for state Senate seats that would otherwise not be up for reelection until 2026. If the lawsuit succeeds, state Assembly races would also be held under newly drawn maps.

"The legislators elected in November 2022 took office in unconstitutionally configured districts," the lawsuit states. "That constitutional infirmity has persisted for over a decade now, and Wisconsinites have suffered under this unconstitutional system for long enough. Legislators have no right to complete a term of office that was unconstitutionally obtained."

Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, said Wednesday that "for far too long, Wisconsinites have had their voices illegally silenced by extreme gerrymandering."

"Gerrymandering is a stain on our democracy no matter which party does it," said Gaber. "It's common sense: Voters should pick their politicians, not the other way around."

#gerrymandering #wisconsin #janet protasiewicz #wisconsin supreme court #voting rights #campaign legal center

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Wisconsin voters on Tuesday chose to upend the political direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives, according to The Associated Press. The result means that in the next year, the court is likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans.

Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench. With more than 80% of votes counted, Judge Protasiewicz led by more than 10 percentage points, though the margin was expected to narrow as rural counties tallied ballots.

“Our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected,” Judge Protasiewicz told jubilant supporters at her victory party in Milwaukee.

The contest, which featured over $40 million in spending, was the most expensive judicial election in American history. Early on, Democrats recognized the importance of the race for a swing seat on the top court in one of the country’s perennial political battlegrounds. Millions of dollars from out of state poured into Wisconsin to back Judge Protasiewicz, and a host of national Democratic groups rallied behind her campaign.

Judge Protasiewicz, 60, shattered long-held notions of how judicial candidates should conduct themselves by making her political priorities central to her campaign. She made explicit her support for abortion rights and called the maps, which gave Republicans near-supermajority control of the Legislature, “rigged” and “unfair.”

Her election to a 10-year term for an officially nonpartisan seat gives Wisconsin’s liberals a 4-to-3 majority on the court, which has been controlled by conservatives since 2008. Liberals will hold a court majority until at least 2025, when a liberal justice’s term expires. A conservative justice’s term ends in 2026.

As the race was called Tuesday night, the court’s three sitting liberal justices embraced at Judge Protasiewicz’s election night party in Milwaukee, as onlookers cried tears of joy. During her speech, the judge and the other three liberal justices clasped their hands together in the air in celebration.

“Today’s results mean two very important and special things,” Judge Protasiewicz said. “First, it means that Wisconsin voters have made their voices heard. They have chosen to reject partisan extremism in this state. And second, it means our democracy will always prevail.”

Justice Kelly, 59, evinced the bitterness of the campaign with a testy concession speech that acknowledged his defeat and portended doom for the state. He called his rival’s campaign “truly beneath contempt” and decried “the rancid slanders that were launched against me.”

“I wish that I’d be able to concede to a worthy opponent, but I do not have a worthy opponent,” Justice Kelly told supporters in Green Lake, Wis. He had not called Judge Protasiewicz by the time she delivered her victory remarks.

He concluded the final speech of his campaign by saying, “I wish Wisconsin the best of luck, because I think it’s going to need it.”

Judge Protasiewicz made a calculation from the start of the race that Wisconsin voters would reward her for making clear her positions on abortion rights and the state’s maps — issues most likely to animate and energize the base of the Democratic Party.

In an interview at her home on Tuesday before the results were known, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) attributed her success on the campaign trail to the decision to inform voters of what she called “my values,” as opposed to Justice Kelly, who used fewer specifics about his positions.

“Rather than reading between the lines and having to do your sleuthing around like I think people have to do with him, I think I would rather just let people know what my values are,” she said. “We’ll see tonight if the electorate appreciates that candor or not.”

Over the last dozen years, the court has served as an important backstop for Wisconsin Republicans. It certified as constitutional Gov. Scott Walker’s early overhauls to state government, including the Act 10 law that gutted public employee unions, as well as voting restrictions like a requirement for a state-issued identification and a ban on ballot drop boxes.

In 2020, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was the only one in the country to agree to hear former President Donald J. Trump’s challenge to the presidential election. Mr. Trump sought to invalidate 200,000 ballots from the state’s two largest Democratic counties. The Wisconsin court rejected his claim on a 4-to-3 vote, with one of the conservative justices siding with the court’s three liberals on procedural grounds.

That key vote gave this year’s court race extra importance, because the justices will weigh in on voting and election issues surrounding the 2024 election. Wisconsin, where Mr. Trump’s triumph in 2016 interrupted a string of Democratic presidential victories going back to 1988, is set to again be ferociously contested.

The court has acted in Republicans’ interest on issues that have received little attention outside the state.

In 2020, a year after Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, succeeded Mr. Walker, conservative justices agreed to limit his line-item veto authority, which generations of Wisconsin governors from both parties had used. Last year, the court’s conservatives allowed a Walker appointee whose term had expired to remain in office over Mr. Evers’s objection.

Once Judge Protasiewicz assumes her place on the court on Aug. 1, the first priority for Wisconsin Democrats will be to bring a case to challenge the current legislative maps, which have given Republicans all but unbreakable control of the state government in Madison.

Jeffrey A. Mandell, the president of Law Forward, a progressive law firm that has represented Mr. Evers, said he would file a legal request for the Supreme Court to hear a redistricting case the day after Judge Protasiewicz is seated.

“Pretty much everything problematic in Wisconsin flows from the gerrymandering,” Mr. Mandell said in an interview on Tuesday. “Trying to address the gerrymander and reverse the extreme partisan gerrymandering we have is the highest priority.”

The state’s abortion ban, which was enacted in 1849, seven decades before women could vote, is already being challenged by Josh Kaul, Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general. This week, a circuit court in Dane County scheduled the first oral arguments on Mr. Kaul’s case for May 4, but whichever way a county judge rules, the case is all but certain to advance on appeal to the State Supreme Court later this year.

#us politics #news #Wisconsin #Democrats #liberals #wisconsin supreme court #the new york times #2023 #elections #2023 elections #justice Daniel Kelly #Justice Janet Protasiewicz #Janet Protasiewicz #Daniel Kelly #abortion rights #abortions #gerrymandering #Scott Walker #Gov. Tony Evers #Jeffrey A. Mandell #Josh Kaul

[mylionheart2]

Thank You Wisconsin! Huge Win for Liberals, Women and Democracy!  Congratulations Justice Janet Protasiewicz! 🥳🎊🎈🎉🥂👩🏼‍⚖️⚖️

#janet protasiewicz #abortion rights #womens rights #democracy #wisconsin #wisconsin supreme court #abortion ban #gerrymandering #vote #vote democratic #vote blue #bluewave #scotus #supreme court

[thingstrumperssay]

HOLY SHIT SHE WON!

#Janet Protasiewicz #wisconsin #YAAAAY

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans, at least the ones who matter, are at war with democracy. Under Trump, they have taken off the masks.

Defeating Republicans by voting Democratic or for Democratic-leaning candidates is the only way to preserve democracy in the US. Last week the decisive defeat of a Trumpist Big Lie election denier was made possible, in part, by a high turnout of younger voters in Wisconsin.

[S]cores of down vest-wearing, smartphone-gazing students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in a line that snaked around every corner of a campus building as they waited to cast a ballot for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

When the votes were tallied at the end of the night, some 883 people had cast ballots at the campus polling place — more than any other precinct in Eau Claire, and nearly six times as many as voted there in a similar election four years earlier. And 87% of the students had voted for Democrat Janet Protasiewicz — perhaps a rejection of her Republican opponent Dan Kelly’s lifelong opposition to abortion and his work trying to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The surge in young-voter turnout was a key reason why Protasiewicz won a landslide, 11-point victory in a key swing state that Biden had only won by just over 20,000 votes three years earlier. 

The lesson is simple: if you don’t want authoritarian fundamentalist fanatics running your city/county/school district/state/country then vote in every election in high numbers to defeat them.

Of course the challenge is greater in places where the GOP has gerrymandered itself into a supermajority.

[T]ake a look around to Nashville, Tenn., where white GOP lawmakers stunned the nation by expelling two Black colleagues and disenfranchising their roughly 140,000 predominantly African American constituents because the men had, from the floor of the Capitol, joined a thousand or so young people protesting gun violence. (A white female Democrat who also protested kept her seat by one vote.)

The Tennessee expulsions, tinged with a racism that echoed from 1960s civil rights protests with deep roots in Nashville’s once-segregated lunch counters, showed America just how far Republicans are willing to go to hold power — by nullifying the votes of Black and brown voters and drowning out the voices of young people who thoroughly reject Republican dogma around AR-15 assault rifles, transgender athletes, or banning abortion.

Previous lack of sufficient interest by moderate to progressive voters had permitted democracy-hating Republicans to become entrenched in many places. Removing such people from power is going to be prolonged electoral trench warfare.

What’s more, this political counterrevolution in legislative corridors is taking place right as the conservative movement’s grand project of the last half-century — a ruthless, multimillion-dollar crusade to install unaccountable, lifetime right-wing judges across the federal bench — is coming to full fruition. Good Friday’s decision by Amarillo, Texas-based federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee rooted in ultraconservative networks, seeking to undo approval of the abortion drug mifepristone after 23 years on the market is a huge end run around democracy in a nation where a majority of voters support abortion rights. Conservatives routinely file lawsuits in Amarillo because Kacsmaryk is that district’s lone judge.

The next time somebody you know voices support for some ineffectual third-party presidential candidate, remind them of Donald Trump’s lifetime appointment of anti-abortion fanatic Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas.

Continuing with the metaphor of anti-democracy warfare...

Republicans are responding with an asymmetrical civil war against democracy, constantly looking for the weak points to deploy their IEDs of autocracy, determined to blow up the American Experiment if that’s what it takes to retain power by any means necessary. Their tactics are working well, unfortunately. Darth Vader’s Death Star had just one opening to exploit, but U.S. democracy has many — gerrymandering, the filibuster, the Electoral College, the undemocratic makeup of the U.S. Senate, statehouse power plays against home rule for Black or brown or progressive-minded communities, a take-no-prisoners hijacking of the judiciary. The only shock of Thursday’s next-level expulsion of two duly elected Black lawmakers in Nashville was the proof that — as Republican ideas become more unpopular — there is no bottom to how low this movement will go.

And the targeting of these two young Black activists — Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis — should have removed any lingering doubts around what the GOP’s war on democracy is ultimately all about: white power. 

The anti-democracy Republicans are well armed, that’s why we have to fight smart. They got Roe v. Wade overturned because they were persistent and patient. We need to steal patience and persistence from them.

And yet there is also reason for great hope. America’s young people — the ones who left their classrooms last week and overran the state capitol in Nashville to plead for real action against gun violence, the ones fighting book bans in their schools and speaking out for radical action on climate — are the bravest and boldest generation this nation has seen in some time. Their moral authority, and their rising power at the ballot box from Eau Claire to Memphis, is why a decrepit GOP is lashing out. History will surely remember what happened in Tennessee as an affront to democracy — and the last throes of a dying movement.

The GOP is very much like Putin and his clique of sycophants. They like to talk tough, but when seriously challenged in conflict they show themselves to be weaker than the image they like to project.

#republicans #the gop #anti-democracy #wisconsin #janet protasiewicz #the youth vote #tennessee #gerrymandering #racism #justin pearson #justin jones #tennessee legislature #matthew kacsmaryk #anti-abortion fanatic #a woman's right to choose #the sanctity of reproductive freedom #donald trump #federal judges #fight smart to protect democracy #vote blue no matter who #be brave like ukraine #will bunch

[gwydionmisha]

#Wisconsin #Rebecca Bradley #Recusal #Janet Protasiewicz #News