Republican Bullying Isn’t Working

Assembly Speaker Robin. File photo by Coburn Dukehart/Wisconsin Watch.

The bullying by Wisconsin Republicans began six months before Democrat Tony Evers was first elected governor and Josh Kaul elected attorney general in November 2018. The all-powerful GOP troika of then-governor Scott Walker, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and then Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald plotted to create a 141-page legislative package to undercut the power of the governor and attorney general.

Vos and Fitzgerald began planning their scheme in reaction to special legislative elections won by Democrats in the prior year, followed by the decisive victory of moderate liberal Rebecca Dallet in the 2018 spring election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. These were clear signs that a blue wave was coming, as Walker himself warned.

The strategy by the Republicans was simple: if you can’t win the elections, fix the system. And so they passed the infamous “lame duck laws” after Evers won office but before Walker stepped down. It was the ultimate act of revenge: since he couldn’t beat Evers fair and square in an election, Walker would sign into law new constraints designed to make governing more difficult.

Evers and Kaul have been forced to operate with limitations no governor or attorney general of either party had faced, with power shifted to the gerrymandered GOP legislature. But the reaction of both was to fight the Republicans and accomplish all they could, building a record that got them both reelected. And Democrats have continued to win most state-wide races in Wisconsin since then.

But that hasn’t stopped the Republican bullying. For Evers’ entire first term the Republican-led Senate refused to approve most of the governor’s cabinet appointees, leaving them dangling in a position where they could be thrown out of office at any time. The idea was to intimidate cabinet members and leave them making policy fearfully.

In the case of Evers’ Agriculture Secretary Brad Pfaff, who dared to disagree with them on policy, Senate Republicans removed him by voting not to confirm. But Pfaff came back to haunt Republicans, running successfully in 2020 for a Senate seat in western Wisconsin against Dan Kapanke, in a rematch of a 2004 race Pfaff had lost. Ironically, Pfaff now serves on the Senate’s agriculture committee. Meanwhile, Evers simply appointed a new secretary, Randy Romanski, and his administration continued as before.

Evers appointees to public boards were treated even more shabbily: all told 180 appointments by the governor were not approved during his first term. Republicans also conspired with Walker appointees to stay past the end of their term and thereby prevent Evers appointees from serving. An infamous example was Fred Prehn, who refused for nearly 20 months to step down from the Natural Resources Board that oversees the state DNR. During this time Kaul filed a suit seeking to force Prehn off the board, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court, then dominated by a conservative majority, ruled that political appointees don’t have to leave their posts until the Senate confirms their successor.

That temporary victory, too, came back to haunt the Republicans when they tried to make changes in the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC). Angry about losing the 2020 presidential election, and other races, Republicans have blamed the WEC, though it also oversaw the 2022 victory of Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson. And so Republicans have made false charges against the WEC, a body they created, and its administrator Meagan Wolfe, whose appointment they unanimously approved in 2019. For that matter, Wolfe can’t make any decisions unless they are approved by a majority of the WEC board, which includes three Republican and three Democratic appointees.

Wolfe’s term was expiring, but Democrats on the WEC board did not vote to reappoint her, leaving the seat open with no other appointee, meaning she could continue to serve as Prehn had. Senate Republicans demanded that Wolfe resign. She refused. They demanded she appear before them. She declined. They threatened to impeach her for alleged “corruption,” doing all they could to sully her reputation and Wolfe kept her cool. Finally they voted to not confirm her, under the pretense that the tie vote by the WEC board on whether to reappoint her somehow meant she had been reappointed.

Kaul filed suit against this action and Republicans in a court of law were forced to tell the truth and admit that Wolfe was serving lawfully and their vote to not confirm her was “symbolic.” All those attempts to bully Wolfe and blacken her reputation, and she simply called their bluff — repeatedly. Wolfe looked heroic and Senate Republicans looked pretty small.

But the most famous example of Republican bullying was against newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who was repeatedly warned she had better recuse herself from a case involving legislative redistricting, which could end the egregious Republican gerrymander in place since 2011. Led by Vos, Republicans tried all sorts of legal trickery and repeatedly threatened to impeach Protasiewicz if she dared to rule on the case.

They clearly didn’t scare Protasiewicz, who released a 47-page opinion explaining why she wouldn’t recuse. Meanwhile, state Democratic chair Ben Wikler announced a $4 million campaign, including canvassing neighborhoods, an ad campaign, and focused media to protest the Republican threat of impeachment. Considering past polls showing 72% of state residents want a nonpartisan commission to draw the legislative and congressional district maps instead of elected officials, and that Protasiewicz had been elected by an 11% margin, Wikler knew he had popular opinion behind him.

But just to nail that down, the left leaning research group A Better Wisconsin Together, did a survey which found that state residents oppose impeaching Protasiewicz by a 24% margin.

All of which explains why Republicans backed away from the impeachment. With his repeated threats of this, Vos had become the Robin who cried wolf. And after twice threatening impeachment against Wisconsin officials and backing off, this has begun to look like an empty threat.

Has that stopped the bullying? No. Just a week ago Senate Republicans rejected seven appointments by Evers, including four appointees to the Natural Resources Board. This positioned Evers — once again — as the voice of common sense and compassion, decrying how these appointees “are volunteering their time, talent, and expertise without pay to serve their neighbors and our state. Harassing them, belittling them, and publicly firing them just because Republicans have decided that’s the way they want politics to work these days, well, that’s just plain wrong.”

And then he immediately appointed new members to the boards.

You could add to this litany of bullying the Republicans’ alleged investigation of voter fraud by Michael Gableman that did no investigating and found no fraud but cost taxpayers $2.5 million. This turned into a political circus, but along the way Gableman insulted and threatened local election officials in a truly ugly fashion and yet, they too did not back down. Even Vos seemed appalled.

It’s an ago-old lesson learned on the playground: when challenged, the bully will back down. And the challenger will look like hero. Not a bad position for Democrats heading into the next elections.