Wisconsin Republicans can be in a
special session on gerrymandering
and nothing really happens.
But was it what is it?
Sorry about that.
Wisconsin Republicans convene a
special session on gerrymandering
and nothing really happens.
But what does it mean that they kept
the session open?
Plus another key GOP senator
retires and the race for governor
picks up steam.
This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.
I'm Sean Johnson here with my
colleagues Anya Van Wagtendonk, Zach
Schultz and Rich Kramer in Eau
Claire. Hey everyone!
So Anya, I think there's actually a
lot to kind of pick apart in terms
of why Republicans did what
they did with this session and what
this issue means to the parties this
year.
But first, for people who have not
experienced the
drama of a special session, I think
maybe they hear that word special
and assume it is kind of
a big deal. What's it actually like
in the room where this happens?
Yeah. I mean, so with regular
sessions, I think something that not
a lot of people know is that there
are very few surprises during a
regular session, right? If something
is coming to the floor, that means
the majority wants it there.
Generally speaking, we sort of know
what's going to happen.
With a special session, and
especially this time around where
Republicans hadn't signaled in
advance that they hated the idea,
there was really an open question of
exactly what was going to happen on
that day.
So going into it, I kind of needed
to be in two places at once.
I needed to be in both the Assembly
and the Senate.
And then thankfully assembly
leadership sent out a message
saying, we're going to keep this
open, but that's
so that we can have negotiations.
So OK, so that signals that like
maybe I don't need to be in the
assembly. So we go over to the
Senate.
That's where all of the reporters
are waiting to see what exactly is
going to happen in the Senate and
then there was just a lot of waiting
around.
Only Democrats were showing up.
Finally, Democrats hold a press
conference to kind of criticize
their colleagues across the aisle
saying they're not doing anything.
Republican leaders show up.
And say, we too are leaving the
session open. And so the end result
is that it was a whole lot of
waiting around for nothing.
But the nothing could become
something if and when they
reach sort of negotiations with
the governor and then reconvene
at some point in the future.
I'll see you next time.
And I can tell you because we did
team coverage on this one in
the assembly, it was a whole lot of
milling about would be the way I'd
describe it. I don't think they even
had gavels this time, which feels
like it's really kind of
pretty chill in there.
So okay, the special session was
not all that dramatic, but
the important thing is this
thing is technically open.
So Zach, I guess my question
is, Why is that?
Maybe it's just muscle memory, but I
just am used to this Republican
legislature being pretty
comfortable telling this governor,
don't tell us what to do.
Well, there's only one of two
reasons why to keep it open.
One, because maybe they actually
want to do something and be good
to their word and negotiate and try
and pass this constitutional
amendment. Or two, the optics
of keeping it open are important to
their base and their voters
because redistricting and
gerrymandering is an important
thing. And especially this time
around, it's Republican voters who
understand, oh, this is why we're
potentially losing the Senate.
We lost a bunch of race in the seat.
It doesn't feel good to be on this
end of it. And so maybe since
both sides have felt the effects of
when it's not in your favor,
that perhaps there's an idea of,
hey, let's come to a compromise and
try and resolve this.
Rich, what do you think?
Is this a real session here?
Could something actually happen?
I suppose it could.
There's been a lot of surprises in
this session and the end of the last
session for me.
I started working at WPR in 2011
about, and I'm
used to seeing gavel in, gavel out,
essentially saying thanks
but no thanks from the Republicans
saying that to Governor Tony Evers.
But we've got these new state
legislative maps.
Control of the Senate is a
big question mark after the November
election.
So they're just acting differently.
What it means, I don't know.
What happens, I really
don't now.
Coming back to the optics that you
mentioned there, I feel like that is
probably a big factor,
whatever ends up being decided here.
Just thinking back to 2024, which
was the first year that we had
elections under these new, more
competitive legislative maps.
And I get to edit a bunch of stories
from reporters around the state.
And I swear the number one thing I
heard in every story from these
candidates in these contested
districts, these 50-50 districts
was, Voters want
candidates who will work across the
aisle and not, you know, get into
these fights in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'm trying to do what's best for
those candidates right now.
Why not keep it open, you know, why
not keep that an option
for them to at least talk about?
Anya, did you get the sense that the
governor kind of saw
that too with the statement that he
put out after this session?
It was pretty.
Get going, you know, get yourselves
in gear here.
The statement that said there is
actually nothing to negotiate while
we are wondering whether he and
Republicans are in the middle of
negotiations around this language.
Yeah, it does kind of raise the
question of what those negotiations
will look like and to what extent
this is about sort of a messaging
war going into this election year.
One of the things that he also said
in that statement was, you know,
lawmakers will have to go on the
record about their feeling about
gerrymandering. And so if they
don't, if they do not hold this
session, if don't go to the floor,
that is a statement.
And so really trying to, again,
kind of put the onus on.
Republicans who are, especially in
the Senate, quite vulnerable right
now to make the point to their
voters where they stand on this
issue.
I wanna play the skeptic here for
one more minute here as to why they
might not wanna do this.
This is a Republican legislature.
We've been talking about how the
Supreme Court has this liberal
majority that could be there for
years.
The resolution that the governor is
proposing just says basically,
districts shall not provide a
disproportionate advantage.
Partisan gerrymandering is
prohibited.
It's pretty thin.
Who's gonna interpret that if they
passed it?
Well, there's only two ways to
interpret it. One is they actually
negotiate state law
that gives a definition for what
that means. That could be the
negotiations happening as a parallel
bill if that was actually going to
be resolved through the legislature
and the governor, but otherwise it's
going to the Supreme Court.
And ultimately, no matter what gets
passed, it'll be the Supreme Court
because these would be added to the
Wisconsin Constitution.
This is not just a law, this would
be a constitutional amendment, and
it would create this big language
that doesn't have definitions so far
in state law.
And that really would be a liberal
supreme court, more than likely,
coming back to say, well, this is
what we determined to be partisan
gerrymandering, and this is we think
is an advantage for
partisans.
Rich, what happens when you invite
a court to start talking about
statistics and mathematics?
All uh...
You know like a three-year court
trial and i'm exaggerating but
what also happens is the courts
have generally not wanted to touch
this uh...
This claim this partisan
gerrymandering claim from this u
s supreme court to the wisconsin
supreme court they've just wanted to
avoid it and if we look back to
when the legislative maps
passed by republicans in twenty
eleven were struck down They didn't
do it, they didn't take up the
partisan gerrymandering claim.
They got around that by looking at
contiguity of districts, whether or
not one district has a piece in
another. So that was,
in a way, a technicality.
They did get to the same place
that the plaintiffs wanted, which
was new maps, but
it took a bit of a roundabout way to
get there.
Okay, before we move on from this,
can we just kind of explore the
possibility that maybe there would
be a scenario where Republicans
really would look at the
situation and say, hey, let's
pass this. Let's make a deal with
the governor. Let's say it's
November after the election.
How might that play out?
I think the biggest variable is who
wins in November because remember
constitutional amendments need two
consecutive sessions.
So this legislature can
pass it all the way through
December 31st.
But then the next legislature, which
will be made up in November
elections, will determine whether it
gets passed again.
And so that's the key element there.
Is there a scenario where the
winners in the fall indicate
we would like to actually pass this
and so there's incentive to do it in
a lame duck?
If they don't have the majority,
maybe they say this is their best
outcome. Possibly.
Okay.
Well, we've already seen the
current map kind of having an
effect on the upcoming races here,
especially in the state Senate,
where we know majority control
is gonna hinge on who wins
four state Senate seats.
Rich, you're sitting in one of those
districts right now, I believe, and
there was some news there this week.
What happened?
Well first let me take it on a tour
of the thirty first senate district
uh...
So what happened was one
of the republicans in a race
uh... For the thirty-first or the
republican in the race for the 31st
senate district announced that he's
dropping out he's not going to
run uh...
Against democrat jeff smith so this
was senator uh...
Jesse james and He
was in a different district, but
because of the the map redrawing
he was going to have to face.
Two incumbents, but now you've got
one incumbent. You've got the
Democrat in the race who's already
represented the district, even
though it's changed a little bit.
So big picture, when the
maps were redrawn, there's
four Senate districts that
are deemed competitive, that it's
really kind of a coin flip or just
about.
And we've seen retirements
from three of the Republicans
in four of those districts.
And you
know that in in of itself is
a big signal for how people are
feeling about the fall election
uh... So i guess
in a way it it complicates
republicans chances
of holding the senate majority
and definitely give some
fuel to democrats who are getting
pretty excited about november
So we have elections that
are gonna have to take place before
we get the answers to these
questions, but Anya, I would suspect
that Senate Republicans would have
preferred to run these races in
these, you know, three of these four
key seats with Senators
Hutton, with Senator
James, with Senator Wengard.
You know, what position are they
in now?
I mean, it's interesting, like,
there's a mix of reasons why these
lawmakers have said that they are
stepping down again, as Rich just
alluded to, Democrats are trying to
spin this as, you know, they're kind
of running scared.
But it raises sort of the
question of who will then run in
their spot.
So Jesse James is a really
interesting example.
He has worked quite a bit across
the aisle. He's been a real kind of
leader on criminal justice issues.
One of my favorite sort of fun facts
is that he and Madison Democrat
Sheila Stubbs are like best friends
and they do a lot of work together.
He's done a lot on mental health.
And so he is a really different
kind of Republican than you might
see in, let's say,
suburban Milwaukee or something like
this. And so the question is who
then comes out?
I think Zach has made this point
before that when you're in
the minority and when you are kind
of pushing up against a
less likely scenario,
more sort of fringe candidates or
people further to the left or the
right tend to be the ones who come
forward. And so there will be a
really interesting question to see
who is entering these races in
November and what that does for
who's wanting to vote in November.
We already have our first dancer in
this particular race, the first
Republican to announce they're gonna
run.
Her middle name is Maga Dance.
And she put that on all of her
campaign signs two years ago when
she ran and lost in an assembly
race.
And you cannot connect yourself
literally more closely by putting
your name and making it close to
Trump's Maga movement.
And that is who is running in that
Republican district, which is now
drawn to be Democrat, has a
Democrat incumbent.
And as we've talked about over and
over on this show, You
don't have to look any more
past what the candidates do.
And when they are not running, that
tells you they know the environment
they're up against.
Every one of them will have their
own individual story.
But the larger picture gives us a
pretty clear roadmap of what
Republicans think of their odds in
the Senate specifically.
But to go back to Robin Voss holding
the assembly for all those years,
we saw in a number of elections in
18 and in 22 where top
of the ballot, Tammy Baldwin or Tony
Evers would win some of those
Republican assembly seats.
And Republicans down-ballot won
them, and that in part was because
incumbents, name recognition,
fundraising ability, and when you
have people drop out, you lose all
of that. You don't have the name,
you don't the person that knows how
to knock the doors, that has the
community connections, and they
don't raise as much money.
What they really do is put them in a
big hole.
I guess against that backdrop,
you have these signals being sent by
Republicans dropping out of these
races. You have the Supreme
Court blowout of a couple
of a week ago, I guess now.
It's not at this moment looking
great for them.
So why would Republican
Congressman Tom Tiffany, the
candidate for governor, pick now
to come with a seven-figure add-by
in the governor's race.
He's trying to reset the landscape,
absolutely. This is the perfect time
to reframe it coming out of
that Supreme Court race and say
we've got four months until the
August primary and then a few months
after that into November, and
he is the lone Republican out there.
So it's a positive ad.
If you watch the ad, it's not
hitting on anyone.
It's talking about where his values
and where he grew up and on a dairy
farm and what he's done for his
experience and how much he loves the
state. Those are all things that
play really well statewide.
And when he has to boost his name
recognition, if you look at the
polling, it's still 65% of
Republicans weren't sure.
And he was really the only major
candidate left.
So he has win his base and
there's room for moderates and
independents, who especially looking
at that national landscape may
say, well, if there's gonna be
Democrats in one chamber, well who's
gonna run the state?
He has an opportunity to reset his
agenda, give himself a little
distance from Trump, whose name
right now is not very popular in
Wisconsin among independents young
people and a lot of other groups.
So this is a time for him to
own the stage by himself while the
Democrats don't have money to go on
the air in a seven-way primer.
A rear window to run positive ads.
We know he likes old fashions
and the Packers and
all this cliche Wisconsin
stuff he says about himself.
Rich, there was another message in
there in the Tom Tiffany ad that
caught your eye.
Yeah, there was.
He basically was saying that he'd
fight against Wall Street buying
up residential homes and
push back against big tech
bulldozing farmland for data
centers.
Those are talking points that
are more akin to something you'd
hear out of Democrats in recent
years.
So that is really interesting.
And to pivot off of what
Zach was saying, Tiffany's trying
to define himself before one of
the Democrats defined him as.
Or they have already,
but until the whole connection
with President Trump sticks
more. So he's getting out ahead of
it. And also I've seen a lot of
conservatives on social media say,
this ad won him the election.
Well, that's an exaggeration,
but we've seen people
tend to like kind
of boring folks in general
elections, Governor Evers
as an example.
So.
Maybe Tiffany's trying to make
that happen and build that
reputation for himself.
Sean, I want to ask you about
this, because I got the
sense that he was trying to rebrand
himself as a folksy guy.
Now, if you look back at the history
of candidates winning elections, you
look at Evers and Tommy Thompson.
I mean, what's your impression of
what attributes do they share in
common when it comes to being the
everyman in Wisconsin, that folksy
nature?
I think if you just look at right
now in Wisconsin politics
that Rich said the word boring,
but I think these candidates kind
of embrace that though.
Tony Evers gives
off this aw shucks vibe.
That is his brand.
Scott Walker once described himself
as aggressively normal
when he was running for president.
And I think people in other states
thought, what?
But we know here, yeah,
that's what won him the election.
Um, even, you know, like Jim Doyle.
Harvard Law educated,
he would kind of drop his R's when
he was out on the campaign trail
because he knows what he was going
for with that vibe.
And so it is something
that Tom Tiffany seems to have going
for him.
That guy that you could see at a bar
talking about sports or you
name it.
There was one development in the
Democratic primary that I'd like to
touch on if we can.
There's still a big primary.
There's seven candidates who've been
in forums that you all have covered.
One of them got a Fairly big
endorsement in Democratic politics
on you. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, and then I actually also want
to turn it back to you.
So Kelda Roy's got this major
endorsement from WEAC,
this big education teachers union.
And the sort of open question that I
have and that you and I have
discussed is, how significant is
that now? So in the past, that would
have been sort of almost like a king
making move.
She is certainly really
kind of trying to promote it in part
because her polling numbers have
been pretty low throughout.
So this could be a last chance,
a last ditch effort.
But I'm curious what you think
compared to, again, like eight years
ago, what this endorsement
could mean.
Well, I mean, I think, Zach,
you know, when before we had lost a
lot of his power with Act 10, it was
a huge endorsement.
I think in a Democratic primary,
it's something they certainly have
to take note of, though.
You can't ignore the largest
teachers union.
To me, it just signals at this
primary that we sort of are
expecting to get smaller organically
at some point.
Kelder Roy is not going to go
anywhere when she has the teacher's
union on her side.
That is one that seems like is gonna
take a little more time to sort out
here.
So that's all the time we have for
today. Thanks for joining us.
This has been Inside Wisconsin
Politics.
Be sure to follow us on
pbswisconsin.org,
wpr.org YouTube or
wherever you get your podcasts.
That's banter.