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A gerrymandering arms races happening around the country this year, why not in Wisconsin?

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Also how some big orders out of Washington could affect Wisconsin and a look at the closing

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days of our state Supreme Court race.

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This is Inside Wisconsin Politics.

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I'm Sean Johnson here with my colleagues Anya Ben-Wagtendank, Zach Schultz, and Rich Kramer

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in Eau Claire.

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Hey everyone.

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Hey.

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Hello.

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Hey.

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So Rich, there had been sort of this hope by Democrats that there was this one case in

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this courtroom in Madison that could potentially redraw the congressional lines ahead of the

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midterm elections.

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It seems like this courtroom said, no, that door is actually closed.

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What did they say this week?

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So they said that they don't really have the authority to do anything about the maps.

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The lawsuit is seeking a redraw because of some things that happened back in 2022.

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Well, the Supreme Court is the one that put those maps in effect, but the Circuit Court

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judges said that they just, they can't overrule the Supreme Court.

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So essentially, they dismissed the case and it seems all but likely that the current

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districts which are held by six Republicans and two Democrats will remain the same for

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the November election.

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And just kind of zooming out as to why this feels like it matters more at this moment

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in time, you have this redistricting battle going across the country where Republican

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states have redrawn their congressional maps to add more Republican seats, Democratic

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states have responded in kind.

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Where does this leave Wisconsin Big Pictures Act when it comes to what everything looks

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like here as part of that battle?

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Well, we're still going to be operating under the same congressional lines that were actually

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Tony Evers' version of the maps, if you recall, under the old least changed model at the Supreme

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Court at that time, run by conservatives dictated.

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This was Tony Evers' version of the old Republican maps, slightly adjusting them.

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The most competitive district remains the third, which is Western Wisconsin, La Crosse, and

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going up through Rich's area.

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And that race has been close for a few cycles.

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It will remain close this fall.

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Democrats across the country look at it as a possible pickup, but the rest of the districts

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barring a huge wave look like they're going to stay the way they've been.

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There were Democrats who were thinking Wisconsin could get in this redistricting game.

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Most of the states doing that around the country are doing that with one party rule,

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where the Democrats or Republicans control the entire state, so they can do this mid-decade

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even though they're not supposed to be.

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Wisconsin obviously doesn't have that.

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It would have had to go through the Supreme Court.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has consistently said, we do not want to touch these congressional

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lines.

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They have been given options multiple times, and they've said no through original action.

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So that's why, in this case, there were two different plaintiffs that said, how about

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we go through the local courts first and see if it can work the way up to the Supreme

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Court.

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Under a law passed by Scott Walker and the Republicans, that meant these challenges

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had to go to this panel of three judges, and there were two panels created by the Supreme

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Court.

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One of them has said, well, we'll have a trial in April of 27.

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So a year away, obviously nowhere near in time for 26.

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The other one was the one that dismissed the case this week.

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The other panel that still has a case out there has not ruled on their motion to dismiss.

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It's possible that could get thrown under the very same grounds.

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And it looks like at this time the flaw is in the law that was passed that was supposed

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to hear this, because it requires the Supreme Court to set up these judges to do something.

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And the judges say it's not clear what we have the authority to do in this case, which

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is why they dismissed it, yet another time where this challenge will not get to the Supreme

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Court under this venue.

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To the dismay of many Democrats who said, hey, we have a four, three majority on the

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liberals do on the state Supreme Court.

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Let's try there.

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Maybe not the legislature this time, because it's not going to go anywhere there.

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Or will it, Anya, because some people may have heard about this push by Governor Tony

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Evers to ban partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin.

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He's going to call a special session for that later this month.

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Just a thought exercise here.

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Could it work?

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Could that change the lines?

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I mean, if history is any guide, Evers' special sessions don't often go anywhere, right?

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Republicans who control the legislature.

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They have to show up, but they gavel in and gavel out very often on his agenda.

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But there was actually maybe some signs that there could be something to this.

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So initially, first of all, Republicans did not sort of dismiss it out of hand, which

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was notable.

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Robin Boss said that he would be willing to negotiate on this.

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Last I asked him about it a couple weeks ago.

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He said, like, it hasn't come up yet.

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So it's possible that a deal kind of won't be brokered.

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But when I've spoken to experts about it, what they say is that because of the redrawn

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state maps of two years ago, kind of GOP guarantee hold of the legislature is no longer so guaranteed.

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And so both parties would need to kind of map out the 2026 elections, the 2028 elections,

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the 2030 elections going back and forth.

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And so because of that, it's not clear that gerrymandering in Wisconsin is beneficial

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to either party in a way that in California or Florida, it is guaranteed sort of beneficial

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to one party or another, because we have divided government and these super, super

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close elections because we are so purple, gerrymandering is not necessarily beneficial

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to either side.

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So maybe getting rid of it altogether is actually the politically better choice.

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But as a constitutional amendment in the year 2026, not going to happen because it just

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it takes too long.

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Well, certainly, right.

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So it won't affect the midterms in any kind of way.

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But if there were any kind of like negotiation there and constitutional amendments take a

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little bit longer, and Republicans have said they don't agree with sort of the language

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that Evers has put forward, that it's too vague and it's too broad.

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So there's all these details that would need to get hushed out.

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But I think this kind of broader conversation, knowing that voters pretty categorically,

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regardless of party, do not like gerrymandering.

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They don't like feeling sort of subject to gerrymandering.

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It could be a really interesting issue to kind of be in the water during the selection

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year.

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Earlier, the most important thing for viewers to know is that even if a deal somehow got

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passed, like the Hail Mary of all Hail Mary's for gerrymandering reform, it wouldn't affect

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the current maps.

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The next time this would come up would be redistricting in 2032 after the 30 census.

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So these maps would be locked in place.

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The only way they're going to change barring the Wisconsin Supreme Court is if Democrats

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win a trifecta this fall, then they would actually have one party rule to do what we've

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seen in these other states.

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But otherwise, it's not going to happen.

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So what about that other case, though?

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You alluded to it.

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Rich, you're familiar with this case.

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It's been filed by law forward, and it just took a different approach to this redistricting

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question.

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Yeah, I'd say it's slightly different approach.

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It's kind of getting at the same thing.

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The overall complaint is that the districts are designed to favor incumbents.

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So that's slightly different than the argument that, well, Republicans drew the districts

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to favor Republicans.

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But it's in a lot of ways very similar.

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So that case is proceeding.

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The parties in the lawsuit seem to be more amicable with one another.

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They've all agreed on these court dates that will start in 2027.

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So again, that's not going to result in any changes to the congressional map in Wisconsin

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before November.

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And if it's not thrown out on the same grounds that the other case was dismissed, it'll be

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interesting to see how that plays out before the three-judge panel.

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Yeah, I would say there's a pretty good chance that we are going to, well, it is not really

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a scheduled thing to do in 2027.

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I think we're going to be talking about this map in 2027.

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I mean, we just think about what wins elections in Wisconsin or anywhere from a party's perspective.

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Well, you've got to have good candidates.

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You still have to have that.

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You've got to have a message voters like, you've got to have money.

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But what is maybe more powerful than all of those lines and districts that favor you?

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You change the math because you can't win in a district where you have those other three

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if the voters are tilted to the other side.

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So I think in this hyper-part as an era, they're definitely going to be talking about this

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in 2027, whether it is in the legislature with Democrats in power or the Supreme Court

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where a 4-3 majority for liberals now could potentially be 5-2 next year.

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We just don't know.

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So I think that's something that obviously is going to be on our radar for a while.

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Redistricting is always in play in Wisconsin and it will never be a topic that we're not

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interested in.

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It's not relevant.

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That's right.

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We don't have to wait for the next census, I'm feeling.

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So from voting maps to voting, Rich, there was also this big executive order from President

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Trump this week dealing with mail-in voting.

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What did the president call for there?

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He called for some very sweeping changes, essentially a federal overhaul and a lot more

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participation from the federal government with regard to voting lists and absentee voting.

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So the executive order directs federal agencies to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible

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to vote in every state, including Wisconsin.

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Then it also directs the U.S. Postal Service to not send any mail-in ballots to people

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who aren't on those lists.

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And it would just give the president Donald Trump's administration a lot of power over

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who gets to vote and who doesn't.

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So it's likely to wind up, in court, in fact, a lawsuit has already been filed.

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There's a lot of questions about whether the president can do this and that's what we're

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going to see.

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The different parties in the lawsuit argue.

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So it's a big change that's been proposed, but it's just an executive order.

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So it doesn't carry the same kind of weight as a congressional act or something like that.

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So I think what a lot of people would be rightfully wondering is, is this going to happen?

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Is this something that is likely to happen in Wisconsin specifically?

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The first thing I always look at when these kind of things come out of Trump White House

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specifically is, what is the reaction for politicians in Wisconsin?

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We saw universally all the Democrats, including Governor Evers, use a profanity online to describe

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his reaction to this.

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And we didn't see anything for Republicans.

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And if this had a prayer or a chance of actually being legal or valid in Wisconsin,

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there would have been some of the usual Trump-supporting Republicans that would have come

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out and said, yes, thank you, President Trump, it's about time.

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I didn't see any of that.

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Maybe somewhere it was put out and I missed it.

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But the overall reaction was a lot of crickets from Republicans.

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That signals most election observers saying this is completely not legal in Wisconsin.

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Unenforceable Wisconsin would remove the right to vote for absentee ballots.

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We can register on day of.

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There's just so many things that do not apply to how Wisconsin elections are run,

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barring the fact that it's not even legal constitutionally across the rest of the country,

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according to every election expert that we ever talk to.

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I mean, Sean, you've covered this just as long.

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It's not possible for the federal government to dictate how elections are run.

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That's done by the states.

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No, I mean, actually Rich was just doing an interview with a legal expert and Rich,

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I'm stealing your story here, but the expert was just reading from their phone the second

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of the Constitution that says, basically, this is a right that belongs to states.

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Anya, there was an order this week, though, not from the President,

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from the United States Supreme Court that overturned a conversion therapy ban in Colorado.

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We have a conversion therapy ban in Wisconsin.

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What does that U.S. Supreme Court decision mean for us here?

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Yeah, so this is kind of the sort of two levels at which this decision kind of functions in Wisconsin.

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So to go back in time a little bit, last summer, there was this big Wisconsin state

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Supreme Court decision that is the reason that we have this statewide conversion therapy ban,

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but it is an administrative rule.

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It's not a law.

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And so kind of putting aside the conversation around what that did for the balance of powers,

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it was this kind of huge decision.

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One of the outcomes of that was that agencies that want to impose rules can do so, and one of

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the ones that was imposed was around professional behavior for therapists and marriage counselors.

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And so according to sort of the rules of their conduct, they cannot practice conversion therapy,

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which is sort of the practice of counseling people towards certain gender sexual identities.

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So that is the form that our ban takes.

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So that's different than how it looks in Colorado, all of which is to say that the answer

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of how this affects us in Wisconsin is it really depends on who you ask.

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So according to the governor's office and the governor supports this ban on conversion therapy,

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the ban here is still in place.

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According sort of pending litigation was kind of the tempering of that.

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And then I spoke to conservative kind of supporters of overturning bans on this,

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including at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.

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And they said, well, as soon as the lawsuit is filed, you know, that will go after the

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Wisconsin ban.

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And so the question is, is Will going to file that lawsuit?

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So right now it seems to be on the books, and also we have many local versions of these laws

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around Wisconsin, but sort of how soon will this be then challenged here in the state?

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That's sort of the big question.

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But definitely it carries more weight than your average executive order, I suppose,

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because they are the court of last resort.

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And yeah, and then they said that these types of bans violate a counselor's free speech.

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That's a First Amendment violation.

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That's a very big and it was an eight to one decision, right?

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Even liberals on the Supreme Court found that.

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What's interesting is more likely that would be filed in federal court,

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which really would take away the venue of the liberal majority in Wisconsin Supreme Court,

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even though it's a state administrative rule.

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This was a federal court decision, free speech, First Amendment is a federal right.

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So they don't have to worry about Wisconsin's liberals running the court.

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They can skip the venue and head right to Madison and federal court.

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Sure.

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So we had to talk about our court, though, because we have an election on Tuesday.

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By the time we do this show next week, we're going to know who the next justice is.

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There were some fundraising numbers out this week, Rich, as we lined up this campaign.

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What story did they tell?

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Well, they told that a liberal appeals court judge Chris Taylor is continuing to really

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pull ahead in terms of fundraising over conservative appeals judge Maria Lazar.

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So Taylor in this last reporting period raised four times as much as Lazar.

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She also got donations from around 20,000, more than 20,000 people.

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Lazar's donations came from about 1,700 people.

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So a big discrepancy there.

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Also, Taylor really outspent Lazar this time.

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So the numbers actually represent an improvement for Lazar compared to the last reporting period

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that ended at the end of last year, which was a 10 to 1 gap with Taylor and the lead.

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But still, not the kind of numbers you want to have with days before the election.

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And some money coming to the candidates from the political parties.

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Zach, you've done some reporting on this.

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One of these people is going to be a justice very soon.

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And they will have that political donation basically on their resume.

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Are they going to have to step down when these parties have business before the court?

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The short answer is no.

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And there are two different courts that have said that is the reason.

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The first of which is the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

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And when the conservatives ruled the court, but a little more than a decade ago,

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they put in place the recusal standard that still governs the court that says,

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just because you received a campaign donation does not mean that you are biased for that party.

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Part of that reason, the rationale was, well, what if your opponent donates money to you and

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then tries to kick you off the case.

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Another one is the United States Supreme Court has similar rulings that have been applied

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multiple times that say that just because you received a campaign donation does not mean you

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have to step down.

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This has been tried repeatedly.

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Republicans have gone after Janet Protoste with multiple times,

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including on redistricting cases over and over because of the donations she got.

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And over and over, no one has been stepping down over this in Wisconsin.

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You know, I'm curious, Anya, the both parties we said gave money to the candidates.

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Democrats gave more, but in the past, they've given a lot more.

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What can we read into the fact that they're deciding to not

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deem this the election of all elections and pouring all resources into it the way that

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they did in the Protosteowitz race or the Crawford race?

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Yeah, I mean, we are used to kind of hearing that level of language around both the Supreme

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Court elections and then also various national elections.

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Every election is the most important of our lives.

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Exactly. But this one November is actually probably the most important of our lives.

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And maybe the Democrats want to kind of keep that messaging for the midterms.

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And so kind of stepping back and maybe they're really confident about their contender this time.

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The stakes are not as high.

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Liberals will hold a majority no matter who wins.

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And so why not kind of keep those resources in the bank for November?

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Zach, you described it as kind of they're making a bet, essentially.

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They're hedging their bet that they don't have to invest any more to secure this win.

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I think you pointed out perfectly that even if they lose the hedge on that bet somehow,

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they still maintain the majority that to put the incentives on as high and

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seeing the incumbent Republicans or conservatives leave this race repeatedly shows they don't

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believe the same either.

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Well, that's all the time we have for today.

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Thanks for joining us for this week's Inside Wisconsin Politics.

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Be sure to follow us on PBSWisconsin.org, WPR.org, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.