photo mine (from Bulgaria)
It's a long one today but totally worth it. There was a sea change in Wisconsin. Republicans are trying to claw their way back and they are willing to do everything that's not remotely legal to accomplish it. If they really push it they will impeach and remove an elected Justice for doing exactly what she told voters that she would do. I'm wondering if they dare. She won by a sizable margin and all those voters (me included) will be very angry that a gerrymandered legislature overturns a legal election because she promised that there would be fair maps.
Kind of looks like the rest of the United States, doesn't it? [Washington Post]
The conservative disrespect for democratic norms and institutions is such a vital part of modern Republican politics that the GOP couldn't stop itself even if it wanted to, which it never will. Beyond the fact that the national party cannot and will not stop being a human shield for Inmate No. P01135809, Republicans out in the several states also break a ton of rocks not taking no for an answer from the people at the ballot box. A nuisance, those people could be.
For example, last spring, when the Tennessee legislature expelled three members of the House, two of whom on obvious charges of legislating while black, Tennessee became a subject of national opprobrium. The three expelled legislators were reinstate by their county organizations, and then won re-election on their own. In the meantime, the Republican majority passed some new regulations regarding comportment in the chamber. Now, as the legislature had convened in special session called by Governor Bill Lee, we're back where we were last spring. From the Tennessean:
House Republicans voted Monday afternoon to silence Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, for the remainder of the day after he was twice ruled out of order by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville. Yells of “racists” and “fascist” rang down from the gallery as lawmakers took the Monday vote. Lawmakers voted 70 to 20 to discipline Jones while Sexton ordered troopers to clear the balconies. Sexton had twice gaveled Jones out of order during Monday debate, a frequent interaction between the House leader and the freshman Nashville Democrat, who has frequently challenged House Republicans and was briefly expelled from the House last spring in unprecedented disciplinary proceedings.
The Monday vote came under new, controversial rules House Republicans passed last week that allows new disciplinary actions to be taken against members for “decorum” issues on the floor. House Democrats last week decried the rules, arguing House Republicans through their supermajority hold the power to define what might be out of order. "The problem here is you have the discretion to say what is or isn’t out of order,” said House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis. “Members were asking what was out of order. It appeared to me, the little bit I did hear, is the member was trying to make an analogy with respect to the bill.” After the vote, the entire House Democratic caucus walked out of the chamber in solidarity with Jones.
The front man for these latest shenanigans is House Speaker Cameron Sexton. His actions set off another uproar in the capitol and the special session came to nothing by the end of Tuesday's morning session, which also dissolved into the customary chaos.
Moments after the House adjourned, the environment devolved into a physical scrum between lawmakers, including House Speaker Cameron Sexton, as Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, attempted to confront him with signs after gaveling out of the special session. As a crowd formed at the bottom of the speaker dais, it appeared Sexton, R-Crossville, made physical contact with Pearson while pushing passed him. Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, and Pearson then had a heated exchange before Republicans exited the chamber.
The House kicked off Tuesday morning with tempers already high after a contentious Monday afternoon session. House Republicans moved to quickly end the floor session, after House Republicans reached an agreement with the Senate to end the special session. House Republicans had hoped to push through additional bills, which Senate Republicans largely refused to do."Unfortunately, we have no additional business to attend to in this particular body," Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, said. "By the way, I wish we did." House business devolved into a back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats, as Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, attempted to bring a vote of no confidence against House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville.
Then, there's Wisconsin, where the Republican legislative majority, when it's not trying to monkeywrench the new liberal majority on the state supreme court, which those pesky voters put in place, is trying to protect the infrastructure it has created to safeguard its ridiculously gerrymandered existence. It has gone to work on the state's election commissioner. From Politico:
The state Senate is set to hold a hearing Tuesday on Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the first step in what is likely an attempt to remove her from her position. Democrats say Republicans want to drive Wolfe out of office as retribution for decisions the commission made in 2020. The brawl over Wolfe illustrates how, nearly three years after then-President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election in 2020, election misinformation still has a grip on arguably the most important swing state on the map — with Trump potentially on the ticket again. “I think that it’s largely out of a desire to find an explanation for Donald Trump’s loss other than fewer people voted for him than Joe Biden,” Ann S. Jacobs, one of the Democratic commissioners on the WEC, said of the machinations to remove Wolfe. “She is the chief elections officer, she offers a face to the conspiracy theories.”
All of this poison will continue to circulate in the national political bloodstream no matter what happens in the 2024 election. It's bone-deep and powerful and, as far as the immediate future can indicate, almost completely beyond antidote.
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