Category: State news

Quoted: “It seems like a very remote possibility. No one’s really talked about it in a meaningful way. However, in the last four years, we’ve really seen the rise of hardball tactics between Republicans in the Legislature and Gov. Evers,” said Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.

Burden said though the bar is high to impeach state officials, especially high-ranking ones elected statewide, politics in Wisconsin has become even more of a blood sport in recent years under divided government, making anything a possibility.

“The last four years have not really been cooperative lawmaking in any way,” Burden said. “There really is not a premise for cooperation between the branches and now Republicans have a bigger and more conservative majority, they’re going to feel emboldened. So it’s possible that some of what seemed like extreme tactics, like impeachment, might be on the table.”

Quoted: Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, attributed high turnout in recent congressional elections in part to the effect of former President Donald Trump, who was elected in 2016.

“Increasing turnout everywhere, not just in Wisconsin, really is a phenomenon that happened after Trump took office,” said Burden, who directs the university’s Elections Research Center. “He’s no longer in office, but I think is enough of a presence in American politics and it was enough of a factor in this year’s elections that it continued to bring out lots of Democratic voters and lots of Republican voters.”

Quoted: “There is substantial voter engagement in this year’s elections,” said Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “but the larger number of early votes compared to 2018 is more a sign of changing preferences about the method of voting than a sign of much higher turnout,” Burden said.

Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, said this election may see a “different style of observer” who is more aggressive about wanting to have close inspection of the process and is potentially disruptive about challenging voters.

“These are not nonpartisan, disinterested people hoping to help out the voting process,” he said. “These are people who start with the premise of denying or being skeptical of the results in 2020 and that’s what’s motivating them to be involved.”

Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, said there is not a lot of pressure on Michels to provide more details because he will be working with a Republican-controlled Legislature.

“Michels has not served in government, so he is getting educated during the course of the campaign about what he might do as governor,” Burden said.

Burden also said a broader trend emerging in 2022 is candidates “not really making themselves open to public questioning,” noting the race’s single debate, which hasn’t happened since the 1990s.

“Candidates have decided to package themselves through press releases, controlled events and social media, which means they’re not really called upon offer specifics,” Burden said. “That’s not just a Wisconsin thing — that is happening across the country this year.”

Quoted: “There could likely be big changes to election law in Wisconsin between 2022 and 2024,” said Barry Burden, a professor of political science and director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “There’s an array of things that have been proposed in not very concrete ways.”

Quoted: Julie Underwood, former dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Education, said the proposal would require a massive amount of money to fund while also meeting constitutional obligations to provide adequate public school education.

“If you take the 133,000 students that are in private schools right now and give them vouchers, and you run two parallel structures, I don’t know how the Legislature would would manage to fund that,” Underwood said. “And if they further reduce the amount of funding giving to schools at this time, I really think that we’re going to go below the standard that the Wisconsin Supreme Court set.”

Quoted: “They vote for the Democrats. And it’s been pretty consistent,” said Marquez, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison specializing in Chicano and Latino studies.

“The Democrats have to have a good strategy for reaching out to Latino voters. They have to make contact on the ground. They have to convince them that the election is important, that their vote matters, and that they should go to all of this trouble to get out and vote for a party that oftentimes doesn’t deliver,” he said.

Quoted: Keith Findley, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, said the state set up the timeline of the events and established the identity of the driver. But he’s not sure what Brooks will do to present his case, as he hasn’t given his opening statement yet. His defense is set to begin with that.

“It’s really hard to anticipate what he’s going to do because I don’t have any idea of what his theory of defense is or what kind of claims he’s going to make,” Findley said.

“Opening statements are not evidence, so whatever he asserts in there, he’ll have to back it up with evidence,” he said.

Quoted: “I think it’s fear about the other side winning. Democrats are so eager to have Ron Johnson out of office. They have seen him move in a more radical direction and in favor of the kind of style of governing that Trump was engaged in,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Barnes is, I think, raising concern among Republicans who don’t want to see what they view as a radical agenda come to Washington.”

Quoted: The holdover effect diminishes voters’ power to shape the executive branch when governors don’t have the ability to appoint people who actually serve, said Miriam Seifter, an associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative. And if it becomes a widespread practice, it could affect the responsiveness and accountability of government officials.

“There’s two different things going on here,” she said. “One is the situation where individuals assert the power to stay in office after the term has expired. The other is the Senate refusing to confirm appointees. If either of those things happen in isolation or rarely, neither one is democracy-altering. If these happen systematically and across the board … you would start to see the constraints of gubernatorial power.”

Quoted: “What the Wisconsin Supreme Court said is that to the extent that these ballots are being dropped off with election officials, that it has to be the voters themselves that do it and not others,” said Robert Yablon, associate professor and co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at University of Wisconsin Madison School of Law. “But they specifically didn’t rule on whether that is also true when an absentee ballot is put in the mail. There just is not a definitive state level word at this point.”

“There are some people who just can’t physically get up to put it in the mail,” Newcomer said. “There’s a reason why they vote absentee. It is difficult for them.”

Quoted: Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center, said the spending dynamics are, in part, a result of Evers and Johnson being free from real primary challengers. For Michels and Barnes, Wisconsin’s August primary meant a later start to get their general election campaigns off the ground.

“The spending between incumbents and challengers might level out as election day approaches,” Burden said.

“It is striking that outside groups are spending more than the candidates themselves. Only Wisconsin residents get to decide who wins, but there is clearly tremendous interest from donors and party leaders across the country in what happens here.”

Quoted: “There’s a really diminishing number of people who are eligible for parole,” said Walter Dickey, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who led the state’s corrections department from 1983 until 1987. “And most of them have been in prison for a very long time.”