The GOP is WI is acting out of an abundance of incaution
The Democratic Party has wisely postponed its national nominating convention in Milwaukee from July to August out of an abundance of caution because of the coronavirus in Wisconsin.
The viral pandemic may diminish in four more months, and some version of a convention could be held, albeit correctly cautiously via Zoom-style electronic and remote gatherings rather than in the multiplicity of traditional meetings, programs, caucuses and public events which would pack in 50,000 visitors to a glitzy once-every-four-years blowout.
But the GOP-run Wisconsin Legislature, with an established history of undermining Gov. Evers through lame duck legislating and other machinations - -
- - also holds election-scheduling powers and believes it has some kind of inside-straight to hold an ultra-conservative's key State Supreme Court seat - - so has refused to postpone the statewide election set for Tuesday, April 7 even though the coronavirus is accelerating towards a probable April peak and has already hit more than 1,700 people statewide and killed 41, testing and other data show,
Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee put it this way in a Wednesday column:
Heckuva of a poll tax, having to risk your life voting in person, or working at the polls with an invisible pandemic get more deadly each day.
Yes, Wisconsin has divided government right now.
I just never thought the division would pit those who hope to protect lives and public health against others putting a higher priority on preserving their own personal position and partisan power.
The viral pandemic may diminish in four more months, and some version of a convention could be held, albeit correctly cautiously via Zoom-style electronic and remote gatherings rather than in the multiplicity of traditional meetings, programs, caucuses and public events which would pack in 50,000 visitors to a glitzy once-every-four-years blowout.
But the GOP-run Wisconsin Legislature, with an established history of undermining Gov. Evers through lame duck legislating and other machinations - -
- - also holds election-scheduling powers and believes it has some kind of inside-straight to hold an ultra-conservative's key State Supreme Court seat - - so has refused to postpone the statewide election set for Tuesday, April 7 even though the coronavirus is accelerating towards a probable April peak and has already hit more than 1,700 people statewide and killed 41, testing and other data show,
Bruce Murphy at Urban Milwaukee put it this way in a Wednesday column:
MURPHY’S LAW
Republicans Risk Public Health With Election
Refusal of Vos and Fitzgerald to postpone election could cause more disease, deaths.
Evers has said he believes the governor lacks the power under the state Constitution to move back the election...And that leaves it up to Vos and Fitzgerald, who rule a gerrymandered Legislature that fell well short of a majority of the state-wide vote in the last election.
And Vos and Fitzgerald refuse to postpone the election or discuss any alternatives....
“They have cynically calculated that lower turnout will help the conservative candidate,” Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, told the Washington Post. "That's what you call playing with the lives of voter and poll workers out of an abundance of incaution.
Heckuva of a poll tax, having to risk your life voting in person, or working at the polls with an invisible pandemic get more deadly each day.
Yes, Wisconsin has divided government right now.
I just never thought the division would pit those who hope to protect lives and public health against others putting a higher priority on preserving their own personal position and partisan power.
3 comments:
Who would have thought that Wisconsinites would pay for the 2010 election with their lives?
The Republican Party is beyond appalling. I expect nothing better from this cult.
But you are letting off Gov Tony Evers (D), and his gang of parrots.
Tony Evers is the governor during this period of public safety emergency, not the Republicans em masse.
Evers has been playing politics as much as the Republicans. Personally, I prefer most of the outcomes Evers is pursuing.
But you know well in-person voting is not safe, no matter how many National Guard troops are manning the polls, no matter how the mitigation measures.
You written as much.
The Democratic Party line — repeated endlessly and precisely — is that Evers lacks authority to move elections.
This is a crock.
Evers can issue a new, superseding Emergency Order through Sec-designee Palm that bans public such planned gatherings by number and state sacntion that would preclude holding in-person voting on Election Day, as empowered by the Heath Emergency of March 12.
Evers is close to doing so in his, Palm's, subsequent March 17 Emergency Order 5 - Prohibiting Mass Gatherings of Ten People or More. Read the order, (link below); it's sweeping
Not an "edict." Wisconsin is in a public health state of emergency, per Executive Order 72, Relating to Declaring a Health Emergency in Response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus — March 12, 2020.
Republicans want elections to proceed as they game public health to retain Justice Kelly in a depressed-turnout election.
And Democrats want the elections to proceed, in defiance of the clear public health danger, to further the nomination of Joe Biden.
Why are you flacking for Tony Evers?
Links below:
https://evers.wi.gov/Documents/COVID19/UPDATEDOrder10People.pdf
https://evers.wi.gov/Pages/Newsroom/Executive-Orders.aspx
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I'm not flacking for anyone here, including Evers. He is in a disadvantageous position legally, and faces certain hostility in the State Supreme Court if he goes to the mat. I'm hoping he is able to use an emergency route to suspend the primary through the Health Secretary, though I do not know the law, and I am aware that as an acting Secretary only, the Senate could fire her as it did the Ag secretary.
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