Look past Oct. 'surprises.' WI GOP already signaling Nov. sabotage

We're more than halfway through October, and, so far, no big pre-election surprises have been sprung by Trump and his 'we've already-done-plenty-of-damage' devotees. 

But in Wisconsin we should expect post-election, GOP-engineered November Sabotage because slippery, partisan malfeasance schemed in secret and then announced after the votes have been counted has been the Wisconsin GOP's modus operendi for the last decade.

* Obviously the crafting of the GOP's 141-page lame-duck power grab that cut deeply into Democratic Governor-elect Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul's traditional powers and portfolios had been someone's project before Republican Scott Walker and the WI GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel lost on election night two years ago.

* We'd also seen the GOP embrace of trickery in Walker's sudden rollout of ACT 10 which he'd even kept from some GOP legislative leaders - and which he then misrepresented as mere 'modest' budget balancing when in fact it tore apart just as was intended - public employees' kitchen table budgets, the teaching profession, school financing, local control of public spending and a half-century of workplace rights.

* The GOP embrace of secrecy drove also its the loyalty-oath, behind-closed-doors gerrymandering/redistricting mapping that again maximized the surprise factor, kept opponents off-balance and the public in the dark to deepen the GOP's right-wing control here.

* And, importantly right now, look to GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos's recent, wistful assessment-cum-very-detailed trial balloon that laid out exactly where and his party's jaw-dropping post-November 2018 election power grab didn't go far enough: 

Robin Vos voices regrets about the notorious lame duck session  

Basically, Vos wants the GOP-controlled Legislature to have more control over gubernatorial spending and other prerogatives which were just fine for Walker to exercise, but Vos is saying out loud that he wants to further define the Governor as something of a legislative intern who might also pick up the Speaker's dry cleaning.

So don't think that even a blue tsunami on November 3rd in Wisconsin would alter Republicans' one-party/one-track power-accumulating goal 

In fact, the more desperate Republicans are to retain power they are losing to the coronavirus disease, democratic processes they have worked tirelessly to stifle and demographics they can't control, the more likely they are to use the legislative session they've evaded since the spring to further burrow into the State Capitol and embed their fossilized philosophies.

They did it after the 2018 elections, so why not after this year's balloting, too