BREAKING: Republicans go SCORCHED EARTH with VILE stunt

This is democracy policing, so Mark's Republicans just pulled a pretty surreal

stunt

in Wisconsin. Can you explain well what happened? So there are tricks, there are legal tricks and then there are epically illegal tricks and that's what they just did in Wisconsin, so the Wisconsin elections commission which is a bipartisan board that oversees election administration in Wisconsin has an elections director who has done phenomenal job and everyone agrees that Megan Wolf has been a very, very good election administrator in a system where you have the same number of Democrats and Republicans as The bosses are right, so she has to be an election administrator consensus between the two parties and the Wisconsin elections commission.

Democrats and Republicans have been very happy with her, what does that mean? Well, of course, that means Republicans in the state legislature don't like him. So today the State Senate engaged in a circus theater effort to impeach her, which is completely illegal, like completely illegal, they don't have this power and they tried to do it and moments after that, they were sued by the Attorney General on behalf of the Wisconsin ethics commission and Megan Wolf to stop that from happening and now I guess to the point of that lawsuit and more generally, the Republicans in the state senate have the authority to do what they're doing to eliminate the nonpartisan . election official no, no, that's what's crazy about this, I mean, it's not crazy in the sense that by the standards of Trumpism, it's actually pretty normal, right, but it's illegal, it's boldly illegal, it has no support legal and therefore makes perfect sense that the Wisconsin Republican Senate tried to do this.

She can only be renominated by the Wisconsin ethics commission, by the Wisconsin ethics commission. She is currently serving a remaining term and therefore the Wisconsin Senate has no role to play and in the meantime, as they try to litigate this, the legality of this issue, what happens to her, this is really quite fascinating because I think the position of the state of Wisconsin, you know, the Attorney General, the Wisconsin ethics commission, is that she's still in her office, right, this is, you know, like three friends in a local library get together and say we're going to eliminate Megan Wolf like, okay, that's great for you, that's good for you, but she's still in the office.

I think that's what it is. where we are now she remains in office, I think the Attorney General, um appropriately, initiated litigation to get a declaratory judgment, in other words, get the courts to say loud and clear that that is the fact so that there is no a later confusion o Later, you will learn about the frivolous arguments that were made about what happened during this time period. Mark who will be the final authority in terms of whether this Republican measure is even legal. Will it be the Wisconsin Supreme Court? Yes, then this will be approved.

In the Wisconsin court system, the lawsuit that was filed was filed in Daye County, which is the county in which Madison is the seat of government. Presumably there will be a trial court ruling there first, but eventually this will end up in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, um, and they'll make the final decision and do you think there's more, uh, a greater chance that they'll rule on this quickly? Or that this goes to court quickly given the fact? that you know this is a pressing issue we have an election coming up yeah I think it will move quickly for a couple of reasons first since you say it's pressing I actually wouldn't be surprised if this case moved and jumped to the supreme court of the state from the trial court um to get there faster um the other reason I'm going to act quickly is that there are really no facts in dispute here, as if no one, not even Republicans, are not disputing what the facts of the state is that this is just a pure question of law and the law the legal question is not complicated as if it were not it is not a complicated question of law there is not there are not many of you know um constitutional doctrines here this is quite simple what the What the Republican legislature did is just a bunch of nonsense, well what is the rationale that Republicans have put forward to even justify this measure?

Why focus on Megan Wolf? Why focus on it? So I'm really glad you asked this question because if you don't understand that. the republican party doesn't want the election to go smoothly so you don't understand their plan for 2024 the republican party's plan in 2024 is to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat you can't make it easier to cheat if you've administered elections competently So what Megan Wolf has done is administered elections competently, that's her crime again. I want to go back to what I said at the beginning, she works for a board that is made up of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and the Republicans are not a bunch of soft Republicans, these are, you know, your Magot types, so I All he's doing is smoothly administering an election that a bipartisan commission has, um, you know, sets the rules, but that's what Republicans don't want, they want chaos, they want irregularities because that's how they think they can win just to solve this and I know the probability is low, but again, to solve this if the Republicans are finally successful in their attempt to remove Megan Wolf, who would assume her responsibilities, what would happen to her office?

Would her office disappear? Would her responsibilities be moved to a different office? Would she be replaced by some other well-known Republican appointee? How would this work? So you really know we're in uncharted territory at that point. Wisconsin's election commission was modeled after the Federal Election Commission at the federal level, which deals with campaign finance in election administration, but essentially it is intended to be an independent agency that has an equal number of members from each party so that can operate independently of political pressure. of one party or another, what happens if suddenly the executive director of that agency, who still enjoys the confidence of Democrats and Republicans on that commission, remembers?

I hope everyone realizes that this lawsuit is being filed not only on behalf of Megan W to keep her job, but on behalf of the Wisconsin election commission, what if they know that if they lose? I think we have a really difficult road ahead of us in the administration of elections in Wisconsin because you need someone on a commission of three3, someone has to make the decisions and execute them and this is eliminating the person in charge of executing them. Yes, do you have any updates on the Republican's effort to impeach Judge Janet Prot? sewitz I mean, yeah, so you know, so that everyone in the audience remembers that this is perhaps the most abusive process of democracy that's happening right now.

I mean, you could argue that Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans are the

stunt

s they're pulling in the house. kind of an unequal playing field, but there was an election held democratically, you know, free and fair, everyone agrees to present a state supreme court, justice, that election was decided in a relative slip, like it wasn't a particularly election close no one challenged the result and the judge who won that election is now being threatened with impeachment before she has ruled in a single case, she has not issued an order or ruling in a single case and they are threatening to impeach her and they are threatening to impeach her because if They impeach it as soon as they impeach it it can no longer rule on cases and then a progressive 43rd Supreme Court becomes a 33rd Court that stagnates and is an abuse of democracy and I am very concerned that the Republicans are going to move forward with This is because they lack it, they lack shame, they lack respect for the rule of law and they lack respect for the will of the electorate.

What is the recourse if she is accused? What would happen next here? and if we're left with the Supreme Court being 3-3 again, this is uncharted territory now there's already a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of a guy named Tim Burns who actually ran against her in the primary and lost, so This is progressive. lawyer, uh, I think in Madison, uh, who has filed a lawsuit saying, hey, what the legislature seems to want to do, uh, violates the law. I suspect that if they go forward with an actual impeachment process, then you'll see other lawsuits, potentially even a lawsuit by uh, the Supreme Court, uh, justice itself, uh, to block this, but how do you resolve that, you know, It could be a federal case, it could be a state case, you know, but it's very, very, very dangerous territory and I know this is not on the record. territory, but is this a situation where you would expect a state case to jump to the federal court system given that the state case would basically have to litigate, litigate itself, like litigate, an issue that seems like, I think there is, I think that there are State Claims that could be filed and I believe there are Federal Claims that could be filed.

You know, we haven't talked about a case in North Carolina where Anita Earls, a progressive black woman who is on the North Carolina Supreme Court, has been the issue. of harassment and threatened her with complaints and sanctions from the Bar and as if she filed a case in federal court so that you could easily see a case in federal court here to protect this judge who won a fair and just election, and I think I could look at both state court cases and federal court cases and just for posterity here and I know we've talked to Spen about this before, but for anyone who's new looking, is there any illegality in her discussing the topic or Jerry's dangerous theme?

Mandering while she is running to be a judge on the state Supreme Court is not at all inappropriate. Now I want to say, Brian, there are a lot of people, myself included, who don't think we should elect judges for precisely this reason, you know? I don't think it's a great idea for us to elect judges. I think it would be better if we had nonpartisan judicial appointment processes, but the United States Supreme Court has upheld the right to elect state judges, so it is a legitimate way. To elect judges, frankly, is the most common way that judges are elected at the state court level, so when there are elections, the candidates are going to campaign on issues and the issues that she campaigned on were issues Pretty basic, you know what? his judicial philosophy was right, you know, when judges are placed on the U.S.

Supreme Court or federal courts, these are the kinds of questions that senators ask them, senators expect those answers and it's not a basis to then accuse them if they say this is my Judicial Philosophy, so no, what he did was totally appropriate. What's going on? Here we have a terrified Republican legislature that exists and is in power only because of Jerry Mandering and will do everything they can to hold on to Pal, well we'll leave it at that. Obviously, you know, what these Republicans and Wisconsin are doing is in contrast to what you and your team have done to protect democracy across the country.

So, for anyone watching, if you want to support Mark and his team, be sure to sign up for the Democracy Dockit. is a free news outlet that Mark founded to focus on everything related to voting in the election. The link is here on the screen. It's also in the post description of this video. I'm Brian Teller Cohen. I'm Mark Elias. This is democracy.