Wisconsin Sen. Scott Walker won a state Senate seat in the 2016 GOP primary win against a proletariatically-regular abortion ban
All elections are unique, but the Wisconsin judge’s victory underscores the power of abortion as a mobilizing issue and may fuel concerns among GOP strategies that the issue could again hurt their candidates in 2024. The policy effects of abortion could be seen in another battleground on Wednesday. Democrats control both legislative chambers, which allowed the repeal of the 1931 abortion ban to be signed by the governor.
Last year, Democrats capitalized on the backlash to the US Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and the specter of another Trump presidency to gain seats in the US House of Representatives.
But the lesson of Wisconsin’s turbulent political decade is that local Republicans, some of whom are in thrall to Trumpism, are likely to fight back hard. Indeed, Tuesday’s election also saw Republicans win an open state Senate seat, giving the GOP a supermajority that could be used to impeach top office holders, theoretically including Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Dan Knodl, the Republican who won in Wisconsin, said in an interview last month he would consider moving to impeach Protasiewicz. She was working as a Milwaukee circuit court judge. It is not sure if the legislature can remove her from the Supreme Court.
Kelly, the conservative in Wisconsin, was coy about how he would rule on a slate of potential hot-button cases, but his past writings and work for anti-abortion groups allowed Protasiewicz, who signaled her skepticism about the ban, to attack him on the issue. Her past comments also suggest a new day’s dawning for the labor community and Democrats seeking to upend the state’s skewed legislative maps.
Scott Walker, a Republican, was elected governor of Wisconsin in 2010 and has since lead the state in a conservative revival. It’s critical to the victories of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and will play a key role in the next presidential election.
In the years before Trump’s emergence, the Wisconsin GOP ran roughshod over state politics and sought to export its national playbook around the country. Walker entered the 2016 GOP presidential primary as an early favorite, pitching his state as a model for the nation. But like so many others in that year’s Republican field, he never got off the blocks as Trump thundered to the nomination.
That fall, Trump shattered the Democratic illusion of a “blue wall” in the Upper Midwest, defeating Hillary Clinton by fewer than 25,000 votes in the Wisconsin general election.
Evers was the first governor elected in the Democratic wave. He was re-elected last year. And though Republican Sen. Ron Johnson held his seat in 2022, Trump had lost the state two years earlier by a little more than 20,000 votes. His false allegations of 2020 election fraud infuriated Democrats, along with many swing voters, and ultimately in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race hobbled Kelly, who faced blowback for his role in advising GOP officials in their efforts to hatch a fake electors scheme
The state’s high court is expected to decide a lawsuit challenging an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions, which had been dormant for decades but snapped back into place with last year’s US Supreme Court ruling. The race was seen as a referendum on abortion rights by protasiewicz, Wisconsin Democrats and allied groups.
Victory for abortion rights activists follows a similar result in neighboring Michigan, which voted last fall to enshrine abortion and other reproductive rights into the state constitution while reelecting Democratic women to its three most powerful executive offices. Those results continued a streak of successes for Democrats, who in many swing states and legislative districts won elections on the issue.
And with another presidential election on the horizon, her willingness to consider attempts to roll back or reverse restrictive voting laws or regulations could have clear national implications.
The Story of a Charlotte-area Democrat Who Changed a Party: The Associated Powers of the Republicans and the Civil Rights Campaign in North Carolina
North Carolina Republicans gained a veto-proof supermajority in the state House after a Charlotte-area Democrat announced Wednesday she was switching parties.
I am still a public servant despite being no longer a Democrat. The party that represents me and my principles and what is best for North Carolina is the Republican Party,” Cotham, wearing a red dress and surrounded by her new Republican colleagues, said outside the state GOP headquarters in Raleigh.
“I am a single mom of two amazing sons, a teacher, a small-business owner, a woman with strong faith, a national championship basketball coach, and a public servant. Today I add Republican to that list,” she said, noting that she had “been welcomed with open arms” by her new colleagues.
The impact of Cotham’s switch could be major in Tar Heel State. Republicans have a supermajority in the North Carolina Senate. There are enough votes in the state House and the state Senate to overcome any vetoes from the governor.
This isn’t about political vendettas. It’s about the people who trusted Cotham because they didn’t know she wouldn’t do that. HD 112 is a Democratic district. And they did not choose to elect a Republican. They chose to elect a Democrat.”
The turning point for Cotham was when he was criticized for using prayers on his social media platforms and even on the back of his vehicles.
“I really could not believe that that was the conversations that was happening at that time, and I was deeply offended,” she said, adding that “to say that that is wrong and not to be able to show off a flag because the others hijack it for something else, why are we at this place in politics?”
The values of the Republican Party align with voters and the People of Mecklenburg County should be proud to have her representation in Raleigh.
In her statement, the RNC Chairwoman said Democrats were “reading the writing on the wall” because their policies were “too extreme and they’re failing Americans.”
The chair of the LGBTQ+ Democrats in Mecklenburg County said he knew there was a problem when he invited Cotham to the Human Rights Campaign dinner. Is this the result of a plan? How long has she known? The voters need to know.
Dozens of bills that were dead, such as elections law changes, reproductive freedom, and the LGBTQ rights to education policy, could have just sprung back to life, he said. The state budget, which finances education, can now be passed on the basis of Republican votes.
There are no recall provisions in North Carolina. She will be able to serve her full two-year term, which just began in January. For that period, Republicans will now be in full control,” Jackson said.
Cotham’s campaign website, which still listed her as a Democrat as of Wednesday afternoon, touted priorities such as protecting voting rights, affordable housing, health care and equitable public schools, among other issues. Under the section titled “Equality for All”, Cotham calls herself a “champion of queer rights” and emphasizes that the youth of LGBTQ are being attacked by Republican state legislatures. I will fight to pass more protections at the state level.
The Republicans overrode Coopers veto to make it easier to buy a pistol in North Carolina. Republicans pushed through the override because they had no Democrats in the state House.
State Political Battles: The Story of a Gender, Transgender and Gender-Inappropriate Minority Charged with a Crime
Donald Trump may be getting all the headlines, but partisan struggles in state capitals across the country may do far more to change America than the drama surrounding the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.
Political brushfires that begin in the states can later rage at the national level and define future general election battles. It’s already clear, for example, that gender and transgender issues will be a dominant question in 2024, as Republicans slam Democrats for embracing policies that they describe as “woke.”
In another striking example of gaping political polarization, the GOP-led legislature in Tennessee is seeking the expulsion of three Democratic colleagues who led a rowdy protest on the state House floor after a mass killing of three nine-year-olds and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville. Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton described the protest as an unacceptable breach of decorum and the lawmakers have already been stripped of committee posts. The Republican speaker said the protest was “at least equivalent, maybe worse,” than the mob attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
National Democrats are, meanwhile, looking at Chicago, where Bernie Sanders-backed progressive Brandon Johnson won Tuesday’s mayoral runoff. He beat a moderate with a tough-on-crime message by making a more nuanced pitch than his previous support for calls to “defund the police.” (Johnson said during the campaign he didn’t want to slash police funding.)
Dem’s in Florida are in a very bad position because of conservative control of the state legislature as well as a thumping reelection victory by DeSantis last November. As he seeks to appeal to Republican grassroots voters ahead of a possible presidential run, DeSantis this week further loosened Florida’s already permissive gun laws. The Senate passed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state by the time the baby is six weeks old, after he signed into law a 15-week abortion ban.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/state-political-battles-analysis/index.html
The Local Battlegrounds: Donald Trump’s Case for Protasiewicz, Protecting Our Democracy, and Enforcing First Amendment Rights
In Washington, this series of local battles is not often noticed, even as lawmakers are preparing for a debt ceiling crisis and fighting over aid to Ukraine.
Another possibility arises from the intensity of exchanges on matters like abortion, gender and guns. For all of Trump’s appeal to grassroots Republican voters, he is running a campaign that is almost exclusively rooted in his fury at his worsening legal problems and his claim that he is being politically persecuted to keep him out of the White House. The fights brewing in the states suggest many voters have other things on their minds.
Sean Eldridge, the founder and president of Stand Up America, a progressive advocacy group, said Protasiewicz would act as a check on conservative efforts to take away reproductive freedom, disenfranchise voters of color, and overturn election results they don’t like. Her victory helps build a firewall for our democracy and the freedom to vote ahead of 2024.”
One of the Democratic lawmakers, state Rep. Justin Pearson, explained on CNN that he supported the protest by gun reform advocates in the public gallery because he believed voices were not being heard as they demanded action on red flag laws and other gun safety measures. Polls show a majority of Americans are in favor of tighter gun restrictions, but support varies depending on the measure in question.
Pearson told Jake that the trio knew they were breaking a House rule. We didn’t know that we were doing anything that could lead to us being evicted from the House for exercising our rights under the First Amendment, and that we were encouraging protesters and children and parents to do the same.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/state-political-battles-analysis/index.html
The Hardline Rejection of DeSantis: Towards a Conservative Leader with Stronger Abelian Opposites and Stronger Bounds
The hardline abortion policy might allow DeSantis to solidify a message that he’d be a more effective conservative leader than Trump. It is also the kind of positioning that would make it easier for Democrats to win.