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Anti-democratic moves by lame duck GOP legislatures

Newenglanddeac

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This shit needs to stop.



GOP legislatures seek to cement Republican power

Republican legislators in several states are moving to cement their authority at the expense of Democrats who won November's midterm elections — before those Democrats are sworn into office.

In Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina, lame-duck sessions of Republican-controlled state legislatures are working on measures that would alter the balance of power in the GOP's favor.

In Missouri, legislators are contemplating a plan that would weaken a voter-passed initiative that limits the value of gifts lawmakers can accept from lobbyists and implements a cooling-off period before retiring legislators can become lobbyists themselves.

Critics say the efforts thwart the will of the voters, who handed Democrats new victories in all four states. Republicans are racing to implement the changes before they lose some or all of their power next year.

“It's anti-democratic, and anti-republican, and it basically blows up all the norms of what is supposed to be the core feature of a free political system, which is the peaceful and orderly transfer of power,” said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Just days after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) conceded defeat to Democrat Tony Evers, Republican legislative leaders in Madison said they would contemplate a plan to claw back authority the legislature had given the governor after Walker took office in 2011.

The legislature held a hearing on those measures, as well as a bill to weaken the authority of Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul (D), who also beat a Republican incumbent. Legislators also held hearings on a bill to limit early voting, something Walker supports but Evers opposes.


“We trusted Scott Walker and the administration to be able to manage the back and forth with the legislature,” state Senate President Scott Fitzgerald (R) told a conservative radio host on Monday. “We don't trust Tony Evers right now in a lot of these areas.”

Evers, who will be inaugurated next month, has blasted the plans as a naked grab for political power.

“It's embarrassing, to some extent, to the state of Wisconsin,” Evers told The Hill in a brief interview Saturday. “They're going to the heart of our democracy, and we're going to do everything we can to fight it.”

Protestors pounded on the room where a legislative committee heard testimony on the proposals, shouting “respect our votes.”

In Michigan, Republican lawmakers have advanced two proposals to limit the authority of the state attorney general. The state Senate is considering a bill to end the secretary of state’s oversight of campaign finance reporting.

Democrats won both offices in November's elections, but those winners will not be sworn in until next month. In a statement, Secretary of State-elect Jocelyn Benson (D) called the proposal to strip power from her office “hyper-partisan.”

Gov. Rick Snyder (R), who spent eight years in office painting himself as a “tough nerd” above the fray of partisan politics, has not said whether he would sign any of the proposals.

“Snyder can stop this in Michigan,” Ornstein said. “If he doesn't stop it, he has proven through his entire record that he is nothing but a partisan hack.”

In North Carolina, voters passed a constitutional amendment last month that will require voters to show photo identification at the polls in future elections. Republicans are working to pass a measure that would establish the contours of that voter identification proposal before the new legislature arrives in Raleigh in January.

Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers now, but they lost those super majorities in November's elections. Democratic legislators say the bill being moved through the legislature this week does not allow election workers to accept certain kinds of government-issued identification.

“What is concerning about the Voter ID requirements is the red tape and waste created,” state Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue (D) said on Twitter.

After a series of scandals in Jefferson City, 62 percent of Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment that overhauls ethics rules that apply to the legislature, and changes the way the state's legislative districts are drawn.

Republicans maintain large majorities in the state legislature, but the redistricting reform could threaten their hold on power after the next round of maps are drawn.

The Missouri state Republican Party has donated $150,000 to a new outside group, dubbed Fair Missouri, to advocate for a new ballot measure that would undermine the redistricting overhaul voters approved. State House Speaker Elijah Haahr (R) said he would negotiate with African-American lawmakers who might see their numbers diminished under the new redistricting scheme.

Republicans in recent years have moved to change rules or alter ballot measures before they lose power.

Two years ago, Republicans in North Carolina moved to strip the governor of some of his powers, especially with regard to the state Board of Elections and county elections boards, after Democrat Roy Cooper defeated incumbent Republican Pat McCrory.

Legislators in South Dakota voted to repeal a referendum, which passed by a wide margin in 2016, that implemented stricter ethics rules and curtailed the power of lobbyists.

Ornstein blamed Republicans, who he said have chosen attempts to diminish the influence of Democratic voters rather than to try to expand their own appeal to new voters.

“It's more the party of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin than the party of Lincoln. I find this just to be shocking. Not in the sense that I’m surprised,” Ornstein said. “This is truly a breach of fundamental norms of the political system.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/419522-gop-legislatures-seek-to-cement-republican-power
 
Why do state legislatures need to be in session between Election Day and swearing in?
 
Why do state legislatures need to be in session between Election Day and swearing in?

Earlier in the year, Scott Walker refused to call special elections for seats in the state legislature. One of the reasons he gave was that the legislature's 2018 session would be over before those elections were done.

This is a special session called specifically to take power from incoming Dems.

His other reason was that he didn't want to waste taxpayer money with special elections. One of the new proposals calls for an extra state-wide primary in 2020.
 
When will people realize Republicans are only about keeping power for rich white men (ie. themselves)?
 
Wisconsin Republicans are trying to subvert the will of the voters. They’re part of a larger trend.


Wisconsin Republicans did not campaign on any of the above policies, and they are making little effort to defend them. Clearly, they no longer trust the voters who select them, so they’ve decided to select the voters themselves. They don’t like the governor or attorney general that Wisconsinites picked, so they are stripping them of their powers. And they disagree with policies that people supported, so they are putting unprecedented constraints on the new governor to keep him from implementing them.

Democracies ultimately depend on having stable rules and norms that support those rules — even when things don’t go your way. We agree to this basic logic as citizens; it’s central to our social contract with the state. We should expect the same of our elected officials. Politicians who change the rules of the game because they don’t like the outcomes are a danger to democracy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e79db33382f_story.html?utm_term=.7da0ecc21ec3
 
Moonz rationalizing his stupidity is always a funny thing
 
Orange is the new black.

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'Bad day for democracy': Democrats in uproar after Wisconsin GOP rams through power grab

The legislation weakens the governor's authority, limits early voting and dilutes the attorney general's power by requiring a legislative committee to sign off on withdrawing from federal lawsuits. Gov.-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul campaigned on withdrawing Wisconsin from a multi-state lawsuit that seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

 
This thread and the actions in WI and MI should be on the Fascist thread.
 
This is an important clarification.

 
On the bright side, hopefully that means advocates can get the measures on the ballot in 2020.

First Wisconsin did it. Now Republicans in Michigan move to strip Democrats' power.

The incoming Secretary of State ran on transparency in election finance. So Republicans are creating a separate commission to enforce campaign-finance law, taking the power away from the Secretary of State.

The open corruption displayed by the GOP is something. As is the cynicism - they knew the minimum wage proposal would be popular, so they resorted to open trickery to block it.
 
Its interesting that the idiot right on this board completely ignores these issues.
 
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