The Koch brothers funded the Republican takeover of Wisconsin in 2010 and the election of Scott Walker as governor. Walker quickly cracked down on unions and stripped them of their rights. He pushed vouchers. He attacked Wisconsin’s great public university system. Meanwhile, the Republican legislature gerrymandered the state to guarantee control of the legislature. The state is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, but Republicans control both houses of the legislature.
That is why many observers considered the election of a new State Supreme Court to be the most important election in the nation. After the retirement of a Republican justice, the Court was split 3-3.
A liberal—Janet Protasiewicz—ran against a conservative—Dan Kelly. The liberal won. This means that the Court will have a Democratic majority.
The two biggest issues likely to be resolved by the Court are abortion rights and gerrymandering. The new Court now has the votes to restore abortion rights that were withdrawn by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision. It is likely that a lawsuit will challenge the deeply unfair gerrymandering of the state, and the new majority is sure to insist on a fair reapportionment.
A great day for democracy!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I lived in Chicago for over 20 years, and would move back in a heartbeat if I could take the winters. I’ve been to Wisconsin a number of times. It is on the whole a very pretty state.
Under Scott Walker, I stopped recognizing the place. His reign was both hateful and stupid, while the Republicans gerrymandered the state. None of this was the Wisconsin I knew.
Democrat Janet Protasiewicz was leading Republican Daniel Kelly by over 150,000 votes last I checked. There are rural votes still due, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has called the race.
It’s a very good sign for Wisconsin, and Democrats in general.
Same here. I ❤ Chicago. Awesome outcomes yesterday!!!
One thing that was consistent over my twenty-plus years there was the abysmal state of the CPS. I knew two teachers well, and they two of the most miserable people I’ve ever met.
And it doesn’t look like anything’s changed. I hope this time will be different.
Every so often my faith in democracy is restored. All day today my stomach was turning as the entire so-called liberal media universe reported the Trump indictment entirely using the right wing narrative. I was feeling so down.
But the news out of Wisconsin and Chicago was a good end to the day.
Happy!
YES!!!
Indivisible deserves a great deal of thanks (& Common Cause, as well, for phone banking) for crossing over the border & reaching out to WI voters, knocking on doors, doing the hard work.
Worth remembering that Vallas was endorsed by the powerful Chicago Tribune.
Yes, & that’s why it was all the more weird that the Trib. had the one (& only) front page (granted, lower left corner) & ENTIRE 2nd page article about the truths of his time in New Orleans, Philly & Bridgeport. A good investigative reporter brought the story in (w/a little help from Mercedes Schneider!). Of course, the Trib. stood by its endorsement.
However, absolutely NO excuse for the other big Chicago media outlets’ (esp. the Chicago Sun-Times) utter…silence.
Reported in blogs (as mentioned in the previous post) & in the Chicago free paper, The Reader, & in The Tribe (one of their young reporters was an EXCELLENT political panelist on our local (WGN–“Chicago’s Very Own”) Election Night coverage. She set quite a few people on that panel straight, & good for her.
Yes!
It’s only natural, that the voters are voting for the liberals now, as the librels would bring about more changes in the system, and, beside, the cities and states had been under conservatve controls, way, too, long, it’s time for change.
Way past time!
It’s a win for Jefferson’s democracy. He said, in every country, in every age, the priest aligns with the despot.
Koch-funded Paul Weyrich was a co-founder of the religious right. The conservative church political apparatus which is very active shaping policy and attempting to elect GOP politicos in the central states, championed Kelly and was against Protasiewicz. Kelly believed God’s law trumps the democratic process that writes man’s law.
The winner Justice Protasiewicz was raised Catholic.
Her opponent, the rabid conservative Daniel Kelly, is an evangelical Christian.
She supports reproductive rights.
He opposes them.
Protasiewicz, as a Democratic voter, is in the minority of her Church, as evidenced by the Trump vote in 2020. Trump won 63% of the White, Catholic vote (those who attend church regularly). Since the blue states have far more Catholics who vote Democratic, it is probable that Wisconsin’s Catholics are more reliably GOP voters which makes Protasiewicz even more of a minority in the Roman Catholic Churches of the state. Adding, Protasiewicz was targeted for defeat by politicized conservative Catholics. Since few of us know what she was taught or what she rejected in her religious upbringing, it is significant to review what issues the Church spends its money on in the public square. For insight that goes beyond anti-abortion and anti-gay spending, there is a Wikipedia entry titled, “Error has no rights.” While the Vatican modified the concept after the 1950’s, it’s obvious that many of the Church’s members did not change their perspectives e.g. the ask from conservatives that Biden and Pelosi be denied communion.
Protasiewicz is an individual who does not cite her religion as motivation for her political positions, unlike Kelly. She is different from the Republican Catholics on SCOTUS who claim religion does not affect their political positions, while it clearly does. Similar to Jews, Evangelicals, Methodists, Muslims, not all Catholics believe the same thing and it is so obvious it need not be stated. Religious sect enters the picture when the institution itself spends money politically and influences policy and law and when individuals cite religion as the driver of their political positions.