Scott Walker, the Republican Governor of Wisconsin,
is being sued by a Democratic leg group for
refusing to hold special elections to fill
empty State House seats.
That's how it's supposed to work.
When a special election comes up, they're
supposed to call time for the special election.
Walker's afraid that his party is gonna lose
control of the State House if he holds these
elections now, because he's so unpopular.
So he's basically decided to suspend democracy
totally in the state.
What he's counting on.
What is your take on this story?
Why would he make such a move?
Well, his thought if pretty obvious.
Once the national cycle comes into play and
we get these smaller elections into a national
cycle, the chances that Trump swoops in and
helps bolster up the Republican candidates
and he gets his two people in there and fills
these seats during a national election, he's
trying to maximize that probability.
He knows now, if he runs these elections today,
right now, that the chances of him losing
those elections, by him meaning the Republican
party, and putting a couple of Democrats in
there, is pretty significant.
So he thinks if he can slow it down, jam on
the brakes and stop these kind of odd timing
elections from running, he increases the [crosstalk
00:01:13] chance that he keeps control in
Wisconsin.
So legally, if you were filing a lawsuit,
how would you characterize the lawsuit?
It's called a writ.
And a writ forces the government do something
that they're obligated to do.
So writ of mandamus.
Exactly.
So the writ says, "Hey look, you are required,
Governor Walker, to hold this special election.
You've got to give these folks, your constituents,
they're constitutional right to have representation.
You've gotta have 'em and you've gotta have
'em right now."
Otherwise, it could be a year, they have no
representation and-
[crosstalk 00:01:45] You know, I looked at
this story.
Yeah, writ of mandamus, people don't realize-
It's powerful.
... they can really shake, they can really
shake the House with filing things like writ
of prohibition, where you're telling the government,
"You can't do that."
Right.
Or you're selling the government writ of mandamus,
"You're supposed to do that, but you're not
doing it," and that's what's happening here.
Interestingly, Eric Holder, now you know,
the Eric Holder story.
I've talked about this so much.
Here's a guy that he comes from the most silk
stocking defense firm in America.
Covington Burling.
Right.
Now for some reason, he's appointed to be
the Attorney General of the United States,
even though his role at Covington Burling
was to actually defend most of the creeps
that he's supposed to be going after as Attorney
General.
The conflicts were endless.
He wouldn't prosecute the banks, he wouldn't
prosecute big pharma, he'd very rarely enforce
any kind of meaningful anti-trust, because
he comes from that industry.
The industry of lawyers who represent big
corporations.
The quintessential revolving door, I mean,
you know, I mean, [crosstalk 00:02:51] that's
top of the food chain revolving door.
But what I think is interesting about Eric
Holder, he's the one that's signing off on
this writ.
It's because I remember him being Attorney
General, you may remember this yourself, and
he starts this idea, "Well, we're going to
do something about voter fraud.
We're going to do something about voting irregularity
across the United States."
I remember him coming out making this speech
all this is going to happen in 90 days.
And we waited and nothing.
Just some of the same.
It was a great speech.
You know, great speech about what he's going
to do.
But I think what he's trying to do here, you
know there's some talk about him positioning
himself maybe for a presidential run.
If you really start understanding what an
empty suit Eric Holder is, I mean.
Sessions is just bonkers.
Right.
You know, Republican is just completely bonkers.
This guy was more dangerous because he was
an empty suit who would make promises and
nothing would ever come of it.
But on this all centers around gerrymandering
isn't it?
If you take a look at the last few times the
court has tested gerrymandering, they've lost
every time.
Right.
The people who gerrymandered Democrats out
of existence basically lost every single time.
Isn't that part of the issue that's going
to develop in Wisconsin?
Absolutely.
I mean this whole thing is, at the end of
the day, trying to keep control in the Republican
part of Wisconsin state politics and that's
what all this is designed to do.
So at the end of the day, we'll keep an eye
on this.
I mean, it'll be interesting to see if in
fact they make the writ can actually require
the government-
It should.
... to hold the elections.
It should.
It's pretty clear.
[crosstalk 00:04:26] It's absolutely pretty
clear.
He has no real ... He's not even given a real
answer, so a writ of mandamus says to him,
"Look, you're the Governor, you know you're
supposed to hold these elections public,"
and a court can make him do it if the court
has [inaudible 00:04:39].
Yeah, the state law requires a Governor to
call a special election to fill any legislative
vacancies before the second Tuesday in May
in the year in which a regular election is
held.
And the Governor's office argues that the
deadline does not apply because the vacancies
occurred in '17.
That doesn't make any sense.
Yeah.
