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Marquette Poll shows President Biden holds very early lead in 2024 presidential races

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The country is only heading into the midterm elections, but politicians are looking to the 2024 presidential elections.

The new Marquette Law School Poll shows that President Joe Biden has the edge over three potential Republican Challengers nationwide. But poll director Charles Franklin says a lot of people didn’t want to vote for any of the matchups.

“The public is grumpy by a whole lot of measures. And I think this wishing for someone else is also a sign of that grumpy essence kind of non-partisan wishing for someone else.”

Franklin says this is less a chance to start the race for the 2024 election, and more of a way to gauge interest in the race.  

“Our real purpose here is to explore how the Republican Party is thinking about alternatives to President Trump and whether President Trump may run again.”

President Biden showed a lead over former President Donald Trump, former vice president Mike Pence, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

BREAKING: SCOTUS rejects Wisconsin Supreme Court decision on Governor Evers’s state legislative maps

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A ruling by the US Supreme Court means that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will have to take another look at state legislative maps.

In a 7 to 2 decision on Wednesday, the US Justices rules that State Justices didn’t properly address the requirements of the Voting Rights Act when picking legislative maps drawn by Governor Tony Evers. UW-Madison Law School professor Robert Yoblon says that’s because maps from Evers created a new majority-black voting district in Milwaukee. 

“In order for that law to kick in, certain preconditions have to be met. And what the US Supreme Court said today is that the Wisconsin Supreme Court hadn’t done enough to confirm that it really was necessary to apply the Voting Rights Act.”

Yoblon says that likely means a new round of hearings. “It’s likely that the court will ask for further guidance from the parties about what they think should happen next. And then the court might issue a plan going forward? There are a few different options that the court has.”

However, the court left in place federal congressional maps drawn by Governor Evers. That will affect the placement of districts for members of the House.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will need to hurry in order to make a decision ahead of the fall elections.

Wisconsin Congressional delegation reacts to Ukraine President Zelenskyy’s address to Congress

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Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation is responding after a heartfelt plea from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.

Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan says that despite a request, he’s unlikely to back a no-fly zone over Ukraine. 

“Well, it sounds good on the surface, it also has to be enforced. And that would likely fall on us, which would put us directly in the conflict. And I think that has been something that the President and I think many in Congress in both parties have not wanted to directly do.”

Pocan says that above all else, a diplomatic solution should be the outcome. “Unfortunately too many innocent lives get lost and that’s right we want to have diplomacy across the the the world rather than getting involved in direct warfare.”

Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher says we need to keep an eye on China in this conflict.  “China needs to know that we will make public any evidence of their military assistance to Russia.”

Gallagher says that the US needs to harden sanctions against Russia and provide more military support to Ukrainian defense. “There’s much more we can and need to be doing in order to force a peaceful resolution of this crisis and force the Russians to back down.”

US Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin says the United States needs to more forcefully back Ukraine’s defense against Russia. 

“I believe we need to keep standing strong with Ukraine, our European allies and NATO by continuing to provide them the support they need to defend against Putin’s war against freedom.”

Republican Senator Ron Johnson says President Biden failed Ukraine heading into the conflict by not providing the support they needed to stand up to Russia.

Congress is sending financial support to Ukraine under the recently passed omnibus spending bill, and more could be on the way. 

Dane County Judge releases hundreds of documents from elections probe to watchdog group

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A Dane County Judge is releasing hundreds of pages of records from the Republican-led elections probe to a watchdog group.

Judge Frank Remington laid it out plainly to Attorney James Bopp.

“I cannot find a single document in this record that if released would undermine Mr. Gableman’s investigation.”

Attorneys for Gableman’s office had been arguing that turning over any files from the investigation at all would have hampered the case that the office of special counsel was trying to build, something that Judge Remington rebuffed. “I read them forward and backward, up, down, and back and forth. And based on my knowledge, training and experience, there’s nothing here.”

Among those documents are apparent direct emails from My Pillow CEO Chairman Mike Lindell to Mike Gableman and conversations between Gableman and attorney Erick Kaardal, who was referred for sanctions in federal court for previous attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Also included in the set of documents is a complaint from a Wisconsin man who claims that Michelle Obama and multiple celebrities were complicit in stealing the 2020 presidential election from Former President Trump.

There’s also a handwritten message to specifically withhold information from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Patrick Marley.

 

BREAKING: State Supreme Court sides with Governor Evers on redistricting maps

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The State Supreme Court has sided with Governor Tony Evers on new legislative districting maps.

In a 4 to 3 decision on Thursday, State Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn sided with the court’s liberal justices in picking maps supplied by Governor Tony Evers.

The maps were a late addition to the battle, made after the Supreme Court announced they wanted maps with as few changes as possible. The maps will still leave conservatives with a majority in the legislature, but less so than they currently have.

The new maps will go into effect for the fall elections.

Gableman offers no new information in elections report to Assembly committee

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A report on the 2020 Presidential election by former State Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman seems to be a rehash of multiple complaints about the election by conservatives.

Gableman claims there are too many questions surrounding the vote. “At this point I believe the legislature ought to take a very hard look at the option of decertification of the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election.” That’s something that attorneys for the Legislature say is impossible. 

He also reiterated a conspiracy theory that foreign interests engaged in bribery by offering get out the vote grants to Wisconsin cities, and tied that to Wisconsin Elections Commission head Meghan Wolfe.  “WEC has 10 million, Zuckerberg gave over 10 million to the state. George Soros gave millions of dollars to start ERIC, which we will get to and by the way, Meghan Wolfe is the president of ERIC now.”

ERIC is an agency that helps track voter registrations across the country and is used to help remove dead or moved voters from voter counts. Federal courts already ruled against these arguments in 2020 in a case brought by the Wisconsin Voters Alliance and the Thomas More Society. 

He’s also calling for actions against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and its administrator Megan Wolfe, a claim made by the Racine County Sheriff last year over voting that took place at nursing homes. The Racine County DA declined to take up those charges.

The report is seeing strong criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. Assembly Minority Leader Jim Steineke has already strongly denounced the effort, saying that he would do everything in his power to prevent the Legislature from taking over voting. Democrat Elections Commissioned Ann Jacobs called Gableman’s statements “shocking” and “inappropriate”. Governor Tony Evers calls the entire probe a waste of taxpayers’ time and money.

Wisconsin Elections Commission keeps current rules on fixing absentee ballot envelopes

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The Wisconsin Elections Commission will not be changing its guidance on how clerks handle mistakes on absentee ballots.

That’s after a Republican-led attempt to force clerks to contact voters before fixing simple errors failed to pass. Commission Chair Ann Jacobs says the rule change wouldn’t even stop the fraud that Republicans say they’re worried about. 

“That’s never happened cuz if it had happened we would know about it because nobody would have voted twice.”

Jacobs said Republicans are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. 

“The idea that there’s this grand criminal enterprise of people intentionally forging ballots and then not filling out the witness address so that the clerks can do it for them as some sort of nefarious scheme is bizarre.”

Monday night’s vote will send the current guidance on ballot envelopes to the legislature’s joint rules committee. Republicans on that committee are likely to reject that guidance.

State Senator Nass demands review of ballot dropbox rules from Elections Commission

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The head of the Republican-led legislative rules committee is demanding that the state elections board issue rules on drop boxes and absentee ballots. 

The joint committee for review of administrative rules voted on party lines on Monday to order the Wisconsin Elections Commission to issue rules for review within 30 days on absentee ballot dropboxes and ballot fixing.

Senator Steve Nass says the committee has the authority to prevent the elections commission from issuing directives on these matters. Previous Republican attempts to pass laws that would limit dropbox usage and change how absentee ballots are handled were vetoed by Governor Evers.

Senator Baldwin calls for end to attacks on elections, pushes for new voting rights bill

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Senator Tammy Baldwin says enough is enough, and that attacks on elections by Republicans need to stop.

She says that an audit from Wisconsin Republicans is just part of a nationwide effort to make it harder to vote in America. “Gableman’s audit, which was is being paid for by the taxpayers of Wisconsin is nothing more than an effort to draw into question the election, to perpetuate Trump’s big lie, and to harass and intimidate our state election officials.”

Baldwin says that in Wisconsin, the presidential election has already survived recounts and audits. 

“Every stage of this was with high transparency and accountability and all reiterated that Biden had one in Wisconsin by a little over 20,000 votes.”

Baldwin and her Democrat colleagues are hoping to pass voting rights and election protection bills, but those efforts are being blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

Racine Democrat Greta Neubauer elected new Assembly Minority Leader

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State Assembly Democrats have picked a new leader. Racine Representative Greta Neubauer will now lead the caucus.

Neubauer says Democrats will need to continue to hold to their ideals heading into the next elections.

“We are here because we believe the government should grow with the people, that our democracy should fight for all of us who live here. We believe that Wisconsin should be a state where everyone can thrive.”

“In the face of Republican efforts to divide and conquer, the next year will be critical to building a stronger more Equitable Wisconsin.”

Neubauer will replace outgoing Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, who’s stepping down at the start of next year.