Thread by @cFidd

Y'all, there's more. There's so much more. It's not all court-related, but Republican state legislators have been up to no good since the 2010 GOP wave swept them into power

Even now, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is refusing to call special elections before the general in November. Losing a safely Republican state Senate seat a couple of weeks ago spooked him for reals. dailykos.com/stories/2018/2…

These legislative seats have been vacant since December. If Walker doesn't call these elections before November, thousands of Wisconsinites will have been unrepresented in the statehouse for almost an entire year. dailykos.com/stories/2018/2…

Oh, and Scott Walker is probably violating the state constitution by refusing to fill these seats
dailykos.com/stories/2018/2…

But Wisconsin Republican antics sure as snot don't stop with Scott Walker. The GOP-controlled legislature has been gutting ethics and election oversight in the state for years.

In 2015, after 8 years of the Government Accountability Board (GAB) doing its job and investigating possible elections and ethics violations, Wisconsin Republicans decided to get rid of it. host.madison.com/wsj/news/local…

The Government Accountability Board was created by a near-unanimous bipartisan vote in 2007. But Wisconsin Republicans wanted to go back to the bad old days of partisan elections and ethics oversight.

To borrow from one Democrat, Wisconsin Republicans wanted to replace a nonpartisan watchdog group with a bunch of partisan lapdogs. Election law experts like @rickhasen also blasted the move.

Almost all of the Government Accountability Board's critics were Republicans, and their ire was largely motivated by a GAB investigation into possible (and illegal) coordination between Walker's campaign and conservative groups during the 2012 recall. host.madison.com/wsj/news/local…

Election, ethics, and campaign finance reform advocates nationwide had long hailed Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board as model of how to do oversight well. Republicans dissolved it in June 2016. host.madison.com/ct/news/local/…

Wisconsin Republicans replaced the GAB with two partisan entities basically designed to result in gridlock, a la the FEC.

But Wisconsin Republicans aren't done with their anti-ethics watchdog ax-grinding. In December, they voted to authorize an investigation into the Government Accountability Board -- WHICH HASN'T EXISTED FOR A YEAR AND A HALF fox6now.com/2017/12/21/wis…

And now Wisconsin Republicans are trying to purge the new, fangless, partisan elections and ethics oversight boards. Just last week, they voted to effectively oust the heads of those orgs.
host.madison.com/wsj/news/local…

Republican lawmakers might not even have the authority to fire the heads of the elections and ethics boards but whatever the Wisconsin GOP dgaf