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THREAD: Wisconsin’s coronavirus crisis is a crisis of democracy. For over 290 days, Republicans in our state leg have done nothing but attack public health measures—and now voted against masks & passed a trash bill that @GovEvers has vetoed. Why is this happening? 1/
In 2020, Wisconsin’s legislature was literally the least active state in the country. Instead of passing COVID-19 protections, Republicans went to court to strike down @GovEvers’ emergency powers & kill his stay-home order. We went after them for it. https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/republican-legislature-asks-wisconsin-supreme-court-to-suspend-stay-at-home-order/article_f2533246-314f-53c2-89b9-b098471b0917.html
Across Wisconsin in the fall of 2020, as Wisconsin suffered through one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks, Dems and public interest groups made calls, sent mail, and ran ads hammering the GOP for undermining health protections. Like this billboard, for example:
The pressure worked! The GOP kept threatening to kill the mask mandate (as their most extreme base wanted), even sought a court ruling, but kept backing away from passing a bill.
In late October, Vos even started talking about doing something to curb the spread. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/28/robin-vos-calls-coronavirus-action-after-state-hits-5-000-new-cases/3756160001/
But then the gerrymandered maps did their thing. Reps drew legislative district lines to prevent democracy from functioning. We flipped from Trump to Biden… but the GOP still won 60 out of 99 Assembly seats. (We did beat 2 GOP incumbents—a major win—but far from representative.)
Now, emboldened by their gerrymandering-generated political power, Republicans are on offense again, attacking public health in order to undermine @GovEvers. The GOP knows Trump would’ve won if Governor Evers hadn’t been here to defend democracy in 2020.
Last Tuesday, the GOP-run state Senate voted to repeal Gov Evers’ mask mandate. Early yesterday afternoon, on February 4, the Wisconsin State Assembly did the same, steamrolling the objections of medical & public interest groups. https://twitter.com/lkwhite/status/1357409088993378306
We wear masks to protect ourselves—and each other. 6,000 Wisconsinites have already died of COVID-19. Governor Tony Evers’ mask mandate was good science, common sense, and the right thing to do to protect Wisconsinites. https://twitter.com/DHSWI/status/1357781145837056003
Speaker Vos and Wisconsin Republicans’ excuse? They’re saying this is “not about the mask” but about Governor Evers’ authority to issue emergency executive orders. https://twitter.com/sbauerAP/status/1357370723229122560
But honestly, if they wanted to keep mask protections in place, they could’ve done that. And they didn’t.
Is partisanship, then, more important than saving lives? After nearly 600,000 Wisconsinites contracting the virus with over 6,000 dead? The GOP have replied with a resounding “yes.”
Thankfully, Governor Evers issued a *new* mask mandate about an hour after the GOP-dominated state Assembly voted to squash the previous emergency order. The protections remain in place. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/politics/wisconsin-mask-mandate/index.html
So, what are the Republicans up to now? You guessed it. First, they’re already scheming to undermine the Governor’s new public health emergency order and mask mandate. https://twitter.com/MollyBeck/status/1357447969188974592
And secondly, they decided to double down—and take an actually-decent compromise COVID bill that the Gov and state Senate Republicans had negotiated… and turn it into a poison-pill mess that they knew @GovEvers would veto. https://twitter.com/GovEvers/status/1357765553985880064
In the first pandemic bill that the GOP has moved in more than 3/4 of a year, the Republicans inserted language limiting the Governor’s emergency powers and handing themselves control of any federal funds related to COVID-19.
This isn’t governing. It’s legislative vandalism. https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/tony-evers-to-veto-gop-authored-covid-19-legislation/article_0c2ff19f-78c3-5ef5-a987-80b97a62826a.html
Governor Evers is right to veto this bill—but the fact that the GOP had the nerve to pass it, after having worked for so long on a compromise and then tossing it, is an almost impressive level of bad faith.
This anti-health extremism is ultimately an illustration of the lethal effects of GOP gerrymandering in Wisconsin. When politicians choose their voters, and not the other way around, a national emergency can go really, really wrong. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/gerrymandering-meets-coronavirus-wisconsin
Because Wisconsin voters rose up in 2018 to beat Scott Walker and elect Tony Evers, and because we blocked GOP supermajorities in the state legislature in 2020, Republicans won’t be able to draw their own maps in 2021. It’s time for #FairMaps.
The @WisDems will continue to organize year-round to win fair maps in 2021. And, critically, we then have to ensure the Republicans don’t win a trifecta, or legislative supermajorities, in 2022. Gov Evers’ veto pen is democracy’s shield in the tipping-point state.
If the GOP gets total control here in 2022, they’ll pass voter suppression laws in 2023 to tip the presidential election in 2024. The life-or-death stakes of keeping the GOP out of power are vividly on display here today, as they have been nationally for four years.
To address the COVID-19 crisis and so many others, we have to address the crisis of democracy in Wisconsin. Be a part of it. Sign up as a monthly donor here to sustain year-round organizing: https://wisdems.org/monthly
Wisconsin has elections coming up this spring! The primary is Feb 16, and general election is April 6. Help us remind voters to re-register for absentee ballots or register for the first time. Sign up as a volunteer here: https://secure.ngpvan.com/p/eh27mPeAy0yBnwRITDcVig2
And if you live in Wisconsin, this is the perfect time to become active in your local county party—especially before the local elections in your community this spring. Find your local county party leaders and meetings on this page: https://wisdems.org/our-party/more/county-parties/
