Wisconsin conservatives cement outsize power in a state that went blue just last year
Wisconsin Democrats’ winning streak abruptly ended this week with a state Supreme Court election that likely means mean Republicans will have outsize power in the state for many years ahead.

On Wednesday, liberal Lisa Neubauer conceded the race for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat to conservative Brian Hagedorn, cementing Republicans’ control of the state’s top court until at least 2023. The outcome of this race is of major consequence to Democratic leaders in the state, who, after ousting Republican Gov. Scott Walker in November in a major victory, saw the state’s Republican legislature strip powers from elected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a lame-duck session.

For the past four months since taking power, Democrats have had to fight in the courts for their right to govern. They’ve had some big wins in the lower courts, but this state Supreme Court race is a major defeat.

In January, a federal judge struck down Wisconsin Republicans’ law restricting early voting, a key component of the bills Walker signed in his last days in office. And in March, a state circuit court judge ruled unconstitutional the laws Republicans passed curbing Evers’s ability to change policies around welfare, health care, and economic development; stripping him of key appointments; and limiting the attorney general’s powers. Republican state leaders promised to appeal the ruling and take it to the state’s Supreme Court, which is now firmly in the hands of conservatives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kansas Republicans are moving to strip Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly of her power to fill vacant state offices.
https://amp.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article229304834.html#click=https://t.co/pdYj2f0w4R

Why do Republican legislatures do this nonsense? They are clearly afraid of having to compromise

Anonymous wrote:Kansas Republicans are moving to strip Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly of her power to fill vacant state offices.
https://amp.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article229304834.html#click=https://t.co/pdYj2f0w4R

Anonymous wrote:Just FOUR DAYS AFTER HIS CONFIRMATION, the Interior Dept IG has opened an investigation into the brand new Secretary. That's a new record, right?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/climate/bernhardt-interior-department-ethics-investigation.html

“Eight senators, all Democrats, and four government ethics watchdog groups have requested that the Interior Department’s inspector general open formal investigations into various aspects of Mr. Bernhardt’s conduct. Among the chief complaints have been allegations, revealed by three separate New York Times investigations, that Mr. Bernhardt used his position to advance a policy pushed by his former lobbying client; that he continued working as a lobbyist after filing legal paperwork declaring that he had ceased lobbying; and that he intervened to block the release of a scientific report showing the harmful effects of a chemical pesticide on certain endangered species.

In a letter sent Monday to the senators who filed the ethics complaints, Mary L. Kendall, the deputy inspector general of the Interior Department, wrote that she had received seven complaints from “a wide assortment of complainants alleging various conflicts of interest and other violations” by Mr. Bernhardt, adding that she had “opened an investigation to address them.”