"In much of Wisconsin, 'Madison and Milwaukee' are code words (to some, dog whistles) for the parts of the state that are nonwhite, elite, different..."

"... The cities are where people don’t have to work hard with their hands, because they’re collecting welfare or public-sector paychecks. That stereotype updates a very old idea in American politics, one pervading Wisconsin’s bitter Statehouse fights today and increasingly those in other states: Urban voters are an exception. If you discount them, you get a truer picture of the politics — and the will of voters — in a state. Thomas Jefferson believed as much — 'the mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government,' he wrote, 'as sores do to the strength of the human body.' Wisconsin Republicans amplified that idea this week, arguing that the legislature is the more representative branch of government, and then voting to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor. The legislature speaks for the people in all corners of the state, they seemed to be saying, and statewide offices like governor merely reflect the will of those urban mobs. 'State legislators are the closest to those we represent,' Scott Fitzgerald, the majority leader in the Wisconsin Senate, said in a statement after Republicans voted on the changes before dawn on Wednesday. They’re the ones who hold town hall meetings, who listen directly to constituents across the state. Legislators should stand, he said, 'on equal footing with an incoming administration that is based almost solely in Madison.'"

So writes Emily Badger in "Are Rural Voters the ‘Real’ Voters? Wisconsin Republicans Seem to Think So/A last-minute power grab by state lawmakers draws on an argument as old as the nation."

You see what she did there? Fitzgerald spoke of Madison, not because of the "urban" people of this city, but because it's the state capital, full of government workers. He was making an argument for rebalancing government with more weight in the legislative branch. Of course, he likes that now, because his party will continue to hold the legislative branch of state government, while the other party is taking over the executive branch after 8 years of the GOP's holding both branches. And it's fine to criticize that.

But it's a real twist to turn that into a RACIAL argument. Even if Fitzgerald were talking about the general population of Madison — as opposed to the government workers (the "incoming administration that is based almost solely in Madison") — he wouldn't be talking about RACIAL minorities. Emily Badger is a great name for someone who knows a lot about Madison, but did she even bother to look up the demographics before she lobbed her accusation of racism? Madison is overwhelmingly white — 78.9% White, 7.3% African American.

Badger seems to know she stretching it, because she adds:

Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Statehouse, drew this distinction even more explicitly after the midterm election.

“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” he said. “We would have all five constitutional officers and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature.”

What you have to click on the link to see is that the Vos quote was reported on November 8th, just after the election, and he was addressing the question of why the statewide elections went Democratic when the legislative majority came out Republican. There's a big lawsuit about gerrymandering in Wisconsin, and the Republican explanation for the way things are is that people who vote Democratic live in the geographically concentrated places, Milwaukee and Madison.

Even that wasn't calling city people a "mob" that can't be trusted with government! Vos was talking about the election results, not justifying the legislation that's been going on in Wisconsin this past week, and it's deceptive to use his quote for that purpose. How hard did Badger look for support for her theory before stooping to taking the Vos quote out of context? I assume she looked pretty hard, so using that quote — along with Fitzgerald's quote, which is only about Madison — reads like a confession that she couldn't find anything at all.

Ban the ban.

"Wisconsin bill would create ban on plastic bag bans."

GOP lawmakers... are trying to head off any future local initiatives.... Senate Bill 601 would restrict a town, village, city or county from regulating "containers" made of plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and glass. This would prohibit a community from regulating single use bags at retail locations, including restaurants. Communities also could not impose fees or surcharges on plastic bags and containers....

"Open Records Law in Peril in Wisconsin."

Video from the conservative MacIver Institute featuring and agreeing with liberal state senator Jon Erpenbach, who's railing against the change to the open-records law and whom the The MacIver Institute once sued under the open-records law:



I got to that video via my colleague Bonnie Shucha at WisBlawg, who writes:

Late last night, Wisconsin’s Joint Committee on Finance passed a motion (motion #999) to the Wisconsin state budget that would exempt “deliberative materials” like legislative drafting records and legislative briefings from Wisconsin’s open records laws....

Drafting records are used frequently by lawyers, journalists, analysts, and by the public to gain insight into the process by which legislation is created, influenced, and passed. Restricting access to this information would fundamentally limit the ability to conduct legislative research in Wisconsin.

What an embarrassing law change! The vote in the committee was completely on party lines, so Republicans are marking themselves with this.

Speaking of tags — see previous post — this gets my "stupid party" tag (which is not reserved for one party or the other — it goes to any party that is stepping up to distinguish itself as The Stupid Party).

UPDATE: Republicans back down from this folly.

Chris Larson upsets Jon Erpenbach to become the Wisconsin Senate minority leader.

This is very intra-Wisconsin, but you may have seen Instapundit's item "DEMOCRATIC WHITE MALE SENATORS CONSPIRE to block a black woman’s committee chairmanship. In Wisconsin" ... which links to a somewhat abstruse Charlie Sykes piece about state senator Bob Wirch breaking "his promise to vote for Senator Jon Erpenbach" supposedly to get the seat that Lena Taylor would otherwise have on the joint finance committee. (She wouldn't continue as chairwoman, in any case, because her party is going into the minority.)  Taylor is black, and these are all Democrats interacting with each other, which gives the conservative Sykes an opportunity to inflict a little pain.