Category: Wisconsin politics

Molly Beck:

Two conservative lawmakers are warning of “civil disobedience” and “revolt” against restrictions imposed by Gov. Tony Evers’ administration to curb the spread of coronavirus — comments the governor suggested could damage the state’s effort to contain the virus.

State Sens. Steve Nass of Whitewater and Duey Stroebel of the Town of Cedarburg said Friday the latest order by Evers to close dozens of state parks could result in significant pushback if Evers’ orders to stay at home, which have closed scores of businesses, bars and restaurants, continue. 

Both also suggested it’s unfair that public employees are not being subject to pay cuts as owners and employees of private companies are losing work — an idea Evers also rejected Friday. 

“I hope the Governor and other officials in the administration understand the closing of 40 state parks for dubious reasoning at best is only one flashpoint in a growing revolt to how the Covid-19 response has been handled in Wisconsin,” Nass wrote in an email to Evers’ legislative liaison.

“This week has been a turning point in how the public now views some of the decisions made by this administration under the Governor’s Emergency Declaration and the uneven exercise of those emergency powers,” he said. 

Evers suggested Friday the comments from Nass and Stroebel could create more division and take focus off keeping people healthy. 

“C’mon folks, the rhetoric around this topic is escalating in a direction that is not helpful,” he told reporters Friday. “We hope we can continue to defeat the virus instead of defeating each other.” 

Some Wisconsin Republicans have questioned whether Evers’ decision to close schools, bars, restaurants, and other businesses not considered to be providing essential services, was necessary given the number of cases of the virus in Wisconsin. 

Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm said without the Evers administration’s order to stay at home, the agency projected cases of the virus to be 22,000 as of this week. As of Friday, there are 3,068 cases in the state.

Palm said the number of cases is directly related to the restrictions.

“Until we have a vaccine, or until we have medical intervention … we are going to have to very actively manage this outbreak and safer at home (order) is the current tool we are using,” Palm told reporters Friday.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Friday “most of the country” will not be able to reopen by May 1, despite suggestions from some Trump administration officials that next month may be a time to revisit strict social distancing guidelines. 

And projections by the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services show lifting stay-at-home orders, school closures and social distancing restrictions after 30 days would lead to a dramatic infection spike this summer and death tolls that would rival doing nothing, according to a New York Times report. 

Stroebel said Evers’ orders should be re-evaluated and involve a “cost/benefit analysis.”

“Every sickness and death is a tragedy, but so are businesses and livelihoods ruined by shelter in place orders,” he said in a statement. “Besides being counterproductive, indefinite sheltering orders will eventually lead to civil disobedience.” 

Stroebel also raised alarm bells about the state’s finances, saying the promises of the current state budget— which provides funding through 2021 — won’t be able to be kept under the current economy. He and Nass pointed out in their statements public employees haven’t been subject to pay cuts like others.

“It is irresponsible to conceal the truth from Wisconsinites that we will likely be unable to live up to all the promises of the current state budget,” he said. “I am not going to tell constituents, who are losing their businesses, getting laid off and seeing their nest eggs dip with the stock market to pay higher taxes so that state and local employees can avoid unpaid furloughs, or so that government programs can grow at twice the rate of inflation.”

When asked whether he would consider imposing pay cuts for public employees, Evers said the idea was insulting to public workers. 

“The tens of thousands of state employees who are doing work for the state of Wisconsin are doing essential work,” Evers said, citing examples of workers processing unemployment claims, working in long-term care facilities for military veterans and overseeing state prisons. “To suggest that somehow state employees are not valued … I value them and the people of Wisconsin value them.”

Dan O’Donnell:

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers is outraged.  Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is outraged.  Pretty much every Democrat in the state and thousands more following the ongoing saga of Wisconsin’s Spring Election are outraged.  How dare Republicans endanger lives by holding in-person voting in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic!  How dare they force Wisconsinites to take their lives into their hands! How dare they…publicly say for weeks that the election must go on as scheduled and then abruptly reverse course only when members of their own party revolted against them a few days go?

They didn’t.  Governor Evers did.  And then he began disingenuously blaming Republicans in the Legislature for his own fecklessness.

On March 17th, the day after he issued an executive order banning public gatherings of more than ten people, he explicitly stated that he did not want to postpone the election.

“How long do we potentially leave offices not filled because we’re into July or August and we haven’t held a general election?” he rhetorically asked during a conference call with reporters.

“Moving this date is not going to solve the problem,” Evers told the Associated Press three days later. “We could move it to June, it could be worse in June. It could be worse in May.”

“Ensuring the health and safety of Wisconsinites is our top priority,” his spokeswoman added, “but the governor has said repeatedly that our democracy must continue.”

The same day, Evers issued a second executive order adding “any location or facility used as a polling location or in-person absentee voting” to the list of essential businesses that would remain open.

Even after he issued a “Safer at Home” order all but shutting down Wisconsin the following Tuesday, Evers refused to postpone the election.

A few days later, when a liberal group sued the state seeking a delay or cancellation of in-person voting, Evers even submitted a “friend of the court” brief in which he argued that “ultimately, a predominantly-by-mail election, with limited but available in-person voting, would be an achievable middle ground that would help protect Wisconsinites’ right to vote, while also helping to keep them safe.”

Only when POLITICO ran an article deeply critical of Evers’ obstinate refusal to postpone the election, the rest of the national media started piling on, and absentee ballot returns from heavily conservative counties started to flood in did he abruptly change course…five days before Election Day.

Nothing medically had changed.  The virus wasn’t spreading any more rapidly than it was the day before, voting wasn’t any more dangerous than it had been, but Evers decided to deflect the blame to the Republican Legislature.

“If the governor had legitimate concerns, we could have come to a bipartisan solution weeks ago,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said in a joint statement on Friday.  “This discussion would have happened long before today. The only bipartisan discussion we’ve had was to ensure the election would continue safely and to maximize the opportunity to vote absentee.”

Vos and Fitzgerald were open to postponing the election when Evers first started shutting down the state, but Evers refused to discuss the possibility.  He was resolute in his decision to push forward.

Until, in an instant, he wasn’t.  Then he was outraged, outraged that Republicans weren’t as caring and compassionate as he suddenly was.  So outraged, in fact, that he felt as though he had no choice but to issue an executive order the day before the election postponing the vote for two full months.

“I cannot in good conscience stand by and do nothing,” Evers said in a news release announcing the order.  “The bottom line is that I have an obligation to keep people safe, and that’s why I signed this executive order today.”

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck that order down a few hours later, Evers laid on the faux outrage even more thickly.

“Tomorrow in Wisconsin,” he said in a news release, “thousands will wake up and have to choose between exercising their right to vote and staying healthy and safe. In this time of historic crisis, it is a shame that two branches of government in this state chose to pass the buck instead of taking responsibility for the health and safety of the people we were elected to serve.”

In reality, the Wisconsin Supreme Court simply ruled that Governor Evers did not have the authority to unilaterally delay an election.  And guess who agreed with them? Governor Evers, several days before he decided that he was outraged by it.

“We have three branches of government to ensure a system of checks and balances, and questions about our elections typically rely on all three playing a role,” he had tweeted on April First.  “If I could have changed the election on my own I would have but I can’t without violating state law.”

“Folks, I can’t do this, move this election or change the rules on my own,” he added in a videotaped address two days later.  “My hands are tied.”

The Supreme Court merely agreed with him, but now Evers is outraged that it did.

His faux outrage pales in comparison to that of his fellow Democrats, though, who have been working for days to convince Americans that Wisconsin Republicans—not Governor Evers—had insisted on holding the election amid the pandemic.

“Today, Wisconsin voters had to choose between making their voice heard and keeping themselves and their family safe,” tweeted former First Lady Michelle Obama.  “No American should ever have to make that choice.”

“Voters Forced to Choose between Their Health and Their Civic Duty” screamed a headline in The New York Times.

“No one should have to make a choice between exercising their right to vote and staying safe during a public health crisis,” tweeted New Jersey Senator and former presidential candidate Cory Booker.

“This was a dark day for our democracy,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.  “In the middle of one of the worst public health emergencies in modern history, the Republican Party forced the people of Wisconsin to choose between their safety and their vote.”

Of course, no one did—at least no more than they have when they have gone to a supermarket to buy groceries, a liquor store to buy booze (since Evers allowed liquor stores to stay open), a sporting goods store to buy a basketball (since Evers allowed sporting goods stores to stay open), or a custard stand to buy a chocolate malt (yup, Evers even allowed them to stay open, too).

Voting is the only one of these activities that is a sacred right that Evers himself said “people have bled, fought, and died for…in this country.”  If Coronavirus didn’t delay Wisconsinites’ ability to buy sporting goods, then why should it delay their right to vote?

No one was more hysterical in promoting the idea that Republicans were forcing voters to gamble with their lives than Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (who is on the ballot facing re-election).

“Under the present circumstances, in-person voting, particularly with lines of people, is simply not safe, feasible, or responsible,” he wrote in an open letter to the Wisconsin Legislature on March 24th. “In good conscience I would not ask one of my loved ones to sit in a room for hours greeting dozens of people during this pandemic. I can’t expect citizens of my city to do that either.”

On Wednesday, he said during a conference call with reporters that it was flat out dangerous to vote in person.

“I don’t think that it’s good public policy, I think it’s dangerous during a pandemic,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted him as saying. “And I hope that people do not go to the polls on Tuesday. As much as I want them to vote, I do not want them to put their lives in jeopardy, I don’t want them to put the health and safety of our poll workers in jeopardy.”

On Sunday, Barrett was so outraged that people would have to quite literally risk their lives to cast a ballot that he joined with other liberal mayors in Wisconsin to write a letter urging Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm to ban in-person voting.

“We need you to step up and stop the State of Wisconsin from putting hundreds of thousands of citizens at risk by requiring them to vote at the polls while this ugly pandemic spreads,” they wrote.  “We believe it would be irresponsible and contrary to public health to conduct in-person voting throughout the state at the very time this disease is spreading rapidly.”

So outraged was Barrett that people would spread the disease even more rapidly by voting in person that he…voted in person himself.

On Saturday, the day before the letter was released to the public and after nearly two full weeks of Barrett venting his outrage over the specter of in-person voting, he cast his ballot in person at the Washington Park Library.

So unconcerned with the grave danger to his health and the health of the poll workers with whom he was coming into contact that Barrett didn’t bother to wear a mask, gloves, or any personal protective equipment at all.

Even though he had just ended 14 days of self-quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for Coronavirus, Barrett’s very first public action was to engage in the very behavior that he claimed was simply too risky for others.

His outrage over in-person voting was thus revealed to be rather obviously phony.  It was, however, perfectly in line with the shameless political opportunism of his party.  Democrats were perfectly fine with in-person voting for weeks when Evers insisted on it, and only shrieked about how dangerous it supposedly was when they could blame Republicans for it.

This is demonstrably transparent, and as disingenuous as it is cynical.  If Democrats were really as concerned as they pretend to be about in-person voting spreading Coronavirus more acutely than an average Walmart, they would have criticized Barrett for voting in person and then holding a press conference at his polling place.

They were silent.

If Barrett really believed as surely as he pretended to that in-person voting was dangerous, he wouldn’t have done it himself (and certainly wouldn’t alert the press that he was going to do it).

It was all faux outrage, all of it.  And it was all pre-packaged, weaponized against Republicans, amplified by a friendly media, and passed off to the public as genuine concern.

This may have been an unprecedented Spring Election in Wisconsin, but for Democrats, it was business as usual.

The Wall Street Journal writes an editorial that the Wisconsin State Journal should have, but didn’t:

Wisconsin held its election Tuesday on schedule despite coronavirus, and Democrats are blaming the Supreme Court for endangering public health. That’s not what happened. On Monday night the Justices rightly reversed a district judge’s last-minute order that would have allowed Wisconsin ballots to be cast after the election was legally over. The confusing episode is a reminder that, even in a pandemic, steps as grave as rewriting voting rules should be up to elected representatives and not freelanced by judges.

Wisconsin planned to mitigate the coronavirus threat with a large increase in vote-by-mail so fewer people would need to leave their homes. The Democratic National Committee sued to force the delay of the election outright.

Last Thursday a federal judge denied that extreme request but said vote-by-mail needed to be extended. Instead of receiving ballots by April 7, he said, clerks needed to count any ballots received by next Monday, April 13. After apparently realizing that this could distort the electoral process by allowing Tuesday’s reported results to influence votes, the judge issued another order banning the state elections board from reporting any results before April 13.

The Republican National Committee asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, and five Justices agreed that the district judge was outside his authority. His remedy would “fundamentally alter the nature of the election by allowing voting for six additional days after the election,” they wrote in an unsigned opinion. By trying to muzzle election results, they added, “the District Court in essence enjoined non-parties to this lawsuit.”

The Supreme Court decision came an hour after the Wisconsin Supreme Court swatted aside Gov. Tony Evers’s effort to unilaterally postpone the election. Through March, Mr. Evers, a Democrat, had indicated the election should proceed and issued an executive order exempting polling places from his mass-gathering ban.

Yet liberal pressure built in recent days and on Monday Mr. Evers tried using his emergency powers to call off the next day’s voting. The state’s Supreme Court ruled 4-2 that he didn’t have that power—election law would need to be changed by the legislature (though in other states Governors’ emergency powers are broader). And so voting went ahead, with long lines at socially distanced polling places and a surge in absentee ballots—more than a million compared to less than a quarter million in 2016.

More than a dozen states have postponed their spring primary elections because of the virus. Yet Wisconsin’s election is more consequential than the all-but-finished Biden-Sanders primary that is the main item on the ballot in many states. A state Supreme Court seat and criminal-justice referendum are both contested. Postponing it by months could require altering the duration of elected officials’ terms.

Republicans in the Legislature didn’t show interest in postponing the election, but neither did Mr. Evers until recently. If voters are disappointed, they can hold legislators accountable in November or boot Mr. Evers in 2022.

The pandemic has disrupted much of American life and voting is no exception. But both the district judge’s jury-rigged order and Mr. Evers’s last minute 180-turn under political pressure set a bad precedent. This virus will be here for some time, and people in different states need to deal with it through the democratic process. Americans have already temporarily lost some of our freedom and we shouldn’t also toss out the rule of law.

Rick Esenberg:

A few observations on the election mess here in Wisconsin:

There is reason to be concerned about in-person voting but it’s not clear how much risk voting will actually present. Much of the rhetoric assumes that voters and poll workers will be facing the equivalent of a free fire zone. That’s understandable. Fear of the virus has lead all of us to feel that it is everywhere. But it’s not true. Unless the virus is largely asymptomatic or causes only mild illness, very few people are infected. There some risk in going anywhere but we’ve decided that risk is worth assuming for a variety of reasons. It’s not clear that the line must stop before voting. It is not clear that the polling places will – or have to be – more crowded than the Sendik’s grocery store I was in twice this week in which it was impossible to maintain social distancing. On the one hand, I have rarely been in a polling place for a spring election that has as many people as the typical grocery store has had during the past week. On the other hand, consolidation of polling places will presumably result in more traffic at each one. How much is unclear. Absentee ballot requests are approaching the average turnout in a typical spring election. While presidential preference primaries increase turnout, I don’t know how likely that is given that the Democrats’ race is over and there seems to be no campaign here. Having in-person voting clearly involves contact without social distancing. How much more is unclear. I guess we’ll see.

Having said that, a reasonable case could be made for a delay (although there are some problems with that case). The problem is that changing the rules in midstream is likely to disadvantage one side or the other. Republicans don’t want to go all-mail voting because they seem to believe that their voters are less likely to vote by mail and because they are concerned about voter fraud. Absentee voting creates more opportunities for fraud, particularly if not accompanied by appropriate safeguards – which the Democrats have been seeking to remove. Democrats, on the other hand, are concerned that fear of the virus is strongest in places where they are strong and that are concerned that ballot security measures discourage their voters who they believe will not or cannot navigate them. Our current election rules are a product of where the conflict between those competing views has come out. Using the virus as a way to adjust the balance that current law reflects was always going to assure that no change in the election could take place. If Democrats and Republicans wanted to delay the election, they should have agreed to do that and only that. They should have agreed that the election would be held in, say, early June without changing any other aspect of the law including the opportunity for in-person voting. Since there was apparently no appetite for that on either side – or guarantee that the situation in June would be much different, it didn’t happen.

But a delay would have presented problems. Many local offices have terms expiring in April. While the legislature could have extended the terms, it could not create incumbents to hold over where such incumbents did not exist. Legislators could hope that, for example, Chris Abele would stay on as County Executive in Milwaukee, but could not make him do it. Delaying the election was going to create vacancies during a challenging time for local government. In addition, asking local units of government to safeguard a million ballots for two months without having them misplaced, mishandled or tampered with may have been too much to expect.

The order entered by Judge Conley on Thursday accomplishes a de facto extension of the election by enjoining the requirement in state law that absentee ballots be received by 8 pm on Tuesday while not requiring that they be postmarked by election day. This extends the voting by a week, making election day April 13 for those who requested absentee ballots. While he later amended the order to prevent WEC from disclosing unofficial results, it does appear to apply to everyone who will be privy to them and, of course, will not prevent them from leaking. We are now looking at a situation where both sides will ballot harvest after voting is over and may know what they “need.” Information regarding who has returned a ballot may not be uniformly available. If the election is close, litigation – and suspicion – may break out all over.

May?

Politico Thursday:

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ refusal to push for a delay of his state’s Tuesday primary has infuriated fellow Democrats in the state, who are now openly accusing him of failing to prevent an impending train wreck.

As the nation hurtles toward 5,000 coronavirus deaths and governors across the country take extreme steps to keep people at home, Wisconsin is forging ahead with the election despite having its own stay-at-home order. The likely outcome is that Wisconsinites will wake up on election day being told to stay put at the same time they’re greenlighted to head to crowded polling sites.

Other Democrats in the state say the conflicting signals will disenfranchise voters. Already, the sanctity of the vote has been called into question by snafus with early voting: In Milwaukee, some voting sites were closed for a period of the designated voting before being reopened.

“There’s this enormous conflict between what we need to do in a democracy in the midst of a pandemic. You can’t have a stay-at-home order but then tell millions of people to go stand in line and congregate near one another across the state,” said Racine Mayor Cory Mason. “Having an election in the middle of a stay-at-home order makes no sense. It did not have to be this way.”

The intraparty conflict in Wisconsin is a bad look in a state that’s central to the party’s hopes of beating President Donald Trump in November. It also doesn’t bode well for a unified message in the run-up to the Democratic convention in Milwaukee, an event that was just pushed back a month to August.

While Democrats across Wisconsin have called for postponing the election, pointing to health concerns and the inability to staff polling sites, Evers has cited his limited authority to impose a delay against Republican resistance in the Legislature.

Evers has advocated that residents vote by mail and called on lawmakers to ease up on election day requirements to allow more flexibility on when ballots could be turned in and counted.

On Thursday, a federal judge provided some relief. While refusing to move the primary, U.S. District Judge William Conley extended the deadline by one day to request absentee ballots and is allowing voters six additional days after Election Day to return them. Conley in a Wednesday ruling said his hands were tied to postpone the election and called out both Evers and the legislature for not taking the action themselves.

David Fladeboe:

Wisconsin, like the rest of the nation, is facing an unprecedented crisis as we battle COVID-19. With large swaths of the economy shut down or reduced to fight the pandemic, governments at all levels are working to address the fallout. Now that Congress has passed a series of bills to address the emergency, Wisconsin lawmakers are considering next steps.

Gov. Tony Evers released proposed legislation at the end of March and asked legislators to act quickly. While the Badger Institute has already pointed out positive policy prescriptions in his executive orders and proposed legislation, Wisconsin lawmakers need to ensure that the cure isn’t worse than the disease.

Below are a series of guiding principles that should act as a framework for the coming Extraordinary Session of the Legislature.

First, lawmakers should hesitate to take any actions that grow the size and scope of government permanently. Ongoing appropriations, permanent full-time equivalent positions and new layers of red tape should be avoided at all costs.

While the structures of government can help fight a crisis, policymakers need to avoid new layers of bureaucracy that can be just as damaging to public and economic wellbeing. Numerous states and the federal government have been relaxing requirements, regulations and licensing complications to help combat the coronavirus, and these efforts should be continued. Too often the tool created to help serves only to tie our hands in the future.

Next, elected officials need to be careful not to create a long-lasting, one-size-fits-all solution for future health emergencies. Recent policy statements from Wisconsin lawmakers indicate a desire to extend changes made to fight COVID-19 to future crises. But each challenge brings its own unanticipated difficulties, requiring unique approaches and tools.

Future policymakers, communities, businesses and residents will need the flexibility to respond to emergency situations without encountering rigid, imposed “solutions” that could make problems worse. Be wary of policies that automatically trigger the next time an emergency is declared.

Finally, don’t plunge the state into a sea of debt that might make matters worse over the long term. Responsible policies contributed to a state budget surplus that has helped soften the blow of this economic crisis. We need to maintain sound economic thinking and fiscal prudence while supporting those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. New spending must be weighed against the reality that tax revenues are going to be down sharply in 2020 and possibly beyond.

The Badger Institute estimates that Wisconsin could face a $100 million deficit in the transportation budget alone due to a decrease in gas tax collections. Reductions in sales and income tax revenues could be even more severe. Wisconsin’s economy will recover, but before we know the true cost and recovery curve, legislators need to be cautious about signing a check they can’t cash. The empty promises of a bankrupt government won’t help anyone.

If lawmakers keep in mind the long-term consequences of their actions, they can help Wisconsin navigate this storm. Significant policy reforms will be needed, but they can’t come at the expense of our future. A lot of damage already has been done to try to stop the spread of COVID-19; now is our opportunity to stem the tide and prepare ourselves for a vibrant and lasting recovery.

Dan O’Donnell:

Great leaders aren’t born; they’re made—forged by the moments that end up defining them.The greatest crises, then, the most challenging moments, can make the greatest leaders.But what if the greatest crisis is one of leadership?

Sadly, Wisconsin is finding out.To say that Governor Evers has failed to meet his moment would be a gross understatement, and his failure won’t just define him; it has already consumed him.If great leaders rise to the greatest challenges, Evers has shrunk smaller than any point of his governorship.

His dithering or outright dishonesty about whether he would issue an order effectively shutting down Wisconsin lulled the state into a false sense of security in its way of life before his sudden about-face on Monday morning whipped millions of his constituents into a state of abject panic.

Would they be able to go to work the next day?Would their business have to be closed…maybe for good?With a brief, detail-free Twitter thread announcing his intention to issue what he cryptically termed a “Safer at Home” order the next day, Evers touched off hours of uncertainty.

With a shaky, confused press conference Monday afternoon, Evers touched off a growing belief that he himself wasn’t sure what his order would include.Which businesses were “essential” and which were “non-essential?”Evers wasn’t specific.What made him change his mind so quickly and issue an order three days after assuring the state that he wouldn’t?Evers didn’t say.How would that order prevent the spread of Coronavirus in a way that his previous order banning public gatherings of ten people or more would not?Evers wasn’t exactly sure.When would conditions improve to the point that the order could be lifted?Evers just sort of shrugged.

Worse yet, a thoroughly confused public couldn’t contact its state representatives for clarification because, well, the Legislature learned about Evers’ order when the public did and received no more clarity.

“The governor’s executive order came as a surprise to the Legislature,” Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a statement.“It was a complete reversal from his repeated assurances. It should be noted that legislative leaders have asked on a daily basis whether or not this was the direction the governor was headed, and we were told it was not.

“The governor’s sudden change of course and lack of specific guidance have increased the level of uncertainty and anxiety in our state. The people of Wisconsin deserve clear communications during a public health emergency.”

They have gotten anything but.

Even after Evers’ order was officially issued on Tuesday morning, confusion abounded and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation was flooded with calls from business owners big and small wondering whether they would need to close for the next month.

As bad as the lack of clarity and communication have been, however, the Evers order’s draconian crackdown on individual liberty was far worse.

“All public and private gatherings of any number of people that are not part of a single household or living unit are prohibited,” states the order, which makes violations “punishable by up to 30 days imprisonment, or up to $250 fine, or both.”

Shockingly, this makes family get-togethers with Grandma and Grandpa punishable by jail time.First Amendment protections of freedom of association could not possibly be any more infringed upon.For the next month, Wisconsinites are not free to associate with anyone outside of their households.

And they can forget about freely exercising religion, because “religious facilities, entities, groups, and gatherings, and weddings and funerals…shall include fewer than 10 people in a room or confined space at a time.”

The rights of the free exercise of religion and of association are among the most basic of American society, while the ability of the individual to use private property, to own and maintain private enterprise, and to move freely have become nearly unanimously accepted as necessary to preserve a free society.

Never before in Wisconsin’s history have such freedoms been so dramatically curtailed, and never before has Wisconsin’s leadership been so unable to explain why.

Inasmuch as Wisconsin now faces a crisis, it is a crisis of leadership. Real leaders rise to meet the moment with poise and confidence, honestly communicate a clear vision, and boldly enact a plan that provides for the safety of the collective while upholding the rights of the individual.

Evers has done none of this.His moment has met him, and he has proven himself wholly unprepared for it.

The problem with O’Donnell’s thesis is that O’Donnell assumes that Evers is actually the governor of Wisconsin.

The actual governor of this state appears to be Maggie Gau, Evers’ chief of staff and apparently chief thinker, profiled by The Cap Times a year ago: