Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, is pressuring Congress “to pass legislation protecting against both voter suppression and election subversion.”
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A letter issued Monday by Kaul and 21 other Democrat attorneys general was delivered to House and Senate leaders, asking them to take action to subvert Republican-led efforts that would make it tougher to vote under the auspices of election security.
The letter encouraged Democrats to work to consider undoing the controversial Senate filibuster in order to pass legislation. The filibuster is a Senate rule that allows 40 senators to effectively block legislation, even if that legislation has a simple majority’s support that would otherwise allow it to pass.
A prior Democrat-led effort — known as the “For The People Act” or “H.R. 1” — fell short earlier this year under the Senate filibuster. Many Republicans felt it went too far by limiting states’ abilities to govern their own elections. Democrats said it was necessary, as it would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts and bring transparency to the current campaign finance system that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll political causes.
The letter
Trump
Arguments contained within the letter are two-pronged, focusing first on efforts by then-President Donald Trump to call the results of the 2020 election that he lost into question in order to retain his seat in the White House, secondly on laws Republicans are pushing for that conservatives say will make it tougher for illegal votes to slip through the cracks (even though instances of such are few) but Democrats say are geared to make it tougher for certain groups (primarily minorities and those of little means) to vote.
Kaul is one of four attorneys general to sign the letter from states specifically targeted by President Donald Trump’s doomed attempts to overturn the 2020 election results with unfounded claims of fraud — the other three being Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein.
Hand recounts of absentee votes in Democrat-leaning Milwaukee and Dane counties affirmed President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin.
The two-page letter from the attorneys general to bipartisan House and Senate leaders opens by stating “Following the 2020 presidential election, we witnessed something many of us considered unthinkable: An attempt by the then-sitting President of the United States, assisted by certain state elected officials, to steal a presidential election.
“We, the undersigned 22 attorneys general, write to emphasize that the peril to our democracy did not end on Inauguration Day, with the transfer of power from one administration to another. To safeguard our democracy, it is vital that Congress act promptly — including, if necessary, to reform the filibuster — to pass legislation protecting against both voter suppression and election subversion.”
The letter further stated that “the attack on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, while dangerous, was inept.
“Without new federal legislation strengthening protections for voting rights and preventing election subversion, we cannot confidently rely on these factors to protect the will of the voters in future elections, especially since the legal environment is growing more hostile to free and fair elections. Several states have passed laws that create new barriers to voting or make it easier to overturn election results.”
The letter then cited a report from the Brennan Center for Justice that found “Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote. These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult, impose harsher voter ID requirements, and make faulty voter purges more likely.”
The panel investigating January 6 is likely to seek subpoenas for several Republicans who communicated with former President Trump the day of the riot.Among them is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim Jordan.Republican Sen. Susan Collins says there’s no doubt in her mind that Trump incited the insurrection, but she says this panel is not the way to go about investigating the events of that day.”I fought very hard to have an independent, bipartisan, non-partisan outside commission to look at all of the events of that day,” Collins said. “And I’m very disappointed that it was not approved.”SEE MORE: Officers Testify At First Hearing Of The House Jan. 6 InvestigationAs far as a testimony from Trump himself, Rep. Adam Kinzinger one of two Republicans on the panel says instead of a subpoena for the former president, it’s better to talk to one of his allies.”We may not even have to talk to Donald Trump to get the information,” Kinzinger said. “There were tons of people around him. There were tons of people involved in the things that led up to January 6.”The next hearing could take place this month.
Other efforts
A so-called “forensic audit” remains underway in Arizona, called for by the state’s Republican legislature even as local Maricopa County officials are beginning to resist the effort.
A fringe group of vocal conservatives led by former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has been pushing the Wisconsin Legislature’s Republican leadership to do the same, although Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has shown no interest in going that far.
Gableman
Retired Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, appointed by Vos to lead an election review, said in a TV interview Sunday that investigations of Wisconsin’s 2020 election are warranted.
Gableman told WISN-TV his review would focus on three issues, including how the voting machines work; grants that certain Wisconsin cities, including the City of Racine, received from a nonprofit funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; and legal concerns about guidance issued by the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Gableman’s impartiality have been called into question, however. In November 2020, Gableman attended a pro-Trump rally and said a stolen election would be “systematically unjust.” He defended his comments to WISN-TV, arguing he didn’t say the election was stolen, though he acknowledged that “most of the attendees there had a particular viewpoint.”
On Tuesday, during a listening session at Gateway Technical College in Racine, U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican from Janesville whose district all of Racine and Kenosha counties, repeated the Republican slogan that he wants it to “be easy to vote, hard to cheat.”
The Associated Press and Lauren Henning of The Journal Times contributed to this report.
