Scott Walker mingles after the State of the State address on January 24, 2018, in the Assembly Chamber of the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. (AP Photo / Steve Apps)
When a judge ordered Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to stop messing with democracy and arrange for special elections to be held for a pair of vacant state legislative seats, that should have been the end of the governor’s lawless scheme to leave 229,904 people living in those districts unrepresented for almost a full year.
Everyone had figured out what Walker was up to. Fearful that special elections might see Democrats elected in Wisconsin’s historically Republican first State Senate district and its 42nd State Assembly district, Walker had simply refused to call the elections after the seats went vacant last year. The judge said last week that the governor was flat wrong.
Referring to the arguments made by Walker’s lawyers as “inconsistent, incompatible and irreconcilable,” Dane County Circuit Court Judge Josann Reynolds explained: “To state the obvious, if the plaintiffs have a right to vote for their representatives, they must have an election to do so.”
The judge ordered the governor to call the special elections by noon of Thursday of this week. Walker asked for a delay until April 6—as part of a plan to have the legislature intervene and rewrite the law regarding special elections.
The request for the delay was denied on Tuesday.
But the governor and his legislative allies are not giving up, and that has created a chaotic circumstance in Wisconsin.
Walker and Republican leaders in the legislature are still looking for ways to avoid following the existing law. On Tuesday, they announced a plan to rewrite state statutes so that governors would no longer be required to call special elections to fill legislative vacancies “as promptly as possible.” Under the Republican rewrite of the statutes that was unveiled Tuesday, legislative vacancies occurring after early December of odd-numbered years could be left unfilled until the regular November election of the following year.
This legally-dubious attempt to overturn a judge’s order by writing a new law would radically alter rules that have been in place for decades—and in some cases more than a century—for holding prompt special elections. Yet, Republican legislative leaders plan to call an extraordinary special session April 4 to pass the legislation, and Walker says he will sign it immediately. Then, if the special elections have been called by the governor in order to a contempt of court ruling, Walker allies suggest, the governor will then cancel them.
The rush to enact the new law was decried by state Representative David Bowen, a Milwaukee Democrat who has been a sharp critic of the governor’s anti-democratic tactics.
“Wisconsinites have seen first-hand the inability of this governor and legislature to respond to the needs of Wisconsinites. From Republicans voting unanimously against universal gun background checks, to taking the better part of a decade to finally listen to Democrats and close (a troubled youth prison), responsiveness to glaring issues is not something this governor and legislature are known for,” complained Bowen. “Yet, when the greatest fear Republicans have in 2018—the electorate—presented itself, it was with swift determination that the governor and Republicans faced the problem head on. A problem so big, they decided, that an extraordinary session of the legislature was justified to make sure these Wisconsin taxpayers don’t have a chance at the representation they deserve.”
It is not merely the rush to enact the measure, which will almost certainly be challenged in the courts, that is troubling. It is the governor’s determination to deny Wisconsinite’s representation, as Democratic legislators and public-interest groups have noted.
I know that many important organizations are asking you to donate today, but this year especially, The Nation needs your support.
Over the course of 2025, the Trump administration has presided over a government designed to chill activism and dissent.
The Nation experienced its efforts to destroy press freedom firsthand in September, when Vice President JD Vance attacked our magazine. Vance was following Donald Trump’s lead—waging war on the media through a series of lawsuits against publications and broadcasters, all intended to intimidate those speaking truth to power.
The Nation will never yield to these menacing currents. We have survived for 160 years and we will continue challenging new forms of intimidation, just as we refused to bow to McCarthyism seven decades ago. But in this frightening media environment, we’re relying on you to help us fund journalism that effectively challenges Trump’s crude authoritarianism.
For today only, a generous donor is matching all gifts to The Nation up to $25,000. If we hit our goal this Giving Tuesday, that’s $50,000 for journalism with a sense of urgency.
With your support, we’ll continue to publish investigations that expose the administration’s corruption, analysis that sounds the alarm on AI’s unregulated capture of the military, and profiles of the inspiring stories of people who successfully take on the ICE terror machine.
We’ll also introduce you to the new faces and ideas in this progressive moment, just like we did with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. We will always believe that a more just tomorrow is in our power today.
Please, don’t miss this chance to double your impact. Donate to The Nation today.
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and publisher, The Nation
“The Republican-led efforts to prevent court-ordered special elections from being held is the height of corruption and the public should not accept this abuse of power,” argues state Senator Jennifer Shilling, the La Crosse Democrat who leads her party’s caucus in the legislature’s upper chamber.
Shilling is right. Walker and his allies would rather dismantle democracy in Wisconsin than respect the rule of law and the will of the people. Their position is as shocking as it is indefensible.
John NicholsTwitterJohn Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.