Tell legislators how you feel

Dear Editor,

I attended the recent town hall meeting in Spring Green where Lawyer Mike Van Sicklen spoke and answered questions about the attempt to impeach Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Protasiewicz and the new voting maps proposal. A crowd of over fifty attended from a wide area, including Mineral Point, Dodgeville, Spring Green, Richland Center, Baraboo, and Reedsburg.

Although speaker Robin Vos was told by two conservative former Supreme Court justices that he had no legal grounds to impeach her, there's still a possibility that he could start impeachment proceedings against Justice Protasiewicz to keep her from ruling on our gerrymandered voting maps. If this happens, and the Senate doesn't move it forward, she could be stuck on the bench indefinitely, unable to do any work as a justice, even though she was elected by a wide margin of over 200,000 votes.

On September 12th, Republican legislators proposed redistricting bill AB415. It was described as identical to a 2019 bi-partisan redistricting bill AB303/SB288. But this bill is different because it eliminates the safeguards in the 2019 bill that prevented partisan manipulation in the redistricting process.

Although Republicans Sen. Marklein and Rep. Novak were invited to the meeting to explain their views, neither showed up. They don't have to engage with voters, because they're in secure gerrymandered seats. In contrast, Democratic Rep. Considine did come and added intelligent and well informed contributions.

If you want your vote to count, you need to tell your legislators how you feel about their attempts to manipulate our democratic process for their own gain.

Rep. Todd Novak – 608-266-7502

Sen. Howard Marklein – 608-266-0703

Sincerely,

Marie L. Baker

Dodgeville, WI