--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Tara Golshin: I'm Tara Golshin, a political reporter here at Vox. What is going on in Wisconsin right now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You're a political reporter here at Vox. What is going on in Wisconsin right now? It sounds like sort of all hell might be breaking loose.
--:-- Tara Golshin: So come January, the Republican-led state government is going to have to pass the baton to some newly elected Democratic leaders. And in these final weeks, they are doing everything they possibly can to curb the powers of the incoming Democratic class.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What are they curbing exactly? What powers are they trying to curb?
--:-- Tara Golshin: The Republican-led legislature is pushing forward with proposals that would essentially prevent the governor from having purview over some commissions and state agencies. It would undermine the powers of the incoming Democratic attorney general to remove the state from legal cases.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For example, the incoming attorney general has said that he wants to remove Wisconsin from the federal case against the Affordable Care Act. This would require legislative oversight over that.
--:-- Tara Golshin: The name of the game is essentially moving the power from the executive branch in the state government to the legislative branch, which is Republican controlled.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: OK, so it sounds like, you know, changing how cabinet members are appointed, curbing the attorney general's authority. Why these things in particular?
--:-- Tara Golshin: It's a direct rebuke to the things that Democrats campaigned on and won on in November. Things like Tony Evers, the Democrat elect for governor, came in and said that he wants to get rid of the state's job agency, the agency that was responsible for giving billions of dollars of tax breaks to that Taiwanese company Foxconn that we heard a lot about from Trump that Democrats have been really upset about.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that's an agency that the Democrat does not see a need for, but it would give Republicans oversight over what the Democrat could do with that agency.
--:-- Tara Golshin: Same goes with policies around health care in the state. Obviously, the attorney general that's coming in said that one of the first things he would do in office would be to remove Wisconsin from the federal lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act. Republicans in the state don't want that to happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: To the point that the Republican statehouse speaker is saying we need these proposals because we don't like what the Democrats who won said that they would do. And we need to have the power to stop them from doing it.
--:-- Tara Golshin: And they're just all out saying that they're being completely transparent about what their intentions here. Completely explicit.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We have had an incredible partner with Governor Walker. We have taken the time to look at Wisconsin in 2010 and where we are today. There are a number of very important reforms that each one of us have ran on and that we have promised our constituents we will do everything in our power to make sure that they stay on the books for Wisconsin.
--:-- Tara Golshin: I'm concerned. I think that Governor-elect Evers is going to bring a liberal agenda to Wisconsin.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's been a huge fight. I mean, this is something that Wisconsin Republicans unveiled at 4:30 p.m. on Friday. And over the course of five days, Democratic leaders in the state have been shouting on the statehouse floor, saying that this is undermining the election results, that it is just a blatant power grab and it's desperate.
--:-- Tara Golshin: So what we're doing here tonight with this piece of legislation, with the appointments, with the other legislation that may be coming up tonight, is the majority party, Mr. President, is trying to circumvent a legitimate election.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Never before in the history of our state have we seen an extraordinary session that takes away the powers of a newly elected governor.
--:-- Tara Golshin: You know, those things that just kind of make you go, this is one of those things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Wisconsin GOP hasn't fully ran this through yet, right? How far along are they?
--:-- Tara Golshin: So it has now passed both the state Senate and the state assembly and is headed to Scott Walker the current Republican governor who has expressed his support.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is it legal or is this just going to be immediately challenged by Democrats in the courts?
--:-- Tara Golshin: I think it is fair to assume that Democrats are going to take this to the courts fairly quickly. Talking to advocates in the state, they've told me that they're already talking to their attorneys. They're ready to fight this, especially on things like cutting early voting down.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's something that Wisconsin tried to do in the past. And actually a liberal advocacy group took them to court for it and won.
--:-- Tara Golshin: And so not only now are we seeing that Republicans are pushing something that they tried and failed to do in the past, but they're almost expecting that legal challenges are going to come to them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They have every right to go to the courts, ask the courts if what we have done is constitutional.
--:-- Tara Golshin: I believe, and the advice I have been given is, everything that we have done has been within the bounds of the Constitution, and I think it will be found that way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But, of course, they have the right. That's our process. Three co-equal branches. They have the right to go to the third branch.
--:-- Tara Golshin: Democrats won stuff all over the country. Is this happening anywhere else or is Wisconsin a super special case?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wisconsin is not a super special case. When we just go across the lake there in Michigan and you see the same thing is happening, there was an overwhelming rebuke of Republican leadership in Michigan where Democrats won the top three positions in the executive branch of the state.
--:-- Tara Golshin: And now, again, another lame duck session, the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to push proposals that would undermine the attorney general's position, essentially allowing the Republican legislature to intervene in any state cases that the attorney general would not want to defend.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For example, in Michigan, there's a very heated legal fight over a bill that allows faith-based adoption agencies to not work with same-sex couples. That's something that the incoming attorney general said that she doesn't want to defend that law.
--:-- Tara Golshin: So that's something, for example, that the Republican legislature could then insert themselves in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But things are farther along in Wisconsin than they are in Michigan, right? So how are people in Wisconsin reacting to this now that it looks like the bill's going through?
--:-- Tara Golshin: The moment Republicans unveiled these proposals, people poured out to the state capitol, There have been protesters there every step of the way.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's clearly anger in the state. They elected Democratic leaders that campaigned on very specific policies. And now they're seeing their Republican legislature say, we don't like those policies and we want to stop these Democratic leaders from enacting them.
--:-- Tara Golshin: And it raises really serious questions about what representative democracy means if you have a state legislature that is undermining the overwhelming decision of the voters.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And we're seeing how that plays out in states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
--:-- Tara Golshin: We're going to have to wait and see how all of this shakes out in Wisconsin, but this whole scenario has already played out in North Carolina.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, it occurs to me that Y2K happened so long ago that there's someone in our listening audience that doesn't even really know what it is.
--:-- Tara Golshin: So Headlong Surviving Y2K is a great podcast for you. It's from the team behind Missing Richard Simmons, and they take listeners back to the hysteria at the turn of the century when the world braced for Armageddon, for disaster.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But then nothing really happened. And there are some interesting stories in there, from an evangelical family preparing for the apocalypse to the coders who fixed the millennium bug.
--:-- Tara Golshin: Surviving Y2K follows all these stories through New Year's Eve 1999 and reveals what really happened at midnight.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: David Graham, you're a staff writer at The Atlantic. This whole thing sounds a little nuts, what's happening in Wisconsin.
--:-- David Graham: These Republicans who are losing power, trying to change all the rules on their way out.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But there is a precedent, right? There is It North Carolina in 2016
--:-- David Graham: So in 2016 there was a closely fought race between Governor Pat McCrory who was a Republican and Roy Cooper who was at the time the state attorney general and a Democrat.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And after a very close election, including some fairly controversial recounts and a lot of lawsuits, Cooper won.
--:-- David Graham: But the Republicans maintained a strong control of the legislature. In fact, super majorities in both chambers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so in December, after the gubernatorial election was finished, but before the new governor had taken over, the General Assembly came in and they used this special session that was designed for disaster relief from Hurricane Matthew.
--:-- David Graham: And once they had passed the disaster relief, then they introduced a whole bunch of measures that were designed to strip power away from the governor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What were the measures specifically?
--:-- David Graham: The big highlights were, one, they wanted to make some of the governor's cabinet members be Senate confirmed, which hadn't been the case before. He was able to just appoint them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They made it so that the trustees of the University of North Carolina system and the Board of Education were appointed not by the governor, but by the legislature.
--:-- David Graham: They made it so that a bunch of formerly political appointments within the executive branch and elsewhere in the government became permanent employees.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then they also tried to reconfigure the state elections board, basically to give Republicans more power and to reduce Democratic power on the board.
--:-- David Graham: And how long had these North Carolina Republicans been in power?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, the Republicans took over the legislature in 2010, both houses, and it was the first time that they had control of both houses, I believe, since the 19th century.
--:-- David Graham: And then they won the governorship in 2012.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So this was kind of like their first chance to do something like this.
--:-- David Graham: Exactly. And they hit the ground running with a whole load of conservative priorities with a Democratic governor coming in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They wanted to preserve as much as they could and to grasp at as much power as they could.
--:-- David Graham: So they strip appointment powers. They cut down on people working in the executive branch. They sort of reconfigure the board of elections and confirmation powers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How does the governor of North Carolina respond to that?
--:-- David Graham: As you can imagine, he was not happy about it. He immediately said he would sue.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And also, you know, Democrats mobilized across the state. There were big protests in the state legislature while these bills were under consideration.
--:-- David Graham: When justice is under attack, what do you do? Stand up like that. Get back. Get back. Get back. Get back. I need help. What do you do? Stand up like that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And there was a lot of pushback saying that this was sort of taking away the will of the voters by doing this right after they'd elected a Democrat.
--:-- David Graham: And how did the suits go?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, for the most part, they were successful. The governor sued on every one of these.
--:-- David Graham: And courts ruled that, in fact, the idea of making cabinet members Senate confirmed was totally constitutional.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But everything else got slapped down.
--:-- David Graham: So the alterations to political appointments were ruled unconstitutional. And the adjustments to the state board were also ruled unconstitutional.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Did the Republicans apologize?
--:-- David Graham: You'll be surprised to believe they didn't. In fact, for the most part, they just kept trying to do these things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they passed another law on the state elections board, which then was again found unconstitutional just this fall.
--:-- David Graham: What was that one?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was a similar thing, but different? Right. Basically, they tried to tailor the law a little bit differently so that they thought it would pass muster in the courts, and they were incorrect.
--:-- David Graham: And then this fall, they put a ballot measure on the ballot that would have had a constitutional amendment to reconfigure the state elections board, and voters defeated that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Generally, they've been trying, I would say, throughout Roy Cooper's term in office just to limit his powers however they can.
--:-- David Graham: Is this just a Republican thing? I mean, we have it happening in Wisconsin, looks like maybe Michigan, North Carolina, and in all these cases, it's Republicans who are trying to constrain Democratic governors and Democratic attorney generals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But have Democrats ever tried something like this?
--:-- David Graham: One of the things that Republicans in the General Assembly said to defend their maneuvers was, look, Democrats did this. You know, Democrats controlled the state for this extremely long period of time, and they'd done a lot of things to maintain their power.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the 80s, when a Republican governor was elected, it was very similar to what Republicans did to Roy Cooper. They basically tried to make a bunch of jobs that had been political appointments into permanent jobs so that the governor couldn't fire them and the Democratic political appointees would remain in place as civil servants.
--:-- David Graham: I think people generally would think that this is tacky.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Have the people in North Carolina ever weighed in to say, like, this is why everyone hates politics?
--:-- David Graham: So, you know, it's an interesting state. There's a really strong protest movement and a lot of sort of liberal activism, and also a lot of Republicans. It's a fairly evenly divided state.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so there were huge protests at the time.
--:-- David Graham: You had dozens of people being arrested at the General Assembly during protests.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think the more direct and measurable impact is this fall the first time there were elections for the General Assembly again even though there this strong gerrymander voters reduced Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature, including getting rid of the supermajority, which means that now Cooper can veto.
--:-- David Graham: So you see voters reacting fairly poorly to what Republicans have done.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In this most recent instance here in North Carolina, where you have Republicans sort of constrained to the governor, getting shot down by the courts, finding new ways to try and constrain the governor. Are they doing anything illegal? Like, is all this stuff allowed?
--:-- David Graham: You know, in these specific cases, obviously, the courts did not hold up most of what they had done.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I think that's mostly because the North Carolina state constitution has an extremely strong separation of powers clause, which means that a lot of times when the General Assembly does try to do this kind of thing, it ends up falling afoul of the constitution.
--:-- David Graham: But in general, obviously, the legislature has the power to pass laws.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In this case, they had a supermajority, and they were using that power as they saw fit.
--:-- David Graham: There's nothing that is inherently wrong with that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think what was dubious about this sort of legislative coup in 2016 was first that it was done so quickly in cloak and dagger.
--:-- David Graham: They came in under the cover of this disaster relief special session and then, with very little warning, introduced these things and rammed them through.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They also did this when they had just seen a Democrat elected governor.
--:-- David Graham: And it looked a lot like they were trying to thwart the will of the voters of North Carolina.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: A majority of state voters had voted for Roy Cooper.
--:-- David Graham: You know, I think the voters' will was not really all that ambiguous.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And suddenly they wanted to strip away all these powers from the governor that they had had no problem with a Republican governor having.
--:-- David Graham: So, you know, I think people looked at that and saw it as a fairly craven political move, but not an illegal one, just a craven one.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So they're playing by rules that are sort of laid out for them. Right.
--:-- David Graham: And, you know, it's interesting because Democrats controlled the state for so long. Much of the system was designed by Democrats for a one party state.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, they set up a system where they could keep power and they can make sure the Republicans never gained too much.
--:-- David Graham: Then when Republicans got control of the state, they suddenly had all these rules in place that were very favorable to them and they didn't hesitate to use them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I can't help but let out a deep sigh because it just feels like Republicans and in the case of North Carolina's history, Democrats, too, are just doing things that aren't in the interest generally of democracy, just partisan hackery.
--:-- David Graham: I mean, is that our future?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, I think, especially at this moment where you have Republicans in control in so many states, but Democrats finally starting to get a toehold back and get a little bit of power in places like Wisconsin.
--:-- David Graham: Anywhere it's going one way or the other, you're going to have this kind of tension.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I guess this is sort of a flaw in a Democratic system.
--:-- David Graham: Anytime you've got a partisan setup like this, there's the potential for abuse.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I also think that when you thwart voters' will like this, they don't respond well to it.
--:-- David Graham: They understand what's going on. Even if they don't pay close attention to the details or they have mixed feelings about what the specific laws are, they understand that it's just flexing political power and it's thwarting their will.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so in North Carolina, you saw this time around, they punish Republicans in the General Assembly.
--:-- David Graham: I hope you're right. I hope I am too. It'd be reassuring to know that sort of accountability works.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sometimes it does and often it probably doesn't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: David Graham writes about politics at The Atlantic.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained.
--:-- Irene Noguchi: Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of the show.
--:-- Bridget McCarthy: Bridget McCarthy is the editor.
--:-- Noam Hassenfeld: Noam Hassenfeld and Luke Vanderplug produce the show.
--:-- Afim Shapiro: Afim Shapiro is our engineer.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder makes music for us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Special thanks to John Delore this week.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And bottomless thanks to our outgoing intern, Catherine Wheeler. She's been great, and we're looking for a new great intern. You can find the posting on the Vox Media Careers page.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher, and we are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
