Cross posted from medium: https://medium.com/@Ray.Ferguson/democracy-died-with-a-whimper-in-wisconsin-while-you-were-enjoying-the-luxury-of-time-cea9a11aba6e
Democracy Died With a Whimper in Wisconsin While You Were Enjoying the Luxury of Time
I found myself wanting to crawl into a podcast to debate #ChuckRosenberg as he calmly asserted the DOJ position of only taking on prosecutions they can win and only after all crimes have been fully investigated. They have the benefit of time after all, and conviction rate is how they measure success apparently. True to Rosenberg’s affect, he stated these positions calmly as if they were unassailable priors in the justice system.
The first idea, that #DOJ has the luxury of time, is blind to the fact that criminals will often keep committing crimes which is bad for victims no matter the crime. However, when the crimes aim to seize control of the government and obstruct justice from the top down, or to pack courts and pervert the meaning of the law, you do not have that luxury. If the next attempt succeeds, your clock has run out. It is game over. Checkmate.
This may sound hyperbolic, but the very same people who sent fraudulent electors by way of Senator #RonJohnson had already successfully ended #democracy in Wisconsin when committing this new crime. To be fair, the Wisconsin GOP has not fully realized their goal of authoritarian power yet, but they have ended democracy and turned Wisconsin into something else. A failed state is what we would call it if it were another country.
A recap of politics in this part of fly-over-country: In 2018, Tony Evers defeated the GOP candidate for governor thus ending the Republican lock on all branches of state government in Wisconsin. The GOP legislature responded by stripping the office of Governor of it’s powers and the outgoing-lame-duck Governor Walker signed it into law.
They followed that legal coup with extreme gerrymandering ensuring the citizens of #Wisconsin no longer have a say in the making of the laws we live by. That is a strong statement, but the facts support it. Democrats would need a 12 point statewide lead to win half of the legislature in Wisconsin. This is why you see state offices going democrat but there is no hope of turning over the legislature.
The closest we can come to democratically decided laws now is hold the governors office, secretary of state, and the AGs office and abuse prosecutorial-discretion. Unpopular laws like the 1864 abortion ban are lurking behind every election. So whatever it is that we now are, it is not a democracy and we’re only buying time before the Wisconsin GOP finally finishes their autocracy project. In fact, the GOP candidate for secretary of state promised that republicans would never lose another election in Wisconsin if he won the seat in 2022. He did not. So we are still just a failed state. Not quite an autocracy, but definitely not a democracy in any sense of the word. If we are lucky enough to break up their hold on the state supreme court, we might be able start lurching toward democracy again, but we’re on our heels for sure.
And whilst the US main justice enjoys prosecutorial discretion and the benefit of time, the ingrates in the Wisconsin GOP are continuing their autocracy project and expanding their ambitions nationally.
As for the standard of only taking cases to court that you can win and the intuitive measure of a prosecutors success, conviction rate, I beg you to consider how that supports unequal justice. A class based justice system is inevitable given those parameters when the robustness of available defense is based almost exclusively on wealth.
This might explain why the Feds don’t seem to dither when taking on a working class defendant, but must have six videos from all angles before attempting to go after a wealthy one. Why risk your record against a white-shoe defense team? Just keep shooting fish in a barrel and get your wings.
Wouldn’t it be unfair to besmirch the good name of someone with a failed prosecution anyway?
The answer is hell no if you ask me. For one thing, a trial, even one that fails to convict, can inform would be victims and warn repeat offenders and would be offenders that they can not crime without risk of facing real consequences. Sure, Ron might slip away to his Florida mansion to live in luxury, but at least he won’t be sitting in the Senate abusing power in the name of #Wisconsin. Even those that fell for the racist adds the ULine billionaire put out in his support would think twice about a guy who was charged and tried for defrauding the government he is seeking election to.
Maybe it’s hard to see past the priors of a system you are embedded in, or maybe I am misunderstanding or misconstruing these common priors of justice in america. I would love to see a response from someone in the field of law.
Unfortunately, I might be correct though. If the very measure of success in our justice departments is driving systemic inequality in outcomes and exacerbating vulnerabilities the law is intended to protect us from, what do we do about it?
Alan Lewis
Raymond