Now We're Standing Up and Fighting

An organizer for the Wisconsin Dems explains the campaign to prevent the removal of newly-elected Supreme Court Justice, Janet Protasiewicz

The stark email came as unwelcome news. “Urgent phone banking needed to counter move to impeach Judge Janet Protaseiwicz,” was the subject line. The sender of the message was a volunteer I had met in April while canvassing for the Wisconsin Supreme Court judicial elections. She went on to write:

Susan please pass this on to the appropriate network, I got this from the organizer you met while canvassing in Wisconsin. They need help on the phone bank over the next 3 days including tonight.

Needing to learn more, I followed the link for the phone bank. I was assigned to call Democrats in Green Bay to ask them to urge their Republican state senator to vote “No” on impeachment. My conversations were a mixed bag. While the Hubdialer served me up some young people willing to defend the newly elected Supreme Court Justice, there were an equal number of Democrats who blamed Protasiewicz and the WisDems for the impeachment threat and were therefore unwilling to help. Two of them cited NPR as the source of their news coverage.

After I finished the phone bank, I called the organizer to ask him how we got here and why people thought Justice Janet had blown it. He started with the ugly truth: Even before Justice Janet was elected, Republicans were already floating ideas of impeachment.

He continued to describe the grim situation: The Wisconsin Assembly has the votes to impeach Protasiewicz but is dependent on the Senate, which would need every Republican vote to convict and remove her. There are no rules about the timeline on which the Senate must act, which would leave the Supreme Court gridlocked after the House impeachment. If the Senate votes to convict before December 1st, the special election to replace her would coincide with the 2024 Republican Primary, which would make it difficult for another Democrat to win.

I expressed my disbelief that our hopes for fair maps and abortion rights had been clouded so quickly. The organizer said he was past the stage of throwing things at the wall. He is now working on the WisDems Defend Justice campaign, which will include canvassing, phone calls, texting, friend-banking, digital outreach, and community events in Republican legislative districts to inform them of the GOP’s impeachment threat.

My contact is proud of WisDems Chair Ben Wikler's decision to stand up to this abuse of power, knowing that the Republican game is to exhaust the opposition. “We're in the endgame and the Republicans know it,” he told me. That's why they stoop to these desperate and deeply destructive moves.

For more information and talking points on the emerging Wisconsin Dems campaign, visit this Google Doc, or feel free to connect with me.