Scotty, Schimel, WisGOP getting smacked down all over on special election fiasco

What a hilariously awful last 2 days for Scott Walker in Wisconsin courtrooms, as our Fair Governor kept trying to avoid calling special elections for seats in the State Legislature that were vacated 3 months ago.

Yesterday was smackdown 1, when Scotty and Brad Schimel's Department of Justice Attorneys pleaded to give Scotty another 10 days, so the WisGOP Legislature could pass its (retroactive and likely illegal) bill preventing the elections.

Judge Niess: "You think the public interest weighs in favor of impinging on the rights of the voters in AD 42 and SD 1?"
.@WisDOJ: "We believe the public interest would be served by doing this in a way that’s not confusing."

In question: timeline for nomination signatures

— Jessie Opoien (@jessieopie) March 27, 2018

Judge Niess to @WisDOJ attorney about granting @GovWalker what he wants after he failed to call special elections earlier: "I should give the benefit of the doubt to the one who failed to do his duty and caused the confusion?"

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) March 27, 2018

This is exactly right. The only reason there have been delays and extra costs incurred by taxpayers in this circumstance is because of the actions of one man - SCOTT WALKER. Heck, Scotty was the guy who hired Frank Lassee and Keith Ripp , so he knew they were leaving, and he could have called elections to coincide with the Supreme Court elections that we are having on Tuesday. HE CHOSE NOT TO, and he and the rest of WisGOP doesn't get to whine about the situation that their sleaziness led to.

And by the way, there's an obvious cost savings to be had if you take Walker's words of '"session over, no need for an election" literally.

Since Republican @SpeakerVos & @SenFitzgerald say the legislature is done at the end of the month, we should cease the taxpayer salary of the 81 GOP legislative members. Would save taxpayers $3,095,212.50 this year.

— One Wisconsin Now (@onewisconsinnow) March 28, 2018

Maybe the WisGOP legislators or the Walker campaign could donate the funds from their multi-month paid vacation to the local community so the hard-pressed taxpayers won't have to foot the bill for WisGOP's selfish decisions. (Yeah, I'm not counting on that either).

Instead of shrug and admit their Hail Mary maneuver failed, Scotty and Schimel doubled down and tried an emergency appeal late this morning to try to keep from having to follow Dane County Judge Reynolds' court order. It only took a couple of hours for Appeals Court Judge Paul Reilly to laugh them out of his Waukesha courtroom.

From appeals ruling: "Representative government and the election of our representatives are never 'unnecessary,' never a 'waste of taxpayer resources,' and the calling of the special elections are as the Governor acknowledges, his 'obligation' to follow." pic.twitter.com/ukRlZqxYuv

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJMattD4) March 28, 2018

The next instinct of Scotty and Schimel was to try to bypass the Appeals Court and send it to the right-wing controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court to see if they could step in at the last minute to keep Scotty from having to (GASP!) allow 230,000 the chance to choose their own reps for the next year. And a few hours later...

.@GovWalker won't appeal to the Supreme Court today's appellate ruling that he must call the special elections by noon Thursday. pic.twitter.com/NGAhFpgWVh

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJMattD4) March 28, 2018

POLLING'S BACK, and Scotty and WisGOP are clearly losing big on this one. It also just made an easy argument for why Rebecca Dallet should be elected over the WMC/NRA/Walker rubber stamp she's running against (VOTE ON TUESDAY, YOU FUCKERS!).

So let's see if Scotty officially caves by Noon tomorrow, or we have to lock him up for contempt. And I'd love to see if the WisGOP Legislature is still stupid enough to try to illegally override the court orders to hold the elections, since that'll keep this losing issue in the news, and piss people off even more.

What a complete own goal by Walker and WisGOP here, and what a dumb hill to want to die on. Their hubris has made them and our state government a laughingstock this week (well, other than the courts, who actually did their job). It's a stunning combination of fascist arrogance, lame arguments, and complete incompetence.

Yep, this is definitely the Walker 2018 campaigns theme song. These guys are just running around in complete desperation these days.