Hey WisGOPs, you feel lucky about impeachment? Do ya?

Despite the big win by Jane Protasiewicz in the statewide Supreme Court race, I saw quite a few people on social media very worried after the other big result from Tuesday's election.

In a lesser-noticed election result, Wisconsin Republican Dan Knodl won a state Senate seat. The GOP now has a supermajority -- and the power to potentially impeach the new liberal state Supreme Court justice (which Knodl has seemed open to) https://t.co/piEKzvRsgE by @abedelman

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) April 5, 2023

And that does suck, especially since Knodl only beat Dem Jodi Habush Sinykin by less than 2% in a district that is turning blue at a rapid rate, and a district that voted for Justice-elect Protasiewicz. Who is someone that Knodl and his fellow GOP Senators now could, in theory, try to remove.

Protasiewicz carried SD-8 by about 1.5% last night 38,470 Votes to 37,345

— 🇺🇦North Carolina Mapper🇺🇦 (@UniteCarolina) April 5, 2023

That's not the only GOP-held legislative district that Protasiewicz won on Tuesday. To illustrate that, let me go to Marquette University professor John Johnson’s site that shows how each Assembly district voted in the 2022 elections. Not only does this site give data based on 2022 results, it projects the vote in other statewide outcomes.

For example, you can use this site to model a situation when Dems win statewide by 11 points (like they did on Tuesday). Here's what we get for the State Assembly.

That’s a toss-up for control of the State Assembly, even under the current ridiculous GOP gerrymander. It would also result in a majority of Senate districts being Dem-favored (including Dan Knodl's 8th district), and many other safe GOP seats being in danger. And if we had redrawn maps that were remotely fair, you'd imagine that a Dem +11 scenario would result in Dem control of the whole state.

Based on Tuesday's results at the county and municipal levels, it is likely that Protasiewicz won between 4 and 6 Senate districts that are currently “represented” by Republicans, and Evers won 2 of them last November. So do you think the GOPs in the Legislature would want to make themselves targets of recall (in the case of some Senators) and/or a 2024 ass-kicking by trying to impeach and remove fairly-elected officials for….doing what voters elected them to do? (unlike the sneak attack of Act 10).

Also, if the WisGOPs try to impeach and remove Dem officials in a naked power-grab, it wouldn’t be just Dan KeLLy and Leah Vukmir types that would lose by double digits – it would be anyone associated with that trash-hole of a Party. I also can’t think the Republican National Committee would want Wisconsin to be taken “off the board” for next year’s Presidential and Senatorial elections – and have to answer questions about their fascist Party Members in Milwaukee while they have their convention next year.

I know a lot of these GOP legislators are evil and/or stupid, but their puppetmasters aren’t stupid, and I would think they’d tell them to back off quickly. Sure enough, we saw this comment from the Senate GOP's leader yesterday when he was asked about the prospect of impeachment and removal.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu on Senate's impeachment powers after Dan Knodl's win last night: "To impeach someone they would need to do something very serious, so no we are not looking to start the impeachment process as a regular occurring event in Wisconsin." pic.twitter.com/6DU2xJehQW

— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) April 5, 2023

It's not a "NO WAY", but it's clear that LeMahieu and his bosses can read election results, and it's in their best interest not to try this BS. After all, even under a fair map, GOPs would still have the advantage in Wisconsin in a 50-50 year. But they’d lose that majority if they got destroyed by Dan KeLLy margins, gerrymander or not, so it's probably be better strategy for GOPs to try to earn their power for once, instead of taking a near-guaranteed L by trying to cling to it.

So that's why I'm not fearing WisGOP shenanigans to try to remove Democrats from office with their illegitimate, gerrymandered majorities. At $50,000 a year, at least one GOP Senator will say it's not worth it to face recalls, protests that would make Act 10 seem like a friendly cocktail party, and/or having to run tough election campaigns and getting booted from office in seats they thought were safe.

But if they really want to try it, BRING IT ON. We're watching, and the Real Wisconsin has made it clear they will not stand for these GOP lowlifes to steal power any more.