We may seem to be in a kind of an electoral lull right at the moment, but it's an illusion: nomination papers for the August 13 primary and the November 5 general election have been circulating for two weeks already! Because we have new legislative district maps, you should check to make sure you know both your Assembly and Senate Districts. A good way to check is through the "Who Are My Legislators?" tool on the legislature's home page.

Once you know your state legislative districts, please visit our Elections 2024 page, download the applicable nomination forms, fill them out (collecting additional signatures if possible), fill out the Certification of Circulator portion of the form (after you have finished collecting nomination signatures!), and arrange to get it back to the hopeful nominees either by sending them by mail or by dropping them off at the candidates' homes. The nomination papers require candidates to include their address. Because nomination papers are due in Madison by 5pm on Monday, June 3, please make sure you get them back to the candidates in plenty of time.

Also as you get ready for the next two elections, you should visit MyVote.WI.gov.

• Make sure you are registered to vote.
• Request an absentee ballot. Voting absentee is the best way to guarantee that your vote will be recorded. And having an absentee ballot also means that you will have a bit of time to find out more about the candidates — and especially the two ballot questions you will need to understand (more on them below).
• Find your polling place.
• Find information about early in-person voting days and times.
• See a sample ballot: these are available about 47 days before an election with federal contests.

Hear Deb Andraca and Debbie Patel discuss the new legislative districts and what these fair maps mean for the November election on Sunday, May 19, from 4:30 to 6:00pm at Plymouth Church (2017 E Hampshire St, Milwaukee). Sign up for Grassroots North Shore's first in-person event of the year! After a brief annual business meeting, we will hear from our speakers, enjoy each other's company and some light refreshments, and meet several candidates.

Now about those two new ballot questions to amend the Wisconsin Constitution: they are, if anything, more pernicious than the two that were unfortunately approved in the April election. The April lot dealt with how and by whom elections can be funded and run, which was bad enough because they implicitly sowed doubts about the security and integrity of our elections systems. But the two on the August ballot seem designed to disrupt the smooth functioning of state and local governments. Although we do not yet have the precise language that will appear on your ballot, here is the information available right now.

Question 1: Prohibit Legislature from Delegating Appropriations Power Amendment

Question 2: Require Legislative Approval for State Expenditure of Federal Funds Amendment

The first question seems aimed at exerting more legislative control over executive agencies. Requiring the legislature to appropriate the funds for each agency need or program, if in fact that's what this constitutional amendment would mean, is a recipe for governmental stagnation and unending impasses between the executive and legislative branches of government. The second question takes away a governor's statutory power to allocate federal funds coming to the state. Currently, Chapter 16, Section 54 of the Wisconsin Statutes authorizes the governor to accept and allocate federal funds. If the Constitution is amended the legislature would, in effect, have veto power over the allocation of federal funds proposed by a governor.

As an example of how such wrangling between the governor and the legislature works out, a piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published on April 16, chronicled one such impasse. It seems a $125 million PFAS (forever chemicals) "trust fund" was part of the budget passed last year. The legislature then passed a bill "outlining how the Department of Natural Resources could spend" the funds. The bill, which the governor vetoed, would "limit the actions that the DNR could take to address contamination or hold polluters accountable. Environmental groups, the Evers administration and residents in impacted communities argued the bill would harm the Department of Natural Resources's "ability to enforce cleanup of PFAS and that it would have allowed businesses to get away with contamination."

Just imagine the monkey wrench in government operations that will follow from giving the legislature sole power to allocate funding for every agency and program, and from removing the governor's ability to distribute federal funds! Please alert friends and family to this looming threat to our communities and plan to vote NO on these questions on the August 13 ballot.

Nationally, it's suddenly ACCOUNTABILITY TIME. The New York case charging Dozy Don with election interference continues apace with ample national news coverage. And perhaps you have heard about the Arizona case charging the eleven phony electors and seven of the organizers with the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Fun fact: our own cheesehead lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro is an unindicted co-conspirator in that case. For extensive coverage of the indictment, The Guardian has a great article.

Pretty much crowded out by the Don Snoozeleone case, the gob-smacking SCOTUS hearing on Benedict Donald's claim of absolute immunity from prosecution, and the four states now indicting fake electors — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada — the D.C. Bar issued its opinion on Jeffrey Clark's disbarment on April 29, and it's a doozy: "Disbarment is 'the only possible sanction' for former Trump administration official Jeffrey Clark, DC Bar officials said in a filing Monday." Clark, you may recall, was the Department of Justice knucklehead who was scheming with Dolt 45 to become Attorney General so he could issue a letter falsely claiming that the DOJ was investigating the election outcome in Georgia and other swing states.

John Eastman also faces disbarment: "A judge in California is recommending that an attorney who worked for Donald Trump be disbarred for his work trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election" (NPR, March 28, 2024): "Judge Yvette Roland found that Eastman intentionally misled the courts by making voter fraud claims that he basically knew were bogus, she found, and recklessly relying on really flimsy evidence to claim the election was stolen. Judge Roland found that Eastman, 'conspired with Donald Trump to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden's victory' and that the scheme was illegal. She writes, 'Eastman's wrongdoing constitutes exceptionally serious ethical violations warranting severe professional discipline,' and she's recommending both disbarment and a $10,000 fine."

And you don't want to miss the Time magazine interviews in which Butternut Berlusconi spills his evil plans for destroying America as we know it: "Over the course of the interviews, Trump discussed his agenda for a second term, which includes deporting millions of people, cutting the U.S. civil service, and intervening more directly in Justice Department prosecutions than his predecessors. He also discussed his thinking on other issues, including abortion, crime, trade, Ukraine, Israel, and the prospects for political violence in this election cycle." You can read the lightly edited transcript and also what the article claims is "a full fact check."

The work of defeating the Cowardly Lyin' is not stopping. Nor is the work to elect great Democrats like Deb Andraca and Jodi Habush Sinykin — not to mention Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representative Gwen Moore. This year, there are TWO Democrats vying to take on Glenn Grothman, one of the worst congressional representative ever! As soon as the ballot for August 13 is set in the first week of June, we'll provide you with links to find out about the candidates and their positions on issues we care about. Meanwhile, just visit the Elections 2024 page, to see who is working to get on the ballot in our communities.

EVENTS

Wednesday, May 1

Saturday, May 4

Sunday, May 5

Tuesday, May 7

Thursday, May 9

Saturday, May 11

SAVE THE DATE

Saturday, May 18

Sunday, May 19

Thursday, May 23

Saturday & Sunday, June 8-9

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