MAGA wants to remove Justice Janet before she hears a single case
This April, voters overwhelmingly elected Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, establishing a liberal majority capable of restoring abortion rights and ending some of the worst gerrymandering our country has seen this century.
After years of voter suppression and maprigging by the Wisconsin GOP, this one election provided Wisconsinites their first real chance of thwarting the MAGA plot to entrench one-party rule.
So naturally, GOP leaders are now threatening to throw out the results of the election by impeaching Justice Protasiewicz before she’s heard a single case.
This is a brazen attack on democracy with implications far beyond Wisconsin’s borders. Just as Indivisibles stepped up to elect Protasiewicz in April, we need to go all in to defend her seat against the GOP’s autocratic schemes today.
MAGA Republicans could put this into motion as early as October 10 if we don’t stop it — so it’s vital we act now.
Please chip in whatever you can to help us stop the anti-democratic MAGA power grab in Wisconsin.
We know it’s exhausting to fight like hell to win these elections fair and square, only to have the GOP try to rewrite the rules and ignore the outcome of the democratic process. But we wouldn’t be asking for your help today if this fight weren’t so important — and if we weren’t confident that this is a winnable fight.
Why this fight is so important
The GOP can basically undo this election with a simple majority in the House (where gerrymandering has given them a supermajority). The Senate doesn’t need to vote to remove Protasiewicz — as long as the impeachment is still pending, she won’t be allowed to decide cases.
That means the court will have a 3–3 split unable to overturn abortion restrictions, rule on fair maps, or invalidate any of the legislature’s voter suppression laws ahead of 2024.
And if the Senate does vote to remove Protasiewicz, it’d set up an election for next year on the day of the Republican primary — increasing the likelihood of a renewed MAGA majority that could hand Trump the 2024 election. That’s not a far-fetched idea: In 2020 the court was one vote away from blocking certification of the results.
This isn’t just a fight for the future of democracy in Wisconsin. This is a fight to defend American democracy, period.
Our plan to win
As authoritarian as Wisconsin’s MAGA GOP has become, there are still some Republicans who see nullifying elections as a bridge too far. Some of them live in districts that are extremely gerrymandered, but not enough to spit in the faces of an electorate that opposes impeachment by a 2–1 margin.
We’ve got to turn up the pressure on those Republicans now, before the train leaves the station. Polling alone won’t do it — we need to jam their phone lines, make sure activists are turning up at their public events, generate press, and widen the schism in the Republican caucus (all the while further toxifying the GOP’s brand by highlighting this extremism).
Indivisible groups in Wisconsin are ready to mobilize, just as they did to elect Judge Janet this spring. We need to make sure they have the full power and resources of our movement behind them once again.
