Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Signs Voting Bill

I thought this was obvious, but I guess I need to spell it out: Despite the use of the names of real-life public figures, the following post is fiction.

MADISON, WISCONSIN — Yesterday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed a bill to rescind voting rights for members of the state’s Democratic Party, despite united resistance from Democratic members of the State Senate and fierce public opposition that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the state capital. The new legislation signals a major setback for the Wisconsin Democratic Party and its members’ right to vote.

Titled the Defense of Voting Rights Act, the freshly signed law withdraws the ability to vote from any Wisconsinite registered with the Democratic Party as of yesterday. “Voting by registered Democrats costs too much money,” Gov. Walker said after signing. “We can use the money we save allocating ballots in Democrat districts to close Wisconsin’s huge budget deficit.”

The State Senate’s 14 Democratic senators were so opposed to this bill that they fled Wisconsin to neighboring Illinois to deny their 19 Republican colleagues a quorum needed to pass the measure, which was originally part of an omnibus spending bill. But by separating the voting provision from the rest of the bill two nights ago, the Republican state senators were able to outmaneuver the absent Democrats. Yesterday, the voting bill also passed the Wisconsin State Assembly and was swiftly signed by Gov. Walker.

From exile in Illinois, State Sen. Jon Erpenbach said, “This is outrageous. The ability to vote for a representative government is an inalienable right enshirined in the U.S. Constitution. For legislators to disenfranchise their political opposition for arbitrary reasons is unconstitutional and un-American and represents an egregious power grab.”

During his speech after the law’s signing, Gov. Walker presented the other side of the argument. “The U.S. Constitution doesn’t say that all citizens have a right to vote,” said the Governor, “but only the right of ‘all qualified citizens to vote.’ Through their elected representatives, the people of Wisconsin have defined what a ‘qualified citizen’ is. We should respect the will of the people.”

“This radical so-called law will wither under judicial scrutiny,” said State Sen. Erpenbach in Illinois. But others aren’t so sure.

“Ultimately, this case will end up at the Supreme Court,” said High Court watcher Ignacius Essenbrot of Camlann University, “and some justices have signaled sympathy for the Wisconsin governor’s position.” Essenbrot points to a speech made by Justice Antonin Scalia to the organization Americans for Prosperity in Hawaii last year, where he prefigured Gov. Walker’s position on the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution.

Even before the bill was signed into law, some Wisconsinites circulated a petition to recall Gov. Walker and the Republican state senators in an election later this year. But since Democrats in Wisconsin are no longer allowed to vote, Gov. Walker and the Republicans are expected to keep their seats.