As we mentioned earlier on Tuesday, Oregon has pushed back against the national momentum by making it easier for Oregonian voters to cast a ballot. Back in the day, Oregon and Wisconsin often were partners in the Progressive Era reforms that mitigated the damage of our previous Gilded Age. In fact, during Wisconsin Senator Bob LaFollette's epic 1916 filibuster against Woodrow Wilson's Armed Ships Bill, when a Kentucky senator named Ollie James rushed at LaFollette while packing a sidearm, Oregon's Harry Lane jumped between them, brandishing a sharpened rat-tail file.

Guns and shanks in the Senate! Them was the days.

Anyway, that was then and this is now, and Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, has conspired with his pet state legislature to make it harder for Wisconsinites to vote. There are people who have taken Wisconsin's voter suppression laws to federal court. The trial opened on Monday. Per the Capital Times, a former Republican legislative staffer turned the kitty loose from the burlap.

Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to then-Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, when the state's voter ID law was passed in 2011, said there initially wasn't much enthusiasm among Senate Republicans to pass the bill. Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, argued on the bill's behalf to her colleagues in a closed caucus meeting, Allbaugh testified. "She got up out of her chair and she hit her finger on the table and said, 'Hey, we've got to think about what this could mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses around the state,'" Allbaugh said. Schultz, who did not seek re-election in 2014, voiced some opposition to the bill and what it might do to voting rights, Allbaugh said. His opposition was met by a spirited defense from then-Sen. Glenn Grothman, now a member of Congress. "At that point, Sen. Grothman cut him off and said, 'What I'm concerned about is winning. You know as well as I do the Democrats would do this if they had power … so we better get this done while we have the opportunity,'" Allbaugh said. Allbaugh said Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, and then-Sen. Randy Hopper, R-Fond du Lac, were "giddy" and "politically frothing at the mouth" over the bill.

This self-evident truth, I remind you, was hallowed by oath. Grothman, by the way, is a thoroughgoing fool who now is a United States Congressman, where he is now allowed to be a thoroughgoing national fool. To belabor the historical obvious, contra Grothman, the Democratic Party "had the power" to do this several times in the past century, and they didn't do it. The stupid is strong with this one. As the years have gone by, and especially since John Roberts declared the Day of Jubilee, the people pushing these laws have become far more open about the purpose of the new regime of election laws.

It is about keeping the people you don't want to have voting away from voting. Period.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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