In 2014, Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, put a very interesting person named Josann Reynolds on the state circuit court in Dane County, in which can be found the state capital of Madison. On Thursday, Judge Reynolds sent him a nice thank-you note, in which she told Walker to do his damn job. From The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December. His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama. Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds — whom Walker appointed to the bench in 2014 — determined Walker had a duty under state law to hold special elections so voters could have representation in the Legislature. She said failing to hold special elections infringed on the voting rights of people who lived in the two districts. "To state the obvious, if the plaintiffs have a right to vote for their representatives, they must have an election to do so," said Reynolds.

This, it turns out, is the latest fashion in voter suppression adopted by various Republican governors. (Both Rick Snyder in Michigan and Rick Scott in Florida are trying the same chicanery.) The easiest way to ratfck elections is not to have them at all. Judge Reynolds was not buying this act.

The case hinged on a state law that says Walker must promptly call a special election to fill any legislative seat that becomes vacant "before the second Tuesday in May in the year in which a regular election is held." Walker aides contended Walker didn't need to hold special elections because the vacancies occurred not in 2018 — the election year — but in 2017. The judge called that interpretation absurd because a seat that becomes vacant in 2017 remains empty longer than one that begins in 2018.

The judge took a shot at Walker for contending he didn't have to hold the election when the statutes are clear and he so often talks about the need for judges and others to follow the plain meaning of laws. "I cannot reconcile the incongruity between Governor Walker's administration's very vocal and consistent policy advocating for strict constructionism and the position taken by the attorney general in this case involving the most basic constitutional guarantee," Reynolds said.

A mark, that will surely leave.

This latest victory for our embattled democratic franchise was brought on by former Attorney General Eric Holder’s current effort to push back against voter suppression. (That Holder is concentrating his work in the several states is both shrewd and highly effective. That’s where the most mischief is done.)

But the credit truly goes to Judge Reynolds, who certainly knows how best to thank the man who appointed her: by doing her job the way it’s supposed to be done, which meant telling him to do his.

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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