Between The Rails: A political stunt gone bad?

By Dan Russler 

How do we stay between the rails of acceptable social behavior? What happens when we go off the rails into criminal behavior? Sadly, society is forced to consider these issues. 

Political stunts and frat parties have something in common. Occasionally, “good fun” is later determined to contain criminal activity; in these cases, the “fun” has wandered off the rails of acceptable behavior and into criminal behavior instead. 

Political stunts often make good stories. Our story allegedly unfolds in the Wisconsin Senate Parlor at the State Capitol on Monday, December 14, 2020. Meanwhile, the official Wisconsin State Electors were meeting in another room nearby to perform their electoral responsibilities. 

The meeting in the Senate Parlor was small and simply named the “Republican Party.” No press were invited; no public notice of the meeting was issued. The Senate Parlor was reserved just a few days earlier, and participants at the meeting mostly included the ten Republican party members who no longer had a role in the 2020 Wisconsin State elections. Biden had won in Wisconsin, and, unfortunately for these retired ten electors, they didn’t get to submit their votes to the Electoral College. 

However, the signatures on documents prepared by these ten people in the Senate Parlor would later be submitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Wisconsin Secretary of State, the Archivist of the United States, and the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, in time for the January 6, 2021 insurrection. In these documents, claims were made: 

• The documents were signed and submitted by “the duly elected and qualified Electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Wisconsin.” 

• They had met at the appropriate time and place “to perform the duties enjoined upon us.”

• They signed their names to “certify” that Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes were cast for Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence. 

To date, no formal depositions have been published regarding what occurred leading up to and during this alleged political stunt in the Wisconsin State Capitol. Questions from the press have gone unanswered. We as voters are confused as to who participated in the “Big Lie.” And we are expected to vote this fall to the best of our ability. 

To be sure, news of 14th Amendment court cases has been leaking into Wisconsin from the formerly Confederate States, North Carolina and Georgia. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment kept many Confederates who conspired against the U.S Government out of public office. In the last few months, district judges in North Carolina and Georgia have been arguing about whether the 14th Amendment still applies to conspirators. 

And the question in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, is: Did the political stunt at the State Capitol stray from fun into criminal behavior? 

A Wisconsin State Journal editorial, stated: “On Jan. 6, 2021, and into the wee hours of the next morning, (U.S. Rep. Scott) Fitzgerald shamefully tried to block Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s votes from being counted in the final certification for president.” The editorial urged Jefferson County voters to do this: “Voters — especially those in Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Jefferson, Washington and parts of Dodge and Waukesha counties — should never forget his betrayal of American democracy.” 

So certainly, the emotions are running high right now. But how much progress have the courts made towards unraveling these kinds of events around the country? 

The answer is that State-level judges have not been willing to apply the 14th Amendment, and perhaps, they are not qualified to do so. In Georgia, a 14th Amendment insurrection case was dismissed by a State administrative law judge, low on the judicial totem pole. However, in the opinion of a Federal district judge in Georgia, the 14th Amendment conspiracy and insurrection constraints do apply to people running for election this year. And the Federal district judge in North Carolina, who attempted to dismiss that 14th Amendment case, has had that case appealed to the United States Court of Appeals. In short, Wisconsin is still watching North Carolina and other appeals for some guidance on what to do with Scott Fitzgerald and other candidates for office in Wisconsin. 

Sadly, we voters in Wisconsin cannot wait for these courts. Instead of focusing on policy differences between the candidates in evaluating this election, all of us are obligated to examine our candidates for office with a different set of eyes. Who conspired during the march towards the January 6th insurrection? Under the 14th Amendment, who has strayed too far to be allowed to run in November. All of us are now on the jury. And the politicians and the judiciary are under the microscope. 

Further commentary on the topic as found in the Wisconsin Examiner is also available here: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/01/06/we-must-hold-wisconsins-fraudulent-electors-accountable/. 

Describing himself as a writer of “commentary by a nonpartisan centrist,” Dan Russler is member of two ad hoc analytical groups: Fair Maps of Jefferson County and the Wisconsin Map Assessment Project (WIMAP), and he is one of 36 “Concerned Voters of Wisconsin,” a citizens’ group which submitted in January an amicus brief, also known as a “friends of the court” document, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reject the Wisconsin Legislature’s proposed Assembly map. He is also one of 10 Wisconsin voters who, in March, filed a civil rights lawsuit asking the federal court for a declaratory judgement disqualifying U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, and U.S. Reps. Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany as candidates for office in November. Russler is a resident of Jefferson County.