With the Wisconsin Elections Commission, History Repeats Itself

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023 -- 10:01 AM

(Molly Beck & Jessie Opoien, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) -Five years ago, Meagan Wolfe took over a new but already embattled role: leader of Wisconsin's elections commission.

She was chosen as a steady hand to take over the agency after Republicans who control the state Legislature pushed out its first chief, who had become a symbol of intense partisan controversy. Now, Wolfe finds herself in the same spot: facing the loss of her nonpartisan job to partisan politics.

"Sometimes when I think about what’s happened since 2020, and all that happened after the elections ... it’s kind of like blaming the umpire when your kicker misses the field goal," Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wolfe oversees the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which provides guidance to nearly 2,000 clerks in Wisconsin. That guidance is decided by six appointed commissioners, three from each major political party. Her job is to implement their decisions as rules governing how elections are administered.

Wolfe became administrator in 2018 at another inflection point in the agency's history, after Republican state senators fired the commission's previous administrator over a connection to a controversial investigation of former GOP Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans by the Government Accountability Board, the agency that preceded the elections commission and the state ethics commission.

Now, at the end of her second term, Wolfe is at the center of another partisan firestorm surrounding the agency as commissioners have split on how to accomplish their goal of keeping her in her job amid a push from GOP lawmakers to oust her over discontent with the outcome of the 2020 election and practices the commission recommended to help voters navigate the coronavirus pandemic, some of which have since been deemed illegal by Wisconsin judges.

Democratic election commissioners and Republican lawmakers each deployed unexpected legal maneuvers last week in their fight over Wolfe's future, neither of which are certain to succeed in court, where this saga is all but certain to land.

First, Democratic commissioners abstained from voting on a motion to reappoint Wolfe to her job in an effort to protect her from Republican senators who had signaled they would fire her if the reappointment was forwarded to them.

With just three of six commissioners not voting, the motion to reappoint Wolfe failed without a majority. Democrats argued there was no need for a vote because of a recent state Supreme Court ruling that sided with Frederick Prehn, a former Natural Resources Board chairman who decided to stay in his position nearly two years after his term expired.

The ruling's majority opinion said that the expiration of a term does not create a vacancy, meaning that holdovers in any position appointed by the governor can remain until a confirmation hearing is held by the state Senate.

With commissioners failing to forward an appointment to the Senate, Democrats argued, Wolfe could remain in her job indefinitely. But a day later, Senate Republicans moved forward anyway.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu claimed Tuesday's 3-0 commission vote that resulted in a failed motion to reappoint Wolfe was actually enough votes to reappoint Wolfe, even though state law says such votes require a majority of commissioners, or four votes.

As a result, all Republican state senators voted to pass a resolution take up Wolfe's reappointment. It's unclear whether Wolfe will appear.

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