IN PRAISE OF GRIDLOCK?

I'm a big fan of separation of powers, in part because I'm not persuaded elections, no matter what rules determine the winners, are useful for revelation of preferences, particularly among large policy bundles being voted on by large electorates.

In the most recent Wisconsin gubernatorial election, losing Republican candidate Tim Michels said something about his party never losing an election again, should he get a veto-proof majority in both chambers of the state legislature.  That might have been spin about how his party's manifesto would deliver so much good stuff that only fools would vote for Democrats in Wisconsin, although since he aligned himself too closely with Donald Trump's allegations of election fraud in the state, there might have been people who saw his claim as a Kinsley gaffe promising a future loss of voting rights.

I have no comment on that second position; I submit that any party hoping to enact legislation that is so spectacular that the other party will be out of power for the foreseeable future got into the Tom and Jerry mix a little too soon.  Just in this century I have seen hopes of permanent presidential majorities, with at least working control of the House and Senate, from both parties, and thus far all such hopes have come a cropper.  "Both parties reconsidering what the median voter looks like. I love the sound of coalitions fracturing."

So, too, would it be in Wisconsin.  Candidate Michel's hopes were probably a stretch anyway.

Wisconsin Republicans have a strong chance to expand their majorities in the state Assembly and Senate Tuesday, and with the help of the new Republican-drawn legislative map, they could be on the verge of veto-proof supermajorities.

It's especially significant in a state where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a record number of Republican bills in the last legislative session. Republicans could pass most of the bills again next session.

Republicans would need to win two-thirds majorities in each chamber of the Legislature to gain the power to override vetoes. In the state Senate, that would mean flipping just one Democratic district to win 22 out of 33 seats, a feat eminently possible under the makeup of the new map.

In the state Assembly, Republicans would need to flip five districts to win 66 seats out of 99 districts to hit the two-thirds veto-proof threshold that would let them set the agenda in state government no matter who is in the governor's office.

"Winning 66 seats would require a Republican victory of a size that we haven't seen for a decade," said John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University's Lubar Center for Public Policy Research.

The pettifogging gerontocrat is still governor, and the legislature is going to have to engage in some dealing rather than put its policies through over vetoes.

Wisconsin Republicans did not succeed in their mission to win a veto-proof majority in the state Assembly and Senate.

The GOP would have needed to win two-thirds majorities in each chamber in order to gain the power to override the governor's vetoes. While they did flip one Senate seat, getting the 22 seats necessary in that chamber, they fell short in the Assembly.

That means the party will not have the power to override the vetoes of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who won reelection Tuesday. Since January of 2021, Evers has vetoed 126 bills that passed the Republican-led legislature, thwarting the party's efforts to change election laws, gun laws, and more.

It's a "disappointment" for Republicans, said University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky.

"It's the difference between Republicans being able to put through their policy agenda and Republicans running into the veto pen of Gov. Evers," he said.

Let that be an instructive outcome. Although presidents and governors are capable of doing a lot, even with notionally enumerated powers, legislatures are co-equal branches of government, capable of accomplishing a lot even with the veto power.  Consider, for example, how Wisconsin's legislature was able to lift much of Governor Evers's corona tyranny relatively quickly, while the Springfield Supreme Soviet is still on board with Governor Pritzker's rising body count.

What's intriguing is that there are states in which the governor is of one party, treating with a veto-proof legislature of the other party.

Two of four states heading into the 2022 elections that had a veto-proof legislative majority and governor of the opposing party—Kentucky and Kansas—maintained that status after the elections. Vermont became a state with a veto-proof legislative majority and opposing-party governor as a result of the 2022 elections.

Maryland and Massachusetts retained Democrat supermajorities in their legislatures and elected Democrat governors.