Uppity Wisconsin

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin today filed a motion in Dane County Circuit Court to intervene in Attorney General JB Van Hollen’s lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board to ensure that the votes of every eligible voter are counted this November.

Van Hollen's lawsuit, if successful, would likely cause confusion at the polls, as many (estimated at 20%) of the voters who were recently registered would have their registrations challenged at the polling place. 

“If Van Hollen won’t drop his baseless, hyper-partisan lawsuit, then the Democratic Party has no choice but to intervene to make sure the up to one million eligible Wisconsin voters his suit targets do not lose their right to vote,” said Joe Wineke, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “By being a party to the lawsuit, we will be able to protect the fundamental American right of all eligible voters to have their votes counted.”

When he was running for Attorney General, JB Van Hollen made a fake lament about “frivolous” lawsuits a major part of his stump speech. After all of that grandstanding who could forget him then filing his own frivolous lawsuit because he didn’t like a hard hitting ad that was run against him? Later, after he won a very close election, he abandoned the suit and even had to pay for the other side’s legal bills. If it wasn’t clear at the beginning that the suit was frivolous, it certainly was at the conclusion of the matter.

It is within this context and pattern of behavior that we  now find J.B. Van Hollen filing what is yet another partisan politically motivated lawsuit. What makes this one so much worse is that he is doing it with taxpayer money while at the same time threatening many of those same taxpayer’s right to vote. This latest suit is against the state’s own Government Accountability Board (GAB), so Van Hollen has taxpayers paying on both ends of this one.

The right wing continues to complain that their new attorney general, J. B. Van Hollen, isn't enough of an activist. (They wanted a new attorney general, they claimed, because the last one, a liberal Dem, was too much of an activist.) Just because he's the attorney general doesn't mean he should be hamstrung by little things like the law or the Constitution, they say.

The latest flap is over a ceremony to honor and commemorate murder victims, held at the State Capitol and sponsored by the State Dept. of Justice, which Van Hollen heads. After some militant atheists, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, complained about some religious content in the event, a hymn and a prayer were eliminated.

It's just coincidence, probably, that the two wingnuts complaining the loudest about JBVH are people who wanted the AG job -- Jeff Wagner, a failed candidate in 1994, and Jessica McBride, who wanted it for her husband, Paul Bucher, an even bigger failure in 2006, losing to JBVH in the primary. (One conservative blogging lawyer, Rick Esenberg, demurs.)

McBride has now taken second swing at it, wondering why JBVH can't be more like Scott Walker and include "God Bless America" and "Thank You to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts" on the program, and apparently even Charlie Sykes, who has not run for AG (and isn't a lawyer) has joined the list of whiners.

“Presenting inaccurate information to legislators does not violate state law.” -- Atty. Gen. J. B. Van Hollen.

Fortunately for leggies, that's reciprocal, or a whole lot of them would be doing time.

Fresh from their fierce defense of US Attorney Steven Biskupic against claims that politics affected his prosecutions, Wisconsin wingnuts are complaining that their new Republican attorney general isn't putting politics ahead of the law.

J.B. Van Hollen, who took office in January, has come under fire for failing to prosecute -- or at least dirty up --the Democratic governor, Jim Doyle. The wingnuts are also unhappy about opinions he's issued on abortion and affirmative action issues.

Van Hollen was praised by the conservative Madison newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal, for his even-handedness. In an editorial, it said:

He also has shown he's not the far-right ideologue or partisan opportunist that some had feared.

And that's his problem with the right. Jessica McBride, an Ann Coulter wannabe whose husband lost the GOP primary for AG to Van Hollen, wrote:

Wisconsin State Journal praises Van Hollen for not being a "right-wing ideologue"

With all due respect, the only problem with that analysis is that he PROMISED to be a right-wing ideologue.

I think it's a gubernatorial strategy.

Van Hollen was grilled Wednesday on Charlie Sykes' conservative talk show on WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee. Sykes likes hunting RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), and seems to have Van Hollen in his sights.