How Much Does it Matter?

Okay, folks, let’s take a deep breath.

Even though we’ve dodged the bullet of a Francesca Hong nomination, the predictable breathless babbling is oozing up from both sides. To hear the partisans tell it this will be yet another “most consequential election of our lifetimes,” never mind that we’ve already had a couple dozen of those and we’re still alive. “I sincerely think this is the most important election that Wisconsin has ever seen,” said Dianne Hesselbein, the Democratic minority leader in the State Senate.

But is it really? No, probably not. And here’s why.

The odds are pretty good that after all the dust settles in November we’ll have some form of divided government in Wisconsin, just as we do now. At the moment, Democrats control the governor’s office and the Supreme Court while the Republicans have both houses of the Legislature.

Democrats are very likely to take back control of the Senate, but less likely to take the Assembly. Their hold on the Supreme Court has become stronger with now a 5-2 majority. It’s anybody’s guess who will be the next governor, but Crowley has a narrow lead right now. So, if I were a betting man, I’d give the Dems a 75% chance of taking the Senate and a 45% chance of an Assembly majority and maybe a 55% chance of a Gov. David Crowley.

For those of you who look at those odds and don’t find them comforting, I’m with you. The chances of Democrats taking everything are just too close for comfort and most people, definitely including me, want divided government. “There’s nobody in Wisconsin that I think is yearning for a hard turn left or right,” said retiring Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

So, let’s hope neither party gets to run the table, though that’s only possible right now for the Democrats because their control of the Supreme Court is a lock for the foreseeable future.

But even if the Dems do wind up in complete control that’s not necessarily the end of the world. If Democrats were to take majorities in both houses they’d likely be slim and the legislators who gave them that majority would be from swing districts. They would not be eager to vote for the Democratic Socialists of America agenda.

So, what we’re likely to get in the end is only some differences at the margins. There would be relatively more spending and higher taxes under Crowley and somewhat lower spending and taxes under Tiffany. Crowley might be able to reestablish the Stewardship land conservation fund while Tiffany would resist legislative Democrats’ attempts at that. Tiffany would be relatively more supportive of school vouchers, but Crowley doesn’t oppose them. Tiffany would be less likely than Crowley to pour more money into public schools without demanding better results. Perhaps most significantly, Tiffany claims that he’ll repeal the $2 billion sales tax exemption (we’ll believe it when it happens) for data centers, while Crowley (beholden to the unions) won’t. But that’s about it. None of these issues is life or death.

The game among partisans is to paint the other side as an existential threat. Elect their candidate and your next meal will be thin soup and dry bread and the Packers will never win another game. They need to do this to get their own voters to the polls and to try to convince independents, not so much of the merits of their own candidate, but of the badness of the other guy.

So, the Republicans want us to believe that Crowley is a socialist and the Democrats want us to see Tiffany as a mere extension of the very unpopular Donald Trump. Neither accusation is true. Crowley has never even been DSA adjacent, he’s never called for defunding the police or abolishing jails. And Tiffany is just your standard issue wind sock pol. Before Trump he was just very conservative. When he saw Trump taking over the party he did what most Republicans did — he went with the flow.

For me, when Tiffany voted not to certify election results in 2020 that crossed a line. I won’t vote for him for that reason alone. And I generally like Crowley’s optimism and his more moderate liberal views. I’m not into identity politics, but I do like the idea of the first black Wisconsin governor. So, I’ll be happy to vote for David Crowley.

But don’t believe the panic mongers. This game is being played between the 40 yard lines. We’ll be fine with either result.

And yet, at the Federal level this election does matter a great deal. It is important that the Democrats take back at least one house of Congress. That’s because it is as true at the Federal level as it is at the state: mixed government is a good thing. The Republican Congress’ fealty to Trump is a significant failure of the system. The Founders expected that the natural jealousy for power between the executive and legislative branches would prevent tyranny. But they didn’t anticipate political parties. In this case, the Republicans have placed party (and loyalty to one man) above the interests of the legislative branch and with it those checks and balances that maintain our freedom.

So if the result when the dust settles is divided government at both the state and federal levels, well, that’d be a good thing. If Democrats wind up in control of everything in Wisconsin that’d be less than optimal, but not a total disaster. Elections have consequences, but I won’t freak out at any result.