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gun control
'Will of the People Should Be the Law of the Land': WI Gov. Says Fight GOP With Voter-Led Initiatives
Gov. Tony Evers' suggested priorities for state ballot measures include abortion rights, expanding public healthcare for low-income people, gun safety reform, and marijuana legalization.
Jan 08, 2025
Amid discussions across the United States about how to fight for progressive policies given the federal government's looming Republican trifecta, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday renewed his call for letting voters in his state initiate ballot measures.
"Republicans' message to Wisconsinites is crystal clear—anything that gives the people of Wisconsin a voice and direct input on the policies of our state is 'dead on arrival,'" Evers said in a Wednesday statement. "That's breathtaking."
Wisconsin is among the two dozen U.S. states that don't allow citizen-initiated ballot measures, according to Ballotpedia. In the Badger State, only lawmakers can put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, after it passes two consecutive legislative sessions.
Evers, who is halfway through his second term, is fighting for a citizen-initiated option, despite opposition from Republican state lawmakers. The governor is including his proposal for ballot measures from voters in his budget for 2025-27, as he detailed in a video posted on social media.
"The will of the people should be the law of the land. Republican lawmakers have repeatedly worked to put constitutional amendments on the ballot that Republicans drafted, and Republicans passed, all while Republicans refuse to give that same power to the people of Wisconsin. And that's wrong," Evers told reporters on Friday, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Despite new political maps for the November elections, Republicans retained control of the Wisconsin State Legislature, with a 54-45 majority in the Assembly and 18-15 majority in the Senate. Key lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-63) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-9), have made their opposition to Evers' proposal clear.
While opposing Evers' effort to boost direct democracy in the state, Wisconsin's Republican legislators have taken advantage of the state's existing process. The Senate on Wednesday voted along party lines for a proposed constitutional amendment to require voter ID for elections—continuing a trend from last year.
Evers' office explained that "Wisconsinites saw five statewide referenda questions in 2024—the most in a single year in over four decades, according to a report from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel—all of which were drafted, legislatively passed, and placed on the ballot by Republican lawmakers, largely without direct input from the people of Wisconsin."
The governor said Wednesday that "Republican lawmakers in the next week are set to add yet another constitutional amendment to the ballot while telling Wisconsinites they can't have that same power. If Republicans are going to continue to legislate by constitutional amendment, then they should be willing to give Wisconsinites that same opportunity. Pretty simple stuff."
His office also suggested some potential ballot measure priorities: "legalizing and regulating marijuana, ensuring access to safe and legal abortion, expanding BadgerCare, and enacting commonsense gun safety reform policies."
Amid a fresh wave of Republican policymakers' attacks on reproductive freedom in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversing Roe v. Wade in 2022, several states have passed protections via ballot measures, including 7 of 10 states in November. Another top priority in recent cycles has been measures to help workers, including raising the minimum wage.
"As Americans prepare for the conservative headwinds in Washington, ballot measures offer a way to circumvent regressive political agendas and partisan gridlock to make change for working families, according to the Fairness Project, an advocacy group that supports progressive citizen-led initiatives.
The Fairness Project last month released a report detailing how it "has an unmatched number of victories on progressive ballot measure campaigns across the country, having won a total of 39 campaigns across 20 states since 2016," including nine efforts in the last cycle.
"We won in some of the deepest red, most conservative places in our country," noted Kelly Hall, the group's executive director, in a statement. "We won against vehement opposition and politicians who tried to stack the odds in their favor. And we won on issues like abortion, paid leave, and raising the minimum wage—issues politicians have failed to advance for their constituents for decades."
"We're not stopping. In fact, we're going on offense," Hall added. "The power of ballot measures is that the American people don't have to wait—they can make change themselves. And we intend to support them with everything we have."
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I'm Too Young to Vote, But Not Too Young to Die From Gun Violence
I’m using my voice to urge you and every other eligible voter, to please vote for gun violence prevention candidates in this upcoming election. Please vote for my life and future.
Nov 04, 2024
It’s official; the Republican Vice Presidential nominee declared school shootings “a fact of life.” That’s what JD Vance said at a rally in Arizona when asked about the recent shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, right after he told the crowd “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in.”
As a high school student, I’m terrified to know that the fate of students like me might soon be left in the hands of candidates who have accepted that we will always have to live in fear and whose only plan is to bring more guns into our schools. These reactive approaches only put students at greater risk and fail to address the root causes of the gun violence epidemic. High schoolers like me deserve more than that, don’t we?
I was 14 years old when I realized that school was not safe. I was riding the bus to school the day after the Uvalde shooting, where an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers with an assault rifle in a Texas elementary school. My friend turned to me with concern in his eyes and asked, “You know what to do if this happens here, right?” I did know. Like most other kids in America, I’d been preparing for a school shooting since I was in elementary school. Lock the door. Cover the window. Hide as far away as possible—in a closet, or under a desk. Don’t let yourself become a target. Locate the first aid kit in case one of us is shot. Stop the bleeding. Wait for help.
So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa.
I’ve been preparing for a school shooting since I was five. While kids in other countries were at recess, I was huddled with my classmates in a corner being told to stay quiet and not move as people banged on the classroom door. They used to tell us we were practicing in case a bear got into the school, and I thought that was the most terrifying thing in the world—a bear in our school hallways. But now I know that the truth is far scarier––and far more likely. That day as a 14-year-old riding the bus to school, I realized that the real danger wasn’t some distant threat, but the “fact of life” that anyone could easily access a firearm and kill us. From then on, I became cautious about who I opened the door for at school. And I began to fear for my life every time my principal went over the speakers to announce a lockdown.
And I’ve done more than change my mindset—I’ve taken action. Two days after the Uvalde shooting, I helped students at my school lead a walkout to remember the victims and call for gun safety legislation. Since that first protest, I’ve devoted my time in high school to gun violence prevention, working with March For Our Lives, a youth-led gun violence prevention movement. To JD Vance and anyone who thinks similarly, let me tell you from the young people of America: we do not accept being killed by guns in our classrooms and in our communities as a “fact of life.” Our “fact of life” is that the time we’re meant to spend on school and with friends is instead spent doing what politicians should be doing for us: fighting for a future free of gun violence.
So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa. Instead, we will change these so-called facts of life. We will fight for a country where a 14-year-old can’t access an assault rifle from his dad, as in the recent Apalachee High School shooting. We will fight for a country where students like those at Apalachee will never have to drag their teacher’s dying body across the floor and use their clothes to try to stop his bleeding. And we will fight for a country where teachers and students won’t lose their lives simply for attending school.
In 2025, when the next mass shooting happens––statistically about twice a day in America––we will either have a president who tells us to “get over it,” or a president who demands, “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all.” I want the latter. I want lawmakers who are determined to do what it takes to help students like me feel safe at school. I want an administration that keeps military-grade assault rifles out of the hands of dangerous civilians and will pass safe storage laws so that no one can access someone else's gun to hurt themselves or others.
But right now, what I want doesn’t matter. I’m not old enough to vote yet, and neither is the majority of young people and students who bear the brunt of the gun violence epidemic. So instead, I’m using my voice to urge you and every other eligible voter, to please vote for gun violence prevention candidates in this upcoming election. Please vote for my life and future. As Vice-President Harris reminded us, “It doesn’t have to be this way."Keep ReadingShow Less
The Dangerous Art of 'Sane-Washing': Lessons From the Walz-Vance Debate
By couching controversial ideas in the language of moderation and common sense, politicians can make even the most radical departures from the status quo seem like natural, logical steps.
Oct 03, 2024
In the wake of the recent vice presidential debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, political commentators have been abuzz with praise for Vance's performance. Many have both lauded and critiqued his ability to "sane wash" the extremist positions of his running mate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, presenting them in a more palatable, even respectable light. This phenomenon, while concerning in its own right, reveals a deeper and more insidious problem within our political discourse—one that extends far beyond the bounds of the Republican ticket.
The Illusion of Moderation
JD Vance, the bestselling author turned venture capitalist turned politician, took to the debate stage with a clear mission: to repackage the Trump agenda in a way that would appeal to a broader audience. Gone were the inflammatory rhetoric and bombastic declarations that have become Trump's hallmark. In their place, Vance offered measured tones, appeals to compassion, and a veneer of reasonableness that seemed designed to make even the most controversial policies sound sensible.
On issues ranging from gun control to abortion rights, Vance demonstrated a remarkable ability to soften hard-line positions. When pressed
on gun violence, for instance, he spoke eloquently about the pain of victims' families while offering little in the way of substantive policy changes. His approach to abortion rights was similarly evasive, distancing himself from previous statements supporting a national ban while framing the issue in terms of supporting mothers.
Vance's measured tone and appeals to shared values made it all too easy to forget the often extreme positions he was defending.
This strategy of "sane-washing"—presenting extreme positions in a more moderate light—is not new. However, Vance's skillful execution of it has drawn particular attention. Many observers have praised his debate performance as a masterclass in political communication, noting how he managed to make the Trump-Vance ticket seem more reasonable and mainstream than it has in the past.
But while Vance's ability to reframe contentious issues may be impressive from a purely tactical standpoint, it raises serious concerns about the nature of political discourse and the ease with which potentially harmful policies can be dressed up as common sense solutions.
The Centrist Playbook
What many critics of Vance's performance have failed to recognize, however, is that his approach is not unique to the political right. In fact, the strategy of "sane-washing" has long been a staple of centrist politics, employed by both liberals and conservatives to make policies that support free-market capitalism and the military-industrial complex appear "reasonable," "evidence-driven," and "moderate."
This centrist playbook has been used time and again to justify interventionist foreign policies, austerity measures, and the gradual erosion of social safety nets. By framing these positions in terms of fiscal responsibility, national security, or economic necessity, centrist politicians have long managed to present policies that often disproportionately harm the most vulnerable members of society as necessary evils or even positive goods.
The danger of this approach lies in its effectiveness. By couching controversial ideas in the language of moderation and common sense, politicians can make even the most radical departures from the status quo seem like natural, logical steps. This has the effect of shifting the entire political spectrum, making previously unthinkable positions seem reasonable by comparison.
In the case of the Walz-Vance debate, we saw this dynamic play out in real-time. Vance's measured tone and appeals to shared values made it all too easy to forget the often extreme positions he was defending. His ability to present Trump's immigration policies, for instance, as simple common sense measures to protect American workers and communities obscured the often harsh and divisive realities of these approaches.
The Dangers of False Moderation
The art of political sane-washing, as demonstrated by JD Vance and countless centrist politicians before him, is a powerful tool. It can make the unpalatable seem reasonable, the extreme seem moderate. In the end, the greatest danger may not be the openly extreme positions that shock us into action, but the quietly radical ideas presented as common sense that lull us into complacency.
This is particularly concerning in an era of increasing political polarization and economic inequality. As the gap between the wealthiest and poorest members of society continues to widen, and as issues like climate change and systemic racism demand urgent and transformative action, the last thing we need is a political discourse that makes maintaining the status quo seem like the most reasonable option.
Collective action serves as the cornerstone for replacing the illusory sanity of the current political landscape with policies that are truly sane.
As this debate fades into memory and the election season progresses, the imperative becomes clear: Progress necessitates more than merely exposing the facade of "common sense" extremism. It requires the cultivation of radical movements capable of articulating and advocating for genuinely transformative change. These movements must emerge from grassroots organizing, uniting diverse communities, labor unions, environmental activists, and social justice advocates. Together, they can forge a vision of society that transcends the narrow boundaries of current political discourse.
The mission of these movements extends beyond challenging the status quo. They must present bold, innovative solutions to pressing societal issues. Their role is to imagine and demand a world where economic justice, racial equity, environmental sustainability, and authentic democracy are not abstract ideals but tangible realities. By building power from the ground up and amplifying marginalized voices, these movements can begin to redefine the limits of political possibility.
Collective action serves as the cornerstone for replacing the illusory sanity of the current political landscape with policies that are truly sane. This means prioritizing human needs and planetary health over profit and power. It involves creating systems that promote equality, ensure sustainability, and enhance overall societal well-being. These are not utopian dreams, but necessary steps towards a more just and liveable world.
In the face of political rhetoric that makes extreme positions appear reasonable, the answer lies in building movements that make truly reasonable positions into reality. This is the challenge and the opportunity that lies ahead—to transform the political landscape not through clever repackaging of harmful ideas, but through the hard work of creating and implementing policies that actually address the root causes of societal problems. Only then can the promise of a more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous society for all be realized.
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