Wisconsin elections official blames Brad Schimel for keeping him from talking about gerrymandering

MADISON - The head of the state Elections Commission says the attorney general is effectively stopping him from participating in a forum on Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case — a move that he says amounts to a top Republican limiting the speech of a Democrat.

Attorney General Brad Schimel counters he is simply following a rule for lawyers to make sure one of his clients doesn't talk to opposing attorneys without his own lawyers present. 

The dispute comes as state officials adjust to a new elections agency that is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Mark Thomsen, a Democrat and chairman of the commission, was invited to speak Friday on a panel that also features attorneys challenging Wisconsin’s election maps and voting laws. Thomsen wanted to participate in the forum but Schimel barred Thomsen and the attorneys from appearing together because Thomsen is a named plaintiff in the lawsuits at issue.

“That office is trying to use technical rules to exclude me from sharing my opinions from the same stage as other people,” Thomsen said of Schimel and his aides. “They’re trying to limit and define the ‘when’ and ‘who with’ discussion.”

Thomsen said he will speak separately at the event, rather than with the other lawyers who will be talking about the cases and the issues surrounding them. Friday's event at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is being put on by the progressive American Constitution Society. 

GOP Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers created the Elections Commission as a bipartisan agency after raising concerns that its predecessor — the Government Accountability Board, which was officially nonpartisan — had a bias against Republicans. Thomsen said the attorney general was not honoring the belief that both sides should get an equal say on public issues.

“I think it is an overreach by the attorney general to ignore the Legislature’s express creation of an entity with equal power and then decide only one side gets represented in specific court cases,” Thomsen said.

Ethical rules prevent attorneys from speaking with an opposing attorney's client without the permission of the opposing attorney.

Schimel's office wouldn't grant that permission for Friday's event. Asked why, Schimel spokesman Johnny Koremenos on Tuesday said, "Find me an attorney in Wisconsin who will allow their client to speak to opposing counsel without being present."

Koremenos did not respond to questions about Thomsen's criticisms of Schimel.

At issue are two lawsuits — one challenging Wisconsin’s voter ID law and a host of other voting laws; and one challenging the election maps Republican lawmakers drew that give them a great advantage in state legislative races.

A three-judge panel last year ruled Wisconsin’s voting maps are unconstitutional — a ruling Thomsen said he thinks is correct. The U.S. Supreme Court is now reviewing that finding.

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“Democracy can only exist where competing interests play on a fair game board, and when you pre-rig the election, you distort the meaning of democracy,” Thomsen said.

The voter ID law has largely been upheld by the courts, but a judge ruled last year the state had to overhaul the system it uses to give free IDs to those who face the most difficulties in getting them. That judge also struck down the state’s limits on early voting and both issues are being appealed.

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Thomsen made clear he’s no fan of the voter ID law.

“I think the use of voter ID has been designed to impact and reduce voting, in particular in the major cities and within the minority communities,” Thomsen said.