Waking Up in Wisconsin

Governor-elect Scott Walker of Wisconsin will sign Arizona-style immigration reform.

Wisconsin

In the last two threads, we took a look at Texas and Iowa where the 2010 midterm elections has changed the game on immigration. In Texas, Republicans won a supermajority in the Texas House and Senate. In Iowa, Republicans elected a new restrictionist governor and captured control of the Iowa House. There is already a strong movement afoot in both states to pass Arizona-style immigration reform in the next legislative session.

Wisconsin would seem to be one of the most unlikely states to get embroiled in the national immigration debate. It is a Blue state with a healthy White majority, a Deep North progressive stronghold for generations, which shares a border with Canada, not Mexico. The threat posed to the indigenous White majority by Third World immigration isn’t nearly as great here as it is in the Southwest.

Earlier this year, Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin refused to join the Michigan-led effort to defend Arizona in the federal courts. As the midterm elections approached, Barack Obama held a massive rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison to help turn out the youth vote for Democratic candidates. The polls were showing alarming signs of a Midwestern Meltdown fast approaching on election day.

On Nov. 2nd, the Red Revolution swept across Wisconsin like few other states in America. Among the casualties: U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, a Jewish progressive icon; the Wisconsin governorship, taken by Republican Scott Walker; 5 of 8 House seats (2 Republican pickups); and the Wisconsin House and Senate.

The election was particularly amusing to follow on Reddit Politics which gave Wisconsin voters a big shout out as the results were announced: FUCK YOU WISCONSIN! Progressive hero Russ Feingold loses re-election bid to climate change-denying Tea Party millionaire.

Enjoy all 453 comments.

Wisconsin and Immigration

With Republicans now in control of the Wisconsin governorship and state legislature, a total reversal of the Democratic status quo, patriotic immigration reform advocates now have a real shot at passing Arizona-style immigration laws in this unlikely state.

In Iowa, Democrats retained control of the Iowa Senate. In Texas, Governor Rick Perry has stated he opposes Arizona-style immigration reform in the past. But in Wisconsin, we will have a healthy Republican majority and an acquiescent new governor to work with.

Rep. Don Pridemore (R-Hartford) plans to introduce an Arizona-style immigration bill in January when the new Republican controlled Wisconsin state legislature convenes. “I want Wisconsin to be recognized as a state that will be on the side of Arizona.”

Pridemore’s bill would end sanctuary cities in Wisconsin. It would also give Wisconsin state police the authority to check the immigration status of those arrested “on the basis of reasonable suspicion” and turn over illegal aliens who cannot prove their citizenship to federal authorities for deportation. Under the new law, Wisconsin citizens would have the power to sue counties and municipalities like Madison for failing to enforce immigration law.

In July, a Rasmussen poll found that 56 percent of Wisconsin voters support bringing Arizona’s SB 1070 to their state. 55 percent of Wisconsin voters oppose the Justice department lawsuit against Arizona. 79 percent oppose giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens; 74 percent support checking immigration status in routine arrests; 53 percent favor deporting illegals who are discovered in this manner.

As we saw in Mississippi, Utah, Texas, and Iowa, patriotic immigration reform is opposed in Wisconsin by all the usual suspects: Big Business, Big Labor, and Hispanic activist organizations. Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the Milwaukee based Hispanic organization “Voces de la Frontera”, has threatened legal challenges to any new restrictionist Wisconsin immigration law.

Final Thoughts

There are some in the White Nationalist movement who claim there isn’t any substantial difference between America’s two major political parties. In the George W. Bush years, this argument had a lot of merit. White Americans were given the bi-partisan shaft on immigration several times in a row. McCain-Kennedy was a bitter pill that we were almost forced to swallow.

Much has changed since then. At the state level, where elected officials are more responsive to their constituents, we have men and women like Don Pridemore (Wisconsin), Debbie Riddle (Texas), Rick Sandstrom (Utah), Steve King (Iowa), and Russell Pearce (Arizona) who are stepping up to the plate and going to bat for our interests.

Quite often, these smaller figures are overshadowed by the bigger sell outs like George W. Bush and Lindsey Graham who make all the headlines. In 2008, Virgil Goode was defeated in Virginia by Tom Perriello. In 2006, John Hostettler was beat in Indiana by Brad Ellsworth. We lost a lot of good people in Congress in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

This is why we should be careful about painting with too broad of a brush. There more constructive ways to channel our resentment against “system politicians” than by voting against anyone running on the Republican ticket.