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ViaAmericas Lawyer:Corporations like J.C. Penney issued massive bonuses to company executives just before filing for bankruptcy. Mike Papantonio&Farron Cousinsdiscuss.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Mike Papantonio: Major corporations are filing bankruptcy to avoid COVID losses, but not before handing their CEOs massive bonuses. Wow. What an ugly, disgusting story. Now this, this takes me back to 2008, right? Where we didnt prosecute anybody. We let these banksters these thugs, these, these absolute sociopaths, steal gazillions of dollars. Eric Holder, who was the attorney general refused to prosecute them. The, the, that administration Obama comes in and saying, we have to do something about these corrupt bankers. Remember that?

Farron Cousins: Yeah.

Mike Papantonio: He ran on that and nobodys prosecuted. As a matter of fact, nobody was even thoroughly investigated. Jamie Dimon comes out looking like a hero. Isnt this a repeat of that where the COVID case is concerned?

Farron Cousins: Well, absolutely, because at that same time back in 07 and 08, you had these executives with their tails between their legs, walking into Congress, begging for money. We, weve screwed up. Everything is horrible, but were too big to fail. Give us money. They essentially made the same argument when they were lobbying for these COVID bailouts, which they got far more than anybody else. And so now were finding out that even though they got the money, they still decided lets file for bankruptcy protection. But according to bankruptcy law, if you file for bankruptcy protection, you cant issue bonuses. So they said, well, were going to file for bankruptcy. But first CEO, heres $5 million. Heres your bonus. Now we file for bankruptcy and lay off everybody.

Mike Papantonio: Okay. The bankruptcy judge can do something about this if, if they want to.

Farron Cousins: Right.

Mike Papantonio: They can say it was fraudulent. Youve got situations where you got companies this was called high crush, inc. It was a supplier of sand for oil and gas fracking. They, they give this bonus to these folks like two days, big bonuses, big bonuses. The CEOs not the people actually work out there, but they give these big bonuses two days before they declared bankruptcy. JC Penney did the same thing, $10 million worth of bonuses.

Farron Cousins: And 80,000 people lost their jobs with JC Penney.

Mike Papantonio: Yes, yes. Whiting petroleum, $14 million. Chesapeake energy, $25 million. So theyre spreading all of these bonuses around. Now in bankruptcy, there is something called preference and that is, if you move money away from what should be a bankrupt fund, then you can pull that bank back in. But the laws, the laws give these CEOs a lot of wiggle room.

Farron Cousins: Well, they do and one of the things that Obama did do, and actually, no, this was back in 05 they did it, this was under the Bush administration, is they put in a loophole that said, you can only give a retention bonus because thats what they like to call these at the end of the year. You did such a good job, were giving you $25 million, so you dont leave us. So they changed the law and said, well, you cant do a retention bonus unless of course you have an offer from another company. And then its okay. That is how for a long time, they were getting around a lot of these loophole or a lot of these, these bonus laws. And thats an important part of it too, because they realized by doing these little tricks, by working with other companies and saying, we need you to act interested in our CEO. We need you to reach out and make a pathetic offer to one of our people that you have no intention of doing so we can legally. Well do it for you. You do it for us. Its the same kind of criminal activity.

Mike Papantonio: Its the same. Okay, more importantly, its the same bailout. Dont you see.

Farron Cousins: Yeah.

Mike Papantonio: The feds are not giving this money in comparative. Theyre not giving this money to people who cant pay their rent. They cant buy food for their family. Theyre losing their homes. And we forget dont we, that in the bailout that took place in 2008, the bankrupt, the, the bankrupt folks were saying, well, you know what were going to do. Were going to, were if youll give us this money, were not going to foreclose on people.

Farron Cousins: Right.

Mike Papantonio: You know, so this whole story, this is a continue, these two stories fit together.

Farron Cousins: Yeah.

Mike Papantonio: So lets, lets deal with them together. And the point is we cant really draw any distinctions between what happened in 2008 and whats happening right now. Its all going to the top, isnt it?

Farron Cousins: Right, it is. And were seeing another bailout in the works right now, another stimulus package. It may once again have some checks for average people, but most of the relief, most of this bailout, billions of dollars straight to these companies, these same 40 companies that have already filed for bankruptcy. And its not because theyre actually going out of business. Its not because theyre disappearing. Its because they dont want to be on the hook for those losses for their debts and to the workers.

Mike Papantonio: What is, what is the fear of perp walking some of these folks, when we know theyre not just on the edge of the law, some of them have broken the law. I think I cant get away from the HSBC case where we knew that they were actually involved in, in washing money for terrorists. Okay. They admitted it. They signed a document. Yes, we washed money for terrorists. Yes, we know it killed, killed soldiers. We know that. Yes, here are the names. Heres where we got the money. It was very specific. And Eric Holder, honest to God said, oh, its okay. Were going to fine you $1.6 billion and they went on their way. Nobody was perp walked. Nobody went to prison. How do you stop this kind of conduct until you say, yeah, they dont look like a criminal, but we need to perp walk them. What, what do you do?

Farron Cousins: You know, well, unfortunately you have to change leadership. You have to change whats in the democratic party. You have to change whats in the Republican party. You have to get money out of politics and all those are, are Herculean feats that I dont know, we as a country are even wanting to do it that much. But part of the thing too, with the reason Eric Holder, in addition to coming from the corporate firm.

Mike Papantonio: Loretta Lynch too.

Farron Cousins: Right. The reason they like to go for the fine route instead of the jail route is because the DOJ, if they fine somebody and they get $10 billion off it, they get to keep a large part of it. That becomes their fund money. They get to play with that. They get to use it for their personal budget and go do whatever they want with it.

Mike Papantonio: You want to hear the real zinger, that $10 billion is actually taxpayers end up paying it.

Farron Cousins: Right.

Mike Papantonio: Because they use that as a write off that taxpayers have to pay. So I dont, you know, its not Republican, its not Democrat. Its, its, there is no courage at the DOJ, there never has been. And as long as we allow these, these corporate thugs to continue what theyre doing, this story that we just, that we lead with about these bonuses, about how theyre packing bonuses and then getting out of town. This is just, this is just the beginning, but you watch, we will see little or no involvement by the department of justice when it comes to actually prosecuting in this country.

Farron Cousins: Right. Even if we get a new DOJ six months from now, none of this will be prosecuted ever.

Mike Papantonio: Yeah. So as Im looking at this, I guess as I round up on it, you, you have to kind of, you know, you have to kind of say, look at history, which is the 2008 burndown, and youre going to get a picture of exactly whats happening in 2020. All the powers at the top, all the money goes to these CEOs, all of the workers who, by the way, production and output has been at an all time high. While its been an all, all time high, wages have continued to drop. Youve got people in this pandemic, theyre losing their homes. They cant feed their family. And we have this kind of thing going on and the DOJ sits back and says, eh, its just the way we do business.

Farron Cousins: Well, you know, the reason the economys even failing right now is not because these big corporations cant have people coming into the office. Its because the people at the bottom who actually drive the economy dont have money because they cant go into work. If these people had money, if the government had taken care of them the way the other countries did.

Mike Papantonio: The way they were supposed to.

Farron Cousins: Right. Or if the companies had, you know, made it easier for these people to keep their jobs, just try to figure out a way to make it work, the economy would still be running. We wouldnt see as many layoffs or firings as we have. We wouldnt see as many bankruptcies because the economy is driven from the bottom.

Mike Papantonio: Empower the bottom economy wise, not the top. Weve proven that doesnt work. Farron Cousins, thank you for joining me. Okay.

Farron Cousins: Thank you.

Link:
Major Corporations Using Bankruptcy Loophole After Issuing HUGE Bonuses With Bailout Funds - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

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Cori Bush smells tear gas when there isnt any. Loud noises frighten her, reminders of police brandishing sniper rifles, firing rubber bullets, and revving the engines of armored vehicles. When the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyds neck began to circulate, Bushs reaction was instinctual: Dont look at it. She looked anyway.

For 400 days in 2014 and 2015, protesters gathered in Ferguson, Missouri, to register their outrage over the police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown. For most of those days, Bush joined themat first, in her capacity as a registered nurse to tend to protesters injuries, and later as a community organizer on the front lines. She went out again in 2017 to organize after another white police officer was acquitted of murder in the 2011 shooting death of a Black man during a car chase in north St. Louis. This year, as Americans across the country protested Floyds killing, a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of FlorissantBushs hometownran over a Black man with his unmarked SUV before getting out of the car to repeatedly kick him. And so Bush and her fellow Ferguson activists organized yet another demonstration against police brutality. During a June gathering, she tweeted that she had been pepper-sprayed in the eyes by the cops.

Its a reminder that we didnt finish the work, Bush, 43, tells me.

After Browns killing, Ferguson voters replaced several members of the city council, which now, like Ferguson itself, is majority Black. The city swore in its first Black police chief in 2016, and, two years later,the much-criticized county prosecutor who oversaw the investigation into Browns killing lost his seat in a primary. But for all the headway theyve made at home, Ferguson activists have had little ability to rewrite the countrys broken criminal justice policies. Theres only so much you can do when you dont have that pen in your hand, Bush says.

Half a decade after the Ferguson protests, Bush is in the final days of her second primary challenge against Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), who has held the St. Louis-area 1st congressional district since 2001. The race features two Black leaders with very different ideas about how to create change. Clay is a consummate insider who has spent decades building political power, which he has used to secure tangible, if incremental, progress on issues including police abuse. Bush, who is also an ordained minister, has little patience for incremental measures. She believes the district that helped turn Black Lives Matter into a national movement should have an activist in its congressional seat, someone who stands unwaveringly with BLMs demands.

Bush began her career as a preschool teacher making minimum wage. After a decade with the same company, shed worked her way up to become the schools assistant directorbut she still made only $9 per hour. She quit that job in 2001, when she became ill while pregnant with her second child. Not long after giving birth, she and her then-husband were evicted from the home theyd been renting. For several months, they lived out of the familys Ford Explorer with their 14-month-old son and newborn daughter.

When her children were small, Bush got stuck in a cycle of debt with predatory personal loans. She borrowed small amounts$250 here, $500 thereto cover rent, utility bills, and car repairs. I remember one day I was sitting outside of the PayDay Loan officeI just remember thinking like, Who speaks up for people like me? Bush recalls. Why do I keep having to live like this?

So for Bush, her crusade for office is personal. She supports Medicare for All because she gave up her employer-sponsored health insurance to run for officeand has to pay out of pocket for two hospitalizations for a suspected case of COVID-19. She supports tuition-free college because she had to pay off student loans. And she supports a $15 minimum wage because she made far less than that for so long. Ive struggled paycheck to paycheck, asking, Wheres our progress? Bush narrates in her first television ad. As a Black mom, Im sick of having to say, Just make it home safely.

The thing isClay supports these things, too. Hes been a cosponsor of Medicare for All since former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) first introduced it in 2003. He sided with progressives by voting against Trumps replacement for NAFTA. He cosponsored the Green New Deal. In the most recent session of Congress, he signed onto Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs (D-N.Y.) bill that would cap credit card interest rates at 15 percenta limit that some of his more moderate colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee found preposterously low.

Then theres criminal justice. Two months before the 2014 Ferguson uprising, Clay had joined a majority of Democrats in voting against a measure that would have ended the transfer of military equipment to police. But in the days that followed Browns death, he co-authored a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the Justice Department investigate the shooting and any patterns of police misconduct. The DOJ did investigate, ultimately clearing the officer who killed Brown but issuing a damning report that determined Ferguson police were routinely stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable force against them. The St. Louis American, the local Black newspaper, endorsed Clays reelection bid in 2018, observing that his insider game in Washington had helped bring about the probe, which ultimately resulted in a consent decree under which the city agreed to legally binding reforms. St. Louis will be better served by having an experienced congressman with nearly two decades of seniority, the paper concluded.

This year, while Bush was protesting Floyds murder, Clay and many of his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus were shaping the Democrats landmark police reform legislation. The measure stops short of activists demands to defund the police, but it would establish a national registry of police misconduct, end qualified immunitywhich prevents citizens from suing individual officersand ban chokeholds. Clays contributions to the bill would mandate deescalation training for officers, require that deadly force only be employed as a last resort, and provide for the appointment of an independent prosecutor anytime deadly force is used. The bill passed the House on June 25, exactly one month after Floyd died.

It is the role of an activist to push us as far as they can push us. It is our role to legislate, and that is a different role, CBC chair Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.)herself a longtime civil rights activisttold Politico in June, as the bill was working its way through the House. We are very committed to making a difference, and that is different than making a point. You can either make a point, or you can make a difference.

Bushs run against Clay doesnt neatly follow the pattern of successful progressive primary challenges, which have lately excelled on two planes. One is ideology: Former marketing executive Marie Newman defeated Rep. Dan Lipinski (Ill.) this past March on the premise that no sitting House Democrat should oppose abortion rights. Another is representation: Two years ago, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) unseated Rep. Michael Capuano, a bona fide progressive, by arguing in part that her life experience would help her better serve her majority-minority district. Jamaal Bowmans recent win against New York Rep. Eliot Engel succeeded on both frontsas did Ocasio-Cortezs 2018 victory over House Democratic caucus chair Joseph Crowley.

Bush is challenging Clay on a third dimension: The rigorousness with which he fights for his constituents. As an example, she points to the Houses police bill. I think theyre too soft, she says of its provisions, criticizing the lack of any real defund language. Bush has also slammed Clays coziness with corporate interests. Three-quarters of the nearly $750,000 Clay raised through June of this year came from political action committees, nearly 80 percent of which are backed by big business. His top campaign contributor is Quicken Loans, a mortgage giant that Clay is charged with overseeing from his perch on the Financial Services Committee. In 2015, the Justice Department sued Quicken for originating hundreds of home loans for borrowers who werent eligible for them. (The company agreed to pay $32.5 million to settle the case without admitting wrongdoing.)

Clay maintains that his fundraising has no bearing on how he votes. But Fight Corporate Monopolies, a progressive group, placed a six-figure television ad buy to revisit an episode in which Clay sided with financial services companies to fight against a rule that would force investment advisers to act in their clients best interests. (The rule took effect, but a GOP-appointed judge later gutted it, and Clay has since joined other Democrats in calling for its reinstatement.)

It doesnt always align perfectly with a voteoften, stagnation is in return for a corporate donation, says Morgan Harper, a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adviser who recently waged an unsuccessful primary challenge against Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and now advises Fight Corporate Monopolies. We need someone who is fighting for progressive policies that make sure the economy is working for everyonewith the maximum level of aggression thats possible.

The CBC counts some of Congress most progressive lawmakers among its members, including Pressley and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who regularly oppose the positions of Democratic congressional leaders. But many CBC members align closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and are staunch defenders of institutional norms like seniority. Few so closely embody that guiding principle as Clay, who won his seat upon the retirement of his father, a civil rights activist and founding member of the CBC who served in Congress for 32 years. Between the two of them, a Clay has represented the district for more than half a century.

CBC allies view that longevity as an asset. Seniority has played an important role in the rise of the CBC, a source close to Clay says. The reality is that elevating those CBC members who have been there for 10 or 20 or 30 years has played a key part in the CBCs ability to gain chairmanships and leadership roles and become as powerful as it is today.

Bush sees things differently. If that seniority is not benefiting the people directly anymore, then its time to retire, she tells me.

In recent cycles, the CBCs political action committee has supported some long-serving white incumbents over their Black opponentsit backed Capuano and Engel, for instanceand its members generally do not take kindly to primary challenges. This cycle, Justice Democrats, which played a role in Ocasio-Cortezs and Pressleys 2018 victories, endorsed challengers against two CBC members: Clay and Beatty. Some members of the CBC were livid. Clay told TheHill that Justice Democrats actions were a bunch of B.S. and insulting to his constituents, likening their attempts to devastate the party to the Russian trolls of 2016.

They want to come back again this year? he told the Washington Post, referring to the progressive groups supporting Bushs second attempt to oust him. Thats fine. Im going to kick their [posterior] again, okay?

Clay defeated Bush by nearly 20 points in 2018, but hes nevertheless taking this years primary seriously, launching a series of sharply negative attacks in the final days of the race. His campaign circulated a mailer that notes Bush failed to pay taxes four times in recent years, that shes been evicted three times, and that her nursing license was suspended. In essence, the fusilade amounts to criticism of Bush for being poor. Bushs campaign says her license was suspended because she couldnt afford to pay her taxes, and shed been evicted because she couldnt afford her rent. The Clay campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Those attacks may have less efficacy than Clay imagines in this political moment, when Americans are attuned to the legacies of systemic racism more than ever before. And a sea of new donors have appeared on Bushs side: She raised $170,000 in June as nationwide protests raged, an amount that accounts for nearly a third of all the money shes brought in this cycle. She received an endorsement from Bernie Sanders, for whom she served as a national surrogate, as well as from the recently victorious Bowman.

Notably absent from this growing list of supporters is Ocasio-Cortez, who hasnt weighed in on the race this time around. But Justice Democrats is giving Bush more financial support than it did last cycle: In addition to the $40,000 the group helped her raise, its independent expenditure is now running a TV ad on her behalf.

Bush thinks the momentum is on her side. Because of the work that we did [in Ferguson in 2014], such a foundation was laid to where some of this is easier for peopleso more people have been activated, she says. Now people are looking for those candidates. Theyre like, Okay, youve been actually doing this work. That has been a huge boost to our campaign.

Continued here:
This Black Lives Matter activist is running for Congress. Can she bring down a 20-year incumbent? - Mother Jones

Watch The Untouchables, FRONTLINEs look at why no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for fraud in connection with the financial crisis.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday sought to walk back comments that some financial institutions may be too large to prosecute, telling lawmakers at a lively Capitol Hill hearing that no single bank is above the law.

In a March appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder testified that big banks clout has an inhibiting impact on prosecutions. As he explained:

I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult to prosecute them When we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps world economy, that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large. It has an inhibiting impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.

Holders comments echoed statements made by Lanny Breuer, the former head of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, to correspondent Martin Smith in the FRONTLINE film The Untouchables. The economic impact of prosecuting a large financial firm is a factor we need to know and understand, Breuer said.Such considerationsliterally keep me up at night, Breuer said ina 2012 speechto the New York City Bar Association.

On Wednesday, the attorney general backtracked his earlier remarks, saying they had been misconstrued.

Let me be very, very, very clear, Holder said. Banks are not too big to jail. If we find a bank or a financial institution that has done something wrong, if we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, those cases will be brought.

The Justice Department, he added, has brought thousands of financially based cases over the course of the last four-and-a-half years. To date, however, no Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for fraud in connection with the financial crisis. Instead, the government has largely focused on a strategy of securing multi-billion settlements from financial firms, but rarely requiring an admission of wrongdoing.

More:
Eric Holder Backtracks Remarks on "Too Big To Jail" | The ...

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday overturned a lower court ruling staying the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee. The execution, scheduled for Monday in Indiana, would be the first federal execution in 17 years.

"The plaintiffs' APA claim lacks any arguable legal basis and is therefore frivolous," the court said in its Sunday ruling.

Lee, 47, is a former white supremacist who in 1996 robbed and murdered a family of three, including their 8-year-old daughter. The family of Lee's victims filed a petition to delay the execution because they wanted to attend, but feared traveling to Indiana during the coronavirus pandemic. A judge on Friday had granted the petition, but Sunday's ruling overturned the stay.

The family said they will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

"The federal government has put this family in the untenable position of choosing between their right to witness Danny Lee's execution and their own health and safety," Baker Kurrus, an attorney representing the family, said in a statement.

"Because the government has scheduled the execution in the midst of a raging pandemic, these three women would have to put their lives at risk to travel cross-country at this time," Kurrus added. "They will now appeal the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to seek reversal. My clients hope the Supreme Court and the federal government will respect their right to be present at the execution and delay it until travel is safe enough to make that possible."

The Justice Department argued the family's health concerns "do not outweigh the public interest in finally carrying out the lawfully imposed sentence in this case."

However, in a court filing Sunday, Justice Department officials revealed a staff member involved in preparing for the execution at FCI Terre Haute had tested positive for the coronavirus. The department said the staff member left work immediately and is self-isolating.

The DOJ said the positive test would not delay the execution further, claiming that the staff member didn't enter the execution chamber or come into contact with the team sent to the prison to carry out the execution or "with any members of the Crisis Support Team, who are involved in victim witness transportation and logistics."

Earlene Peterson, 81, is the mother of Nancy Mueller and the grandmother Sarah Powell, two of Lee's victims. Peterson, along with her surviving daughter and granddaughter, filed the initial petition to stay Lee's execution. Peterson, a supporter of President Trump, has been a vocal advocate against the execution of her daughter's killer and has even asked Mr. Trump to commute Lee's sentence to life without parole.

"Yes, Daniel Lee damaged my life, but I can't believe taking his life is going to change any of that," Peterson said in avideo statementin September. "I can't see how executing Daniel Lee will honor my daughter in any way. In fact, it kinda, like, dirties her name because she wouldn't want it and I don't want it. That's not the way it should be."

The federal judge who oversaw Lee's trial and the lead prosecutor on the case have both also expressed concern over Lee's sentence. In 2014, they wrote separately to then-Attorney General Eric Holder, pointing out the disparity between Lee's sentence and that of his co-defendant, Chevie Kehoe.

Kehoe was the mastermind behind the crime, and evidence at their joint trial showed he was the one who murdered 8-year-old Sarah Powell after Lee had refused to do so. Kehoe was not sentenced to death, something advocates attribute to Kehoe appearing more "clean-cut" at trial compared to Lee, who lost an eye in a fight and has SS bolts and a triskelion tattooed on his neck.

Attorney General William Barr announced the resumption of federal execution last July, following a 16-year-long hiatus. Three other men besides Lee are scheduled to be executed by lethal injection this summer. Two of those executions are also planned for next week.

According to theDeath Penalty Information Center, there are 62 federal prisoners currently awaiting execution on death row.

See the rest here:
7th Circuit court overturns stay of execution for Daniel Lewis Lee, paving the way for first federal execution in 17 years - CBS News

Flipping Wisconsin back into the blue column in the Electoral College is goal No. 1 for state Democrats in 2020. Wisconsin has already attracted tens of millions of dollars in spending and sits atop Trump and Joe Bidens target lists, with the campaigns and outside groups combining to spend or reserve over $35 million on TV and radio ads there from March through the general election, according to Advertising Analytics.

But state Democrats are also focused on building enough state legislative power to affect redistricting in 2021, with Republicans just three seats away from veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

Recent public polling in the state from both the Marquette Law School and Siena College/The New York Times showed Biden with a 9- to 11-point lead over Trump.

I think we have an outstanding chance and Im convinced that Joe Biden will win. But we just cannot let down our guard, Evers said. We have good momentum in the state, he said, citing his own election in 2018 and Democrats blowout win in a 2020 state Supreme Court election.

Party officials said that Wisconsin Democrats have about $12 million in cash on hand between their state and federal accounts.

Wisconsin Republicans control both the state Senate and state Assembly, and Democrats are campaigning in the 2020 state elections to Save the Veto for Evers after repeated and bitter clashes over the last few years. The Democratic governor and the Republican statehouse have butted heads on everything from holding the states scandal-plagued primary in the midst of a pandemic to the legislatures ability to dismiss Evers cabinet members without his blessing.

The battle for the statehouse is also important for both parties, with the next legislature in charge of drawing the states congressional and legislative lines for the next ten years.

If we lose that three-person margin, theyll draw their maps, likely draw them even worse than they are now, Evers said. One of the first bills I get in the next session will be those new maps, and Ill veto them, and theyll override that veto.

Evers recently rolled out applications for a commission to draw the states maps. Evers is promoting the commissions mandate as being public and nonpartisan, but the legislature is under no obligation to consider the maps that the commission ultimately draws.

Wisconsin is a top target for both parties in the redistricting battle, and Wisconsinites are well represented among national Republicans redistricting-focused efforts this cycle. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan is advising the Republican State Leadership Committee, and former Republican National Committee chair and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus is on its board of directors. Former Gov. Scott Walker is helping to lead the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

Democrats have also launched an aggressive campaign focused on the map lines, spearheaded nationally by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group helmed by former Attorney General Eric Holder, and the Democratic Legislative Committee.

Democrats got crushed by Republicans during the post-2010 map-drawing cycle, both in Wisconsin and across the country, after Republicans outmaneuvered and outstrategized Democrats with its REDMAP program, which focused on key state legislative races.

Im a former educator, right? Evers said. You learn from your mistakes, and that was a huge one. We learned from that experience, [and] we also learned how important it is for a party itself to focus its efforts.

See more here:
Wisconsin Democratic Party raises $10M as battle for the state heats up - POLITICO