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Abortion debate creates ‘new era’ for state supreme court races in 2024, with big spending expected

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CHICAGO (AP) — The 2024 elections will be dominated by the presidential contest and the battle for control of Congress, but another series of races is shaping up to be just as consequential.

Crucial battles over abortion, gerrymandering, voting rights and other issues will take center stage in next year’s elections for state supreme court seats — 80 of them in 33 states.

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The races have emerged as some of the most hotly contested and costliest contests on the ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the consitutional right to an abortion. The decision shifted the abortion debate to states, creating a "new era" in state supreme court elections, said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks spending in judicial races.

"We have seen attention on state supreme court elections like never before and money in these races like never before," Keith said.

Heated court races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2023 handed victories to Democrats and saw tens of millions of dollars in TV ads, offering a preview of 2024. They're also prompting groups to consider investing in states they would not previously have considered.

ABORTION AND GERRYMANDERING TOP ISSUES

At least 38 lawsuits have been filed challenging abortion bans in 23 states, according to the Brennan Center. Many of those are expected to end up before state supreme courts.

The ACLU is watching cases challenging abortion restrictions in Wyoming, Kentucky, Ohio, Utah, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Nebraska, Georgia and Montana.

"After Roe v. Wade was overturned, we had to turn to state courts and state constitutions as the critical backstop to protecting access to abortion," said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. "And the stakes are unbelievably high in each of these cases in each of these states."

The ACLU was among major spenders on behalf of Democrats in this year's state supreme court contests in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Another big player in recent court races has been the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has said its focus is mainly on redistricting, or the drawing of political district boundaries. The group called state supreme courts the "last line of defense against far-left national groups," but didn't say how much it intends to spend on next year's races or which states it's focusing on.

In Ohio, Democrats are expected to cast state supreme court races as an extension of the November election in which voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution. The state has more than 30 abortion restrictions in place that could be challenged now that the amendment has passed.

"The state supreme court is going to be the ultimate arbiter of the meaning of the new constitutional amendment that the people voted for and organized around," said Jessie Hill, law professor at Case Western Reserve University and a consultant for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. "That is a huge amount of power."

With three seats up for a vote and a current Republican majority of 4-3, Democrats have an opportunity to flip the majority of the court while Republicans will try to expand their control. Hill said the "very high-stakes election" will serve as another test of the salience of the abortion issue in turning out voters.

"We saw an incredible number of voters come out to vote on that amendment and an incredible amount of investment in those campaigns," Hill added. "I think we’ll see a similar attention and investment in Ohio come next year."

Redistricting also is likely to be a main focus in the state's supreme court races, given the court will have realigned politically since it issued a series of rulings finding Ohio’s congressional and legislative maps unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans, said David Niven, political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. He expects millions of dollars to be spent on those campaigns.

"There’s often little conversation about these races, but they are just so utterly consequential in very tangible, practical ways that touch voters’ everyday lives," he said.

MAP BROADENS FOR CONSEQUENTIAL RACES

Pending legislative and congressional redistricting cases also could play a role in North Carolina.

Republicans in North Carolina are looking to expand their majority two years after the court flipped from Democratic control in the 2022 election. That flip to a 5-2 GOP majority led to dramatic reversals in 2023 on rulings made by the previous court, which had struck down a 2018 photo voter identification law as well as district maps for the General Assembly and the state’s congressional delegation.

Groups on both sides also are expected to focus on Michigan, where Democrats hold a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court. Candidates run without political affiliations listed on the ballot, though they’re nominated by political parties.

Two incumbents — one Democrat, one Republican — will be up for election in 2024. The court recently kept former President Donald Trump on the state's ballot, denying a liberal group's request to kick him off. It is currently weighing a high-profile case over a Republican legislative maneuver that gutted a minimum wage hike backed by voters.

2023 RACES A PREVIEW

In Wisconsin, abortion played a dominant role in the 2023 court race, with Democrats flipping the court to a 4-3 majority in a campaign that shattered previous national records for spending in state supreme court elections.

Liberal-leaning Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Justice Dan Kelly, who previously worked for Republicans and had support from the state’s leading anti-abortion groups.

Protasiewicz was targeted with impeachment threats this year over comments she made on the campaign trail about redistricting as Republicans argued she had prejudged what then was an expected case on the state's heavily gerrymandered state legislative districts. Experts say the controversy is an example of how more money and attention have changed the dynamics of many state supreme court races to be increasingly partisan.

Democrats in Pennsylvania added to their majority on the court after a race with tens of millions of dollars in spending. Democrat Dan McCaffery won after positioning himself as a strong defender of abortion rights.

CONTESTED SEATS EVEN IN DEEP RED STATES

It remains to be seen whether abortion rights will play a factor in states where party control isn't at stake. That includes Arkansas, where the court is expected to maintain its 4-3 conservative majority. The seats up next year include the chief justice position, which has drawn three sitting justices.

A fight over abortion could wind up before the court, with a group trying to put a measure on the ballot next year that would scale back a state ban on the procedure that took effect once Roe was overturned.

Abortion rights supporters also aren't writing off longshot states such as Texas and its all-Republican high court, which rejected the request from a pregnant woman whose fetus had a fatal condition to be exempted from the state's strict abortion ban.

In Montana, Republicans have spent huge sums to try to push the court in a more conservative direction. The liberal-leaning court is expected to hear cases related to restrictions on transgender youth and abortion. A landmark climate change case also is pending before the court, which will have two of its seven seats up for election.

Jeremiah Lynch, a former federal magistrate running for the open chief justice position, has cast himself as a defender of the court's independence and has warned voters to expect a barrage of negative advertising. Cory Swanson, a county attorney also running for the post, announced his bid on a conservative talk show and recently vowed to weed out any "radicalized" applicants for law clerks in response to antisemitism on college campuses.

In West Virginia, where conservatives have a current 5-4 majority on the court and two seats will be up for grabs, GOP chair Elgine McArdle said Republicans aim to focus more on judicial races than in years past.

"One area the state party has never really engaged much in is nonpartisan races, including the judicial races," McArdle said. "That won’t be the case this time around."

Federal judge orders GOP Rep. Scott Perry to release texts and emails in 2020 election probe

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A federal judge is ordering Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania to turn over more than 1,600 texts and emails to FBI agents investigating efforts to keep President Donald Trump in office after his 2020 election loss and illegally block the transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden.

The ruling, late Monday, came more than a year after Perry’s personal cellphone was seized by federal authorities. The decision, by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, is largely in line with an earlier finding by a federal judge that Perry appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

Boasberg, in a 12-page decision, said that, after viewing each record, he decided that Perry, a top Trump ally, can withhold 396 of the messages under the constitution's speech and debate clause that protects the work of members of Congress.

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However, the other 1,659 records do not involve legislative acts and must be disclosed, Boasberg ruled. That includes efforts to influence members of the executive branch, discussions about Vice President Mike Pence's role in certifying the election and providing information about alleged election fraud.

Perry's lawyer, John Rowley, did not immediately respond to a query about whether he will appeal. In the past, Rowley has said that government officials have never described Perry to him as a target of their investigation.

Perry is chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a hardline faction of conservatives. Perry has not been charged with a crime and is the only sitting member of Congress whose cellphone was seized by the FBI in the 2020 election investigation.

Perry's efforts to protect the contents of his cell phone have proceeded largely in secret, except in recent weeks when snippets and short summaries of his texts and emails were inadvertently unsealed — and then resealed — by the federal court.

Those messages revealed more about where Perry may fit in the web of Trump loyalists who were central to his bid to remain in power.

Making Perry a figure of interest to federal prosecutors were his efforts to elevate Jeffrey Clark to Trump’s acting attorney general in late 2020.

Perry, in the past, has said he merely "obliged" Trump’s request that he be introduced to Clark. At the time, Trump was searching for a like-minded successor to use the Department of Justice to help stall the certification of Biden's election victory.

But the messages suggest that Perry was a key ally for Clark, who positioned himself as someone who would reverse the Department of Justice’s stance that it had found no evidence of widespread voting fraud.

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To that end, Clark had drafted a letter that he suggested sending to Georgia saying the Department of Justice had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia," according to the August indictment in that state accusing Trump, Clark and 17 others of trying illegally to keep him in power.

At the time, Clark was the assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and served as the acting head of the Civil Division.

The showdown over Clark brought the Justice Department to the brink of crisis, prosecutors have said, and Trump ultimately backed down after he was told that it would result in mass resignations at the Justice Department and his own White House counsel’s office.

Clark is now described in the federal indictment of Trump as one of six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators in an effort to illegally subvert the 2020 election.

Vermont sheriff accused of kicking shackled suspect loses certification

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A Vermont sheriff charged with assault for kicking a shackled prisoner is losing his law enforcement certification.

After hearing two days of testimony, the Vermont Criminal Justice Council on Wednesday found that Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore violated the state’s use of force policy and voted 15-1 that he permanently lose his ability to enforce the law in Vermont.

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"Hopefully, law enforcement officers who might think of engaging in this kind of conduct will think not just twice, but many more times before engaging in this way," said Bill Sorrell, the chair of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, WCAX-TV reported.

Grismore will not lose his job as sheriff but he will no longer be able to issue tickets, make arrests, and investigate crimes. He said he plans to appeal.

"Demonstrating to law enforcement officers that they will lose their career by going out of their way to try to assist and intervene with unruly and dangerous individuals is going to have an extreme chilling effect," his attorney, Robert Kaplan, said, according to mynbc5.

Grismore was elected sheriff in November of last year even though he was fired from a job as a captain in the Franklin County sheriff’s department that August after video surfaced of him kicking a shackled prisoner. He pleaded not guilty to a simple assault charge.

Just before he took office in February, state police said they were investigating the finances of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and Grismore. He is also facing the results of an investigation by a special committee of the Vermont Legislature formed to investigate his possible impeachment. The committee is scheduled to meet on Monday.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court debates future of impeachment trial for Philadelphia Prosecutor Larry Krasner

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Pennsylvania's highest court on Tuesday weighed whether the Legislature can proceed with an impeachment trial against Philadelphia's elected progressive prosecutor and whether the court or lawmakers should determine what qualifies as misbehavior in office.

What the justices decide after oral arguments in the Supreme Court chambers in Harrisburg will determine the future of efforts to remove District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, on claims he should have prosecuted some minor crimes, his bail policies and how he has managed his office.

Krasner was impeached by the state House in November 2022, a year after he was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term, sending the matter to the state Senate for trial.

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Justice Kevin Brobson, one of the two Republicans on the bench Tuesday, questioned why the court should get involved at this point and suggested the Senate may not get the two-thirds majority necessary to convict and remove Krasner from office.

"Just as I would not want the General Assembly to stick its nose into a court proceeding, I am shy about whether it makes sense, constitutionally, jurisprudentially, for us at this stage to stick our noses" into the impeachment process, he said.

Justice Christine Donohue, among the four Democratic justices at the hearing, said she was not comfortable delving "into the weeds" of what the impeachable offenses were, but indicated it should be up to the Supreme Court to define misbehavior in office, the grounds for removal.

"It would go through the Senate once we define what misbehavior in office means, whatever that is, and then it would never come back again because then there would be a definition of what misbehavior in office is," she said.

Another Democrat, Justice David Wecht, seemed to chafe at an argument by lawyers for the two Republican House members managing the impeachment trial that lawmakers should determine what constitutes misbehavior.

"It’s not just akin to indicting a ham sandwich," Wecht said. He went on to say, "They could have totally different ham sandwiches in mind."

"I mean, it’s whatever the House wakes up to today and what they have for breakfast and then they bring impeachment. And then tomorrow the Senate wakes up and they think of the polar opposite as what any misbehavior means," Wecht said.

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Krasner has dismissed the House Republicans’ claims as targeting his policies, and a lower court issued a split ruling in the matter.

A panel of lower-court judges rejected two of Krasner’s challenges — that the opportunity for a trial died along with the end last year’s session and that as a local official he could not be impeached by the General Assembly. But it agreed with him that the impeachment articles do not meet the state constitution’s definition of misbehavior in office.

Krasner’s appeal seeks reconsideration of the Commonwealth Court’s decision.

The Republican representatives who spearheaded the impeachment and the GOP-controlled Senate leadership also appealed, arguing that impeachment proceedings exist outside of the rules of lawmaking and could continue into a new legislative session. Krasner, as a district attorney, gets state funding and that distinguishes him from purely local officials, they argued.

Pennsylvania Rep. Craig Williams enters 2024 race for attorney general

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A state lawmaker who is helping lead the effort to impeach Philadelphia's elected prosecutor on Tuesday became the newest candidate for Pennsylvania attorney general, an office that played a critical role in court defending Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the presidential battleground.

Rep. Craig Williams, a Republican who represents part of suburban Philadelphia, has said for months that he planned to run for the state's top law enforcement office in 2024.

Williams, a former federal prosecutor and former U.S. Marine Corps pilot and prosecutor, is the third Republican to declare his candidacy.

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In an announcement video, Williams says, "I'm running for attorney general because I know how to deal with violence. ... I fought the bad guys on the battlefield and I beat them in the courtroom."

Democrats are facing a five-way primary for an office that will be open after next year.

Williams is a second-term member of the state House who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008, losing by 20 percentage points to then-U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak. He spent about a decade as a lawyer for Philadelphia-area electric and gas utility Peco Energy Co., an Exelon Corp. subsidiary, before running for the Legislature.

As a freshman lawmaker, he became one of two House Republicans tapped to lead the impeachment of Philadelphia's progressive district attorney, Larry Krasner. The process is tied up in court, with Krasner challenging it as a political impeachment based on policy disagreements, not credible evidence of wrongdoing in office.

Williams, 58, born in Alabama, got his law degree at the University of Florida.

The attorney general's office has a budget of about $140 million annually and plays a prominent role in arresting drug traffickers, fighting gun trafficking, defending state laws in court and protecting consumers from predatory practices.

The office also defended the integrity of Pennsylvania’s 2020 presidential election against repeated attempts to overturn it in state and federal courts by Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican allies.

The two other Republicans who have announced their candidacies are York County District Attorney Dave Sunday and former federal prosecutor Katayoun Copeland.

The Democrats running are Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, state Rep. Jared Solomon of Philadelphia, former state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, former federal prosecutor Joe Kahn and Keir Bradford-Grey, the former head of Philadelphia’s and Montgomery County’s public defense lawyers.

No Republican has been elected attorney general since 2008.

Candidates must file paperwork by Feb. 13 to appear on the April 23 primary ballot.

The current officeholder, Michelle Henry, is filling the last two years of Gov. Josh Shapiro 's second term as attorney general and doesn't plan to run for the office. Shapiro nominated Henry, his top deputy, in January when he was sworn in as governor.

Tennessee Supreme Court justice announces retirement

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Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Roger Page announced on Monday that he plans to retire in August 2024.

In a statement from Tennessee's court system, the 68-year-old said his time as a judge has been humbling, inspiring and the honor of a lifetime. He was first appointed to the high court by former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in 2016. His last day will be Aug. 31.

"The Tennessee judiciary is truly a family, and I have been fortunate to walk this path with my great friends in the judiciary," Page said in a statement. "I will miss all of them and treasure their friendship."

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The decision will give Republican Gov. Bill Lee a chance to appoint his third justice on the five-member court. The five current justices were all appointed by Republican governors.

Page has spent more than 25 years as a judge at the trial court, intermediate appellate and Tennessee Supreme Court levels. Haslam appointed him to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in 2011 before picking Page for the state Supreme Court about five years later. Page served as the chief justice from 2021 to 2023.

During his tenure, Page helped secure funding for electronic filing for the court system, advocated for access to pro bono services and promoted livestreaming of appellate arguments, according to the statement.

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Page grew up on a farm in the Mifflin area of West Tennessee. Before his legal career, he worked as a chief pharmacist and assistant store manager for Walgreens.

"If I hurry, I might have time for one more career," Page said.

He praised the work done by Tennessee's judiciary system during the pandemic, including advances in technology.

"It has been incredibly gratifying to watch the start of an evolution across the judiciary," Page said. "I look forward to following those changes and to catching up with my judicial family in between trips I have been planning for years, watching my grandkids play sports, and spending time with my wonderful wife."

In Tennessee, the governor's picks for Supreme Court must also be confirmed by state lawmakers. Republicans have supermajority control in both legislative chambers. Additionally, Supreme Court justices face "yes-no" retention elections every eight years. Voters retained Page and the other four justices at the time during the 2022 election.

Wisconsin Supreme Court weighs challenge to constitutionality of state-funded school choice programs

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Supporters of Wisconsin's taxpayer-funded school choice and independent charter school programs urged the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject a lawsuit seeking to declare the programs unconstitutional, saying such a move would create chaos for tens of thousands of families with students currently enrolled.

Private schools, parents with students who attend them, advocacy groups and the state chamber of commerce argue in court filings that the 32-year-old program has benefitted families for a generation and the effort to undo it is politically motivated, after the Supreme Court's majority shifted to liberal control earlier this year.

"A mere change in membership should not create an opportunity to challenge precedent," supporters of school choice programs, being represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, contend. "A single election is not a mandate to radically change the law."

FORMER WISCONSIN CHIEF JUSTICE ORDERED TO TURN OVER RECORDS RELATED TO PROTASIEWICZ IMPEACHMENT ADVISEMENT

The lawsuit was filed two months after the state Supreme Court flipped to 4-3 liberal controlled. With that change, Democrats hope the court will rule in their favor in pending cases seeking to overturn Republican-drawn legislative electoral maps and undo the state’s ban on abortion.

The school choice lawsuit comes after decades of complaints from Democrats who have argued that the program is a drain on resources that would otherwise go to public schools.

The nation's first school choice program began in Milwaukee in 1990. Then seen as an experiment to help low-income students in the state's largest city, the program has expanded statewide and its income restrictions have been loosened, and it served more than 52,000 students at a cost of $444 million in the last school year.

Democrats including Gov. Tony Evers, who previously served as state superintendent of education, have been longtime critics of the program. But Evers this summer agreed to increase spending on the programs as part of a larger education funding package that was also tied to a deal sending more money to Milwaukee and local governments.

The first question for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide is whether to take the case directly or first have it work its way through lower courts. The plaintiffs want the high court to take it directly, which would mean a ruling could come in months rather than perhaps years if it had to go through the lower courts.

The lawsuit was brought by several Wisconsin residents and is being funded by the liberal Minocqua Brewing Super PAC. Kirk Bangstad, who owns the Minocqua Brewing Co., is a former Democratic candidate for U.S. House and state Assembly. His brewery produces beer with politically themed names that tout Democrats, such as "Evers Ale," a nod to the governor.

Bangstad's super PAC has funded previous lawsuits targeting Republicans.

The lawsuit asks the court to stop three state officials from continuing the choice programs: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly and Secretary of the Department of Administration Kathy Blumenfeld.

All three of them faced a Tuesday deadline to file arguments.

The lawsuit argues that the state’s revenue limit and funding mechanism for voucher school programs and charter schools violate the Wisconsin Constitution’s declaration that public funds be spent for public purposes.

It also contends that vouchers defund public schools, do not allow for adequate public oversight and do not hold private schools to the same standards as public schools.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that Milwaukee’s voucher program was legal. But the current lawsuit alleges that as the program has expanded, the situation has dramatically changed.

At the start of last school year, enrollment in choice programs was more than 29,000 in Milwaukee, 3,900 in Racine and 17,000 elsewhere in the state, according to the state Department of Public Instruction. Another 2,200 disabled students received vouchers under a special needs scholarship program.

Ending the programs now would cause "chaos," for tens of thousands of families, argued 22 parents of voucher-enrolled students, private schools and choice advocacy groups.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative activist law firm, on Tuesday released a report claiming that if the school choice program ended, the Milwaukee school district would have to open about 17 additional buildings to accommodate the influx of students. Statewide, more than 3,700 teachers would have to be hired in public schools, the report said.

Former Wisconsin Chief Justice ordered to turn over records related to Protasiewicz impeachment advisement

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A Wisconsin judge on Friday ordered the former chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to produce records related to her work advising the Republican Assembly speaker on whether to impeach a current justice.

Former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack was one of three former Supreme Court justices asked by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to give him advice on pursuing impeachment. Vos has floated impeachment against liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz based on how she rules on a pending redistricting lawsuit Democrats hope will result in new legislative electoral maps.

The liberal watchdog group American Oversight filed a lawsuit seeking records from Vos and the three former justices. Vos and two of the former justices, David Prosser and Jon Wilcox, turned over records. That included an email from Prosser to Vos advising against impeachment. Vos turned over more than 21,000 pages of documents last week, American Oversight attorney Ben Sparks said at a Friday hearing.

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Wilcox told The Associated Press he did not produce a report, but verbally told Vos impeachment was not warranted.

The only former justice who did not produce any records was Roggensack. She has not said what her advice was to Vos and he has refused to say what it was.

When American Oversight attempted to serve Roggensack with a subpoena at her home, an elderly man who answered the door said he did not know anyone by that name and closed the door, Sparks said in court while quoting a statement from the process server.

On Friday, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington issued an order giving Roggensack 30 days to produce any records she has.

"Wisconsin has had and continues to have a long and storied tradition on the responsibility of open government," Remington said.

All of the former justices have a responsibility to produce records they maintain related to their work "whether they understood it or not in accepting the invitation to opine on the question presented," he said.

Roggensack's attorney, Robert Shumaker, did not return a phone message or email seeking comment.

Vos originally said he was considering impeachment if Protasiewicz did not recuse herself from the redistricting case. She did not recuse. Vos did not move to impeach her, following the advice against impeachment from the former justices. But now he’s suggesting he may attempt to impeach her if she does not rule in favor of upholding the current Republican-drawn maps.

The Wisconsin Constitution reserves impeachment for "corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors."

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Republicans have argued Protasiewicz has pre-judged the case based on comments she made during the campaign calling the current maps "unfair" and "rigged."

Protasiewicz, in her decision not to recuse from the case, said that while stating her opinion about the maps, she never made a promise or pledge about how she would rule on the case.

The redistricting lawsuit, filed the day after Protasiewicz joined the court in August and flipped majority control to 4-3 for liberals, asks that all 132 state lawmakers be up for election next year in newly drawn districts.

The legislative electoral maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 cemented the party’s majorities, which now stand at 64-35 in the Assembly and a 22-11 supermajority in the Senate. Republicans adopted maps last year that were similar to the existing ones.

Wisconsin’s Assembly districts rank among the most gerrymandered nationally, with Republicans routinely winning far more seats than would be expected based on their average share of the vote, according to an AP analysis.

Wisconsin governor expected to approve bill for early processing of absentee ballots

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Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday that he will sign into law a bill that would allow Wisconsin elections officials to process absentee ballots the day before an election if the Republican-controlled Legislature passes the measure in its current form.

The Republican-backed proposal, which was up for a vote in the state Assembly on Thursday, is intended to ease the workload of local clerks and their staff, who run elections, and prevent ballot-counting from stretching late into election night. The state Senate would also need to pass it before it would go to the governor.

Evers and the Republicans who control the Legislature have seldom found common ground on elections proposals. The governor has vetoed numerous GOP-sponsored elections bills in recent years that he said would make it harder to vote.

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"Gov. Evers will veto any bill that enables politicians to interfere with our elections or makes it harder for eligible Wisconsinites to cast their ballot, but if there are common-sense proposals that help ensure Wisconsin’s elections continue to be fair, secure, and safe, he’ll certainly consider signing them," Evers' spokesperson, Britt Cudaback, said in a statement.

Under the bill, elections workers would not be allowed to count votes until after polls close on election day, but they could work ahead to check ballot envelopes for necessary information, verify voter eligibility and take ballots out of envelopes to prepare them for tallying.

Currently, Wisconsin elections workers cannot process absentee ballots until polls open at 7 a.m. on election day. This has led to long processing times for larger cities such as Madison and Milwaukee, sometimes causing swings in initial tallies when large batches of election results are reported late at night. Former President Donald Trump and election skeptics have falsely claimed that those so-called ballot dumps are the result of election fraud.

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The Legislature has rejected similar proposals that would have allowed early ballot processing in recent years, despite them receiving bipartisan support. The bill up for a vote on Thursday, which also includes new reporting requirements for local elections officials on election night, was not sponsored by any Democratic lawmakers.

Evers proposed allowing early ballot processing in his budget proposal earlier this year, but that plan was scrapped by Republicans.

If the bill up for a vote Thursday passes in its current form without any "poison pill" additions from the Legislature, Evers will sign it, Cudaback said.

"Gov. Evers for years has proposed allowing county and municipal clerks to begin canvassing absentee ballots the day before an election and is glad to see this effort finally has bipartisan support," she said.

Wisconsin GOP leader downplays pressure to impeach nonpartisan elections czar

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Wisconsin's Republican Assembly leader on Tuesday downplayed pressure he's receiving from former President Donald Trump and fellow GOP lawmakers to impeach the state's nonpartisan elections administrator, saying such a vote is "unlikely" to happen.

Some Republicans have been trying to oust state elections administrator Meagan Wolfe, who was in her position during the 2020 election narrowly lost by Trump in Wisconsin. The Senate voted last month to fire Wolfe but later admitted the vote was symbolic and had no legal effect.

Five Assembly Republicans in September introduced 15 articles of impeachment targeting Wolfe, a move that could result in her removal from office if the Assembly passed it and the Senate voted to convict. The Republican president of the Senate has also called on Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to proceed with impeachment.

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A group led by election conspiracy theorists launched a six-figure television advertising campaign last month threatening to unseat Vos if he did not proceed with impeachment. On Monday night, Trump posted a news release on his social media platform Truth Social from one of GOP lawmaker's who sponsored the impeachment. The release from state Rep. Janel Brandtjen criticized Vos for not doing more to remove Wolfe.

Vos on Tuesday said Republicans were "nowhere near a consensus" and no vote on impeachment was imminent.

"I can’t predict what’s going to happen in the future, but I think it is unlikely that it’s going to come up any time soon," Vos said.

Vos has previously said he supports removing Wolfe, but he wanted to first see how a lawsuit filed on her behalf to keep her in the job plays out.

The Assembly can only vote to impeach state officials for corrupt conduct in office or for committing a crime or misdemeanor. If a majority of the Assembly were to vote to impeach, the case would move to a Senate trial in which a two-thirds vote would be required for conviction. Republicans won a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate in April.

WISCONSIN SENATE APPROVES 3 NEW CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS IN ELECTION SECURITY PUSH

Wolfe did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday. In September, Wolfe accused Republican lawmakers who introduced the impeachment resolution of trying to "willfully distort the truth."

Vos called for moving on from the 2020 election.

"We need to move forward and talk about the issues that matter to most Wisconsinites and that is not, for most Wisconsinites, obsessing about Meagan Wolfe," Vos said.

The fight over who will oversee elections in the presidential battleground state has caused instability ahead of the 2024 presidential race for Wisconsin’s more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run elections. The issues Republicans have taken with Wolfe are centered around how she administered the 2020 presidential election and many are based in lies spread by Trump and his supporters.

President Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, an outcome that has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review and multiple state and federal lawsuits.