Citizen Action of Wisconsin’s Robert Kraig on Republicans trying to pass new maps, new abortion bans

Citizen Action of Wisconsin executive director Robert Kraig joined to discuss some of the details on Republicans’ fast-tracked effort to pass what they call Gov. Tony Evers’ maps, plus how they’re trying to put a binding referendum on ballot for a new abortion ban.

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Began the show just setting up the interview on both issues, as well as talking quick about President Joe Biden in Superior, Wis., campaigning on the infrastructure bill he got passed by helping get a $1.8 billion bridge built.

After that, Kraig joined and we started with the voting maps issue. While we wait for the state Supreme Court to draw new maps or pick from seven submitted maps, Republicans have already chosen  — saying they’ll take the maps Evers drew. Only problem, those aren’t the maps Evers drew.

Then we got into school funding for a few minutes, as districts across the state are continually forced to make cuts to balance budgets — as we learned the day before when La Crosse Schools superintendent Dr. Aaron Engel joined.

Wrapped up with Kraig talking about Republicans in the Assembly quickly passing a 14-week abortion ban — one that doesn’t have exceptions for rape or incest. The GOP want to put the measure on April’s ballot — which comes months after Republicans denied Evers putting an abortion question on the ballot and the state Legislature passing a bipartisan shared revenue bill that took away local communities’ ability to put any nonbinding referendum on a ballot.