April 5 was a solid day for Wisconsin. We effectively stopped the momentum of Donald Trump and joined the revolution of Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont.
But Wisconsin failed to vote Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley out of office.
Last month, it came out Bradley had written op-eds in a school newspaper during her college years. Those op-eds should have ended her career as a justice, but for some reason the majority of those voting in the state Supreme Court election didn’t bat an eye.
The fact Bradley openingly bashed gays and compared abortion to the Holocaust, didn’t matter to 52 percent of the voters. The fact Bradley was appointed and supported by Walker didn’t matter to 52 percent of the voters. And the fact Bradley is clearly not impartial and clearly not for equality across the board didn’t matter to 52 percent of the voters.
But why, when voter turnout was so high, did Bradley win? The answer is the fact many voters, especially young voters who vote Democratic more often, were most likely only motivated to vote because of the presidential primary. Trump and Sanders are extremely good motivators.
So many voters may have gone into the voting booth with only one thing on their mind. When it came to the local and state elections most voters probably didn’t know enough and probably just skipped over those parts of the ballot.
Or if you’re like me, you’ll write in your roommate for every local election.
This is a major problem. Yes, national elections matter. Yes, deciding who the president will be is a huge deal. But local elections affect our daily lives a whole lot more than the next president will. A president has never helped fix a road in your neighborhood, never gotten funding for the new public school in town and doesn’t impact your security at local businesses. Local elected officials do.
Actions have consequences: It’s time to vote out Rebecca Bradley
It’s the county board members, the mayors and the state level officials who affect our daily lives. So while I’m glad everyone is all hyped up to get politically involved on a national level, we should be paying a lot more attention to local elections.
Luke Schaetzel ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in journalism and political science.
