Two Republican lawmakers urge on crowd gathered at Wisconsin Capitol seeking to overturn the 2020 election
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MADISON – Two Wisconsin lawmakers — one egged on by former President Donald Trump — stood before hundreds in the rotunda of the state Capitol on Tuesday to rally support for the legally impossible cause of overturning the 2020 presidential election.
"You're not crazy," Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls told the gathering of supporters who have embraced the notion the 2020 election was flawed, despite recounts, audits and court rulings that determined Joe Biden won the state's presidential contest by more than 20,000 votes.
Rep. Timothy Ramthun, a Republican who announced a run for governor on Saturday, was the reason the crowd descended on the Capitol. For months, Ramthun has led an effort to get Republicans who control the Legislature to take up a resolution he wrote to pull back Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes.
His work has earned him praise from Trump and discipline from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who was the target of criticism among rally-goers who held signs that said "Toss Vos."
Amid the fanfare of the rally, Ramthun skipped a vote on a constitutional amendment being taken up on the Assembly floor that would change how bail is determined in Wisconsin.
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After the 2½-hour-long event, Ramthun told reporters he wasn’t sure who won the 2020 election, wants to dissolve the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and believes elections would be run best if voting machines weren't used.
"I think the paper ballots are the gold standard — one name, one ballot and not have machines," said Ramthun, backing an approach that would greatly delay the tallying of votes.
Ramthun said if Wisconsin and other states were to withdraw their electoral votes for Biden, the U.S. House would get to decide who the president is. Congress confirmed the election results more than a year ago and election experts from both the left and right say there is no legal way to reverse the Electoral College results.
Ramthun said he wants a thorough review of the election because he doesn’t believe there is solid information to know whether Biden or Trump won in 2020. He questioned the results of elections in Wisconsin going back to the 1990s.
"In my opinion, based on what I've heard, what I've read and whom I've spoken to, the situation about how elections have been processing has been a question mark for at least 25 years," he said. "It goes back to Bill Clinton and Bob Dole in '96."
Ramthun faces former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and management consultant Kevin Nicholson in the Aug. 9 Republican primary. The winner will face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in November.
Kleefisch and Nicholson have called for eliminating the Elections Commission and questioned how the election was run in 2020 but have not gone as far as Ramthun by calling for trying to revoke the state's electoral votes.
Ramthun's measure proposes to accomplish the impossible and won't be taken up, according to Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke. The crowd that showed up Tuesday hoped to pressure lawmakers to change their minds.
The event was organized as a growing number of Republicans have become furious with Vos because of his discipline of Ramthun over false election claims.
Jefferson Davis, the former Menomonee Falls village president who organized the rally, told attendees they had a simple message to lawmakers — they want Ramthun's resolution brought to the floor.
"All we want you to do is vote. Is that asking too much?" he said.
Davis and event attendees concluded their rally by visiting the offices of Vos and other lawmakers who serve on the Assembly Rules Committee, where Ramthun's resolution has been assigned and where Steineke promised it will die.
Steineke abruptly announced Tuesday that the committee was pushing back its meeting from mid-afternoon to after Gov. Tony Evers' State of the State address, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. That disrupted plans by Ramthun's backers to show up and urge members in person to take up his resolution.
Some of the documents Ramthun's supporters brought with them cite the state constitution of Virginia, rather than Wisconsin, and contend that officials who do not meet their demands can be brought before a grand jury. There is no legal basis for such a claim.
Vos last summer hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to lead a taxpayer-funded review of the election. The review is months behind schedule and Gableman has said he may need more than the $676,000 that Vos has allotted him.
Some Republicans have cheered on the effort while others have called it inadequate. Democrats and election experts have said Gableman is undermining faith in elections because he is consulting with election conspiracy theorists and claimed without evidence right after the election that it had been stolen.
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Contact Molly Beck and Patrick Marley at molly.beck@jrn.com and patrick.marley@jrn.com.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Two GOP lawmakers urge on crowd seeking to overturn 2020 election
