As redistricting case marches forward, Wisconsin is passing a key date regarding Republican impeachment threats

Plus: Could a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandered maps be coming in a matter of weeks?

The Recombobulation Area is a ten-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written, edited and published by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.

Robin Vos (left) routinely threatened to impeach Janet Protasiewicz (right). But that just got more complicated for him. Getty Images.

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Quietly, Wisconsin is about to pass a key date on its political calendar. 

As you’ll recall, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was threatening to impeach Janet Protasiewicz before she even heard a case. It was as absurd as it was predictable. The core argument would have flown in the face of recusal standards that right-wing justices themselves do not abide by.  

Many of us were trying to determine all the political calculations and timing that went into that decision. Could Vos, with a gerrymandered near-supermajority in the Assembly, hold a vote to impeach, sidelining Protasiewicz, even if the State Senate never took action? If both GOP-held chambers did move forward with full impeachment, could it be done so that there would be another election on the 2024 spring ballot? 

These questions prompted this complicated if-then flowchart that political insiders were discussing ad nauseum. But now, we have arrived at one of those key dates.