“There are factors that you consider in determining which cases to bring, things like how significant the violation is, how flagrant it it, whether it is repeated conduct of not,’ Kaul said. “There are a variety of things that prosecutors and investigators regularly consider when making decisions. But it has to be those kinds of factors that are influencing decisions that are being made. I’m confident that is how cases are approached at the WI Department of Justice, but I would also say that I am confident that is how cases are approached at the U.S. Department of Justice.”

With all of that said, Kaul observed that Wisconsin and the United States are at a critical juncture in their history where the basic freedoms that people have enjoyed are under attack and that the will of the people as expressed in voting is threatened.

“One of the points that I wanted to emphasize at the NAACP banquet was the importance at this time in our history of defending and expanding our freedoms and equal justice under the law,” Kaul said. “In my remarks, I talked about there are many areas where our freedoms are being implicated right now and we need to make sure that we are protecting them, whether it is reproductive freedom, the freedom to vote, things as simple as the ability of teachers to speak freely in their classrooms and kids to read books that aren’t being censored or banned, and the ability of teachers to teach history accurately. Those kinds of issues have become topics of political debate. And I think it is critical that we protect those freedoms. And likewise, we’ve seen actions like the gutting of the Voting Rights Act that we need to keep protecting equal protection under the law as well.”

Voting is the key to participating in a democracy where every day citizens, no matter what their background is, can express their policy preferences through their elected representatives. The more restrictions on who can vote and how they can vote are put in place, the less representative the vote is of the will of the people.

“I would say that we are at a critically important juncture for the future of our democracy,” Kaul emphasized. “I personally was involved in voting rights litigation before I was attorney general. And during my time as AG, the WI Department of Justice has been involved in a variety of cases pertaining to our voting rights. In 2020, there was an effort to overturn the election. We defended the will of the voters. And we won. There was the ‘Gableman Investigation’ into the results of our elections. We were clear that Wisconsin has free, fair and safe elections. And then there is now this ongoing effort to remove Meagan Wolfe from office. We’re defending the election commission and the decisions that it has made. There are conspiracy theories that continue to circulate. It’s important that we are clear that the results of our elections reflect the will of the voters and should be relied upon.”

It is sometimes the very will of the voters that some segments of the electorate are fearful of and so they would like to preserve their ability to impact policies regardless of how well tghey appeal to voters at the polls.

“The talk of impeaching WI Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz is an example of disregarding the will of the voters,” Kaul emphasized. “We had an election in April 2023 and the voters were very clear on what they thought about that. Our legislature, which is heavily gerrymandered, apparently considered moving forward with impeachment. I’ve been glad to see that they have taken a significant step back from that. But respecting the will off the voters and trying to translate that into policy outcomes is part of what is supposed to happen in a representative democracy. Finding ways that we can enable that to empower voters is what we should be doing. One good example of that right now is the redistricting litigation. I’m representing the governor in that matter. We’ve argued both that the current state legislative maps are unconstitutional and that in adopting new maps, if the court does, one of the central principles should be working to empower voters so that when voters go to the polls, the decisions they are making are reflected in the overall outcomes in the state.”

Kaul pointed to two major issues that his department is focused on, gerrymandering where legislative voting districts are drawn in a way that guarantee certain outcomes — something that is practiced by Republicans and Democrats across the country — and “legislative veto” that inhibits the governor for implementing policies and laws that have already been approved.

“Right now, the way that the maps are set up, being heavily gerrymandered as they are, in a lot of parts of the state, it is a foregone conclusion that either a Democrat or a Republican will be elected in a particular district,” Kaul said. “They are clearly drawn to obtain a particular outcome. What that means is that when voters go to cast their ballot in legislative elections, they’re often voting in an election where the outcome is preordained. So what we’ve argued is that if in developing new maps, if the court does, it should look to a couple of things.

“One is overall fairness. If roughly one-half of the voters in the state vote for one party and half for the other, you would expect to have something similar to that in the composition of the legislature. And secondly, you want to have the legislature be responsive to the voters. If in one year, you have a lot more votes for Democratic candidates, you would expect the legislature to become more Democratic and vice versa. That’s what empowering voters looks like. And it is consistent with that idea of one-person, one-vote. It’s giving voters the power to determine the direction of the state.”

And then there is “legislative veto” where the legislature puts on additional reqwuirements before they will release funds.

“We’ve asked the WI Supreme Court to grant an original action to take review over some of these legislative vetoes that the legislature has been doing,” Kaul said. “Our argument is very simple, which is the way our government is supposed to be set up is that they legislature legislates. And then the executive branch executes the law. What has happened in a number of places in Wisconsin law is that the legislature has created this extra step in the process where a legislative committee needs to sign off on an executive branch action before it can go forward. But that’s not how our system of government was set up. The Founders of the country — and that is consistent with the views of the Founders of the state — were clear that it was important to separate the powers among different branches of government and they served as an important check on each other. And that concentrating power that belongs in different branches in one branch was harmful to our liberty. And so I am hopeful that we will see the court step in in that case.”

Equal rights are neer forever guaranteed.