Political Processes & Rhetoric – Page 14 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Spring in Wisconsin: Slight Chance of Showers with a Great Chance of Heavy Advertising

Post author:Randy Jones
Post published:April 15, 2018
Post category:Civil Rights Judges & Judicial Process Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

This semester in Professor Lisa Mazzie’s Advanced Legal Writing: Writing for Law Practice seminar, students are required to write one blog post on a law- or law school-related topic of their choice. Writing blog posts as a lawyer is a great way to practice writing skills, and to do so in a way that allows the writer a little more freedom to showcase his or her own voice, and—eventually for these students—a great way to maintain visibility as a legal professional. Here is one of those blog posts, this one written by 2L Randy Jones.

In Wisconsin, the weather may serve as an indicator of spring. I say “may” because the weather often teases us. Most people would say indicators of spring are pollen or budding of trees, bushes, and flowers. For some, it’s the lake trout (Steelhead) swimming up the rivers to spawn. But a sure indicator is political advertising, even for positions that should not be political. I began to wonder why I am seeing so many advertisements. It seemed to me that everywhere I looked, even scrolling down Facebook, I was being shown an advertisement (subconsciously) telling me to vote for Judge Rebecca Dallet for Supreme Court.

Every spring, Wisconsin has an election. Sometimes the election is for judges, for school board representative, and sometimes for state superintendent. Wisconsin has a problem: voter turnout in Wisconsin primaries has been historically low, even sometimes for a presidential race.

Don’t Laugh — Millennial Leader Serious About Easing Political Polarization

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:February 20, 2018
Post category:Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Speakers at Marquette

You didn’t need to go further than the opening moments of the “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program in the Lubar Center at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday to grasp the challenge his guest for the day has taken on.

Gousha was introducing Steven Olikara, founder and president of the Millennial Action Project. “They’re hoping, sort of, to re-establish political cooperation,” Gousha said. That brought an audible snicker from a member of the audience, which brought a larger laugh from the group. “This is a cynical, cynical group,” Gousha said, with a laugh. Olikara responded, “That’s OK, my parents laughed, too.”

But Olikara is serious about it and he exuded confidence that improvement in the tone of American politics will come.

Voter Identification Laws Set Off Alarm Bells for “On the Issues” Speakers

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:November 16, 2017
Post category:Lubar Center Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Speakers at Marquette

A cycle in which expansion of the right to vote is followed by efforts to suppress voting can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries, according to Professor Atiba Ellis. And the cycle continues now in ways that are keeping many people from voting and making voting much harder for others.

“We seem to be repeating the same pattern over and over again,” Ellis said at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program Thursday in the Lubar Center of Marquette Law School. Ellis, the Boden Visiting Professor at Marquette Law School this fall, is a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law who has made study of voting rights a focus of his scholarship.

Joining Ellis in the program was Molly McGrath of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, who called the current surge of laws requiring such things as presentation of photo identification in order to vote “incredibly alarming.”