Musk denied he was buying votes but said the court election outcome would be critical to Trump’s agenda and ‘the future of civilization’
www.theguardian.com
Elon Musk gave out $1m checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin supreme court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to
Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization”.
“It’s a super big deal,” he told a roughly 2,000-person crowd in Green Bay on Sunday night, taking the stage in a yellow cheesehead hat. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”
Musk and groups he supports have spent more than $20m to help conservative favourite Brad Schimel in Tuesday’s race, which will determine
the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state. Musk has increasingly become the center of the contest, with liberal favourite Susan Crawford and her allies protesting Musk and what they say is the influence he wants to have on the court.
“I think this will be important for the future of civilization,” he said. “It’s that’s significant.”
He noted that the state high court may well take up redistricting of congressional districts, which could ultimately affect which party controls the US House.
“And if the [Wisconsin] supreme court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive
Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” Musk claimed. “Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done for you, the American people.”
A unanimous state supreme court on Sunday refused to hear a last-minute attempt by the state’s Democratic attorney general to stop Musk from handing over the checks to two voters, a ruling that came just minutes before the planned start of the rally.
Two lower courts had already rejected the legal challenge by Democrat Josh Kaul, who argues that Musk’s offer violates a state law. “Wisconsin law prohibits offering anything of value to induce anyone to vote,” Kaul argued in his filing. “Yet,
Elon Musk did just that.”
But the state supreme court, which is now controlled four-to-three by liberal justices, declined to take the case as an original action. The court gave no rationale for its decision. All four liberal justices have endorsed Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate.
