After a three-month delay, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on March 29 ordered special elections to fill two vacant state legislative seats, as Senate Republicans abandoned their efforts to pass legislation to block the contests.  Walker’s order comes after a lawsuit by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, led Dane County Judge Josann Reynolds to rule that Walker must schedule the elections.  Walker appealed the ruling, but an appellate court quickly denied it, holding that representative government and elections “are never ‘unnecessary,’ never a ‘waste of taxpayer resources.’”

After the denial, Walker and attorneys in GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel’s office initially said that they planned to file a second emergency appeal to the state’s highest court, but hours later, they backed off.

The two vacant seats are both in districts that went heavily for President Trump in 2016.  But Democrats recently won an equally red district in a special election, causing Republicans to worry they could lose control of the Wisconsin legislature if they allowed the elections to proceed.  As the Associated Press reported from Madison:

Republicans have lost more than 30 legislative seats nationwide since President Donald Trump took office.  One of them was in Wisconsin, where Democrat Patty Schachtner won an open state Senate seat in a traditionally Republican district in January.  Walker branded her win a wake-up call for the GOP.  And earlier this month, Democrat Conor Lamb, captured what been a reliably Republican congressional seat in Pennsylvania.

Walker ordered the special elections for the 1st Senate District and 42nd Assembly District to be held on Tuesday, June 12.  If a primary is necessary, it will be held on May 15.  Circulation of nomination papers for candidates can begin immediately.

Update (Apr. 17):  Republican primaries will be held May 15 to select candidates for the vacant Senate and Assembly districts.  The winners will face the sole Democrat in each race on June 12.  An independent, Gene Rubinstein, will also be on the ballot in the 42nd Assembly District contest.  In the meantime, an April 4 special election pitting two circuit court judges against each other for a vacant state Supreme Court seat resulted in an easy win for the more liberal candidate.  The two major parties intervened hard in the nominally nonpartisan race, so the result was read as a big victory for Democrats.