`Ornery' voter mood blamed

The Journal Sentinel staff

Madison The lawmaker who sponsored the amendment to make the constitution gender neutral said Friday the referendum was defeated Tuesday primarily by voters in an ornery mood over the sports lottery.

"We just got swept out with the sports lottery," said Rep. DuWayne Johnsrud (R-Eastman), author of the amendment to strike unnecessary masculine pronouns from the Constitution.

Johnsrud said another amendment, allowing judges to leave office during their term and take another public job, also went down in defeat with the sports lottery.

"The voters were pretty ornery, obviously," Johnsrud said.

The unofficial results on all three constitutional amendments were as follows:

m Sports lottery: No, 616,685 or 64%; Yes, 348,009 or 36%.

m Gender neutral: No, 497,390 or 55%; Yes, 411,598 or 45%.

m Judges: No, 504,622 or 56%; Yes, 390,640 or 44%.

What makes the defeat of the gender amendment perhaps more surprising is it occurred at the same time voters elected a woman to the Supreme Court.

Marathon County Circuit Judge Ann Walsh Bradley defeated Brown County Circuit Judge N. Patrick Crooks to become the first woman to join the court by way of the ballot, rather than gubernatorial appointment.

Johnsrud suggested other factors may have been involved in the gender amendment's defeat, besides anger over a sports lottery.

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