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.’”