Who’s the Most Partisan?
Republican legislators suddenly embrace bipartisan peacemaking, blast Evers as partisan.
Rep. John Nygren gives the GOP perspective on the past year before the evenings State of the State speech. L to R: Sen. Alberta Darling, Majority Leader Jim Steineke, Nygren, Speaker Robin Vos, Senate President Roger Roth. Photo by Melanie Conklin/Wisconsin Examiner.
Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature doubled down on their new “brand” in response to the governor’s State of the Union address last week.
The sudden shift in message from the past eight years was perplexing, even to Capitol reporters.
On Monday, Vos put out a news release responding to the governor’s call for a special session Tuesday on the farming crisis titled, “Agriculture should be a bipartisan priority.” In it he said he’s frustrated with Evers for promoting the rural agenda of his speech around the state, although Walker also always took his State of the State speech items on the road after the speech.
“It’s sad the governor puts politics first, and people second,” wrote Vos. “The Assembly will convene the special session on Tuesday. The special session bills will be introduced and referred to committees. Public hearings will be held.” He ends saying the bills will be altered or replaced (not offering passed as an option.)
Bomb throwers
When Republicans were in charge, they dropped “the bomb” of Act 10 as Walker phrased it at the time. They repeatedly rejected Medicaid expansion money even though many Republican states took the funds. And they passed right-to-work laws. A costly tax cut for the wealthy and corporations, cast as a tax credit for manufacturers and farmers, was unveiled at midnight as a “surprise” on the last day the budget was in committee. Democrats complained of being excluded from all these measures and decisions.
But Vos pointed to times where he has included Democrats in governing on his task forces charged with finding solutions on such issues as suicide prevention, homelessness, adoption and water quality. (Although Dems have complained that their ideas such as red-flag laws to prevent violence or suicide with guns or more comprehensive solutions to PFAS water contaminationhave been rejected.)
Some reporters were expressing skepticism at claims Republicans have long been bipartisan.
At a news conference last week, Vos, Rep. John Nygren, Sen. Alberta Darling, Rep. Jim Steineke and Sen. Roger Roth coordinated their attack on Evers for his lack of bipartisanship. These Republican leaders also touted their own bipartisan bonafides not only in the past year, but back into the Walker years. An Associated Press reporter asked if they thought the controversial lame duck session was an example of the stated GOP goal of toning down the rhetoric and partisanship.
Without hesitation, Vos immediately replied, “No doubt about it because it allowed for the legislature to actually be stronger.” He added: “I think that the ability from the special session is forced consensus, to say you have to sit at the table is something that perhaps Gov. Evers wasn’t familiar with.”
Are you joking?
Asked after that news conference about Vos’ assertions that Republicans have been bipartisan, even in the lame duck session, Assembly Democratic leader Gordon Hintz sat in stunned silence for a few moments. Then he began to laugh.
“To take away the powers of a democratically elected governor and attorney general, was the single most partisan act in Wisconsin history,” said Hintz.
He sees much of what Republicans did during the eight years of full control over state government as hyper-partisan. “All their actions were largely about power consolidation — defunding the unions, defunding the trial lawyers, campaign finance changes, redistricting, voter ID — anything that ultimately gave them an advantage.”
Hintz blames Republicans for holding up what he cites as truly bipartisan bills with sponsors from both sides of the aisle, such as closing the dark-store loophole and processing sexual-assault kits.
What Vos has actually done, according to Hintz, is to set up what he calls a “shadow caucus” to monitor and report to him on what all the agencies and the executive branch are doing. Vos hired seven new staff, doubling his staff size last year (three of the new hires are ex-Walker aides) and recently The Capital Times reported on his use of other staff to keep tabs on all the state agencies:
“For the better part of the last year, Assembly committee clerks and research assistants have been compiling weekly reports on the activities of state agencies, and there’s no indication the effort is winding down in 2020,” wrote Cap Times reporter Briana Reilly.
“Records obtained by the Cap Times show the Rochester Republican’s office directed chamber staffers to use their “weekly agency overview” documents to oversee vacancies and recruitment, waiver requests, lawsuits, news reports about departments and whether, for example, a deputy secretary may have posted “something questionable on a personal account.”
Vos explained that he believes it is the legislature’s job to hold the executive branch responsible and that Evers has been too secretive.
Hintz also says Vos has removed Democrats as sponsors from bills and has taken office space away from Democrats, even though the Dems picked up a seat in the last elections.
But his staunchest criticism is the lack of movement on bills to the floor and that the Republicans have indicated they plan to close down the session soon, so bills — bipartisan or otherwise — will die.
“This is the least productive legislative session in at least two decades, from a point of bills being signed into law, session days met, bills being passed — all despite the fact that the number of bills being introduced is the same,” says Hintz.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a less partisan, less political governor than Tony Evers,” Hintz adds. “He’s not capable of being anybody other than that.”
Evers: From conservative to name caller?
Vos does give Evers some credit on bipartisanship — for signing “the conservative budget” that came from legislative Republicans.
However, Vos labels Evers’ initial budget proposal last year, a “wish list which would have repealed the Walker Era.”
“So I give him credit for bucking his party even though he is a liberal himself,” says Vos. “He certainly deserves credit for tacking to the right in signing a conservative budget. But then since then, calling names, you know, kind of doing things in a very partisan way, he certainly doesn’t seem to be bringing people together… I would say perhaps he [should] look in the mirror and say, ‘How can I bring people together to tone down my rhetoric, as opposed to just appealing to the far left?’”
Reprinted with permission of Wisconsin Examiner.
Projection is when someone calls out one’s own behaviors but attributes them to others. Vos is so hyper-partisan he attributes Evers’ efforts to address the issues supported by the majority of Wisconsinites on both sides as being partisan.
My question to Vos; how is refusing to allocate approved funding (supported by a bipartisan majority) to address homelessness being bipartisan? How is closing a special session to take up the issue of gun violence, an issue supported by 80% of Wisconsinites, after only 30 seconds being bipartisan? How is it being bipartisan to hold up approving Evers cabinet appointees?
To paraphrase the fictional Ricky Riccardo, Vos has some “explaining to do.” He has been using muscle derived from a delusional minority of our state’s population to bully our state’s majority into accepting policies against their interests in order to favor the 1% of super rich residents of this state at the expense of the rest of us. The fact that he is attacking funding for the homeless should be “a bridge too far” for anybody paying any attention to this power grab on behalf of the super rich – presumably for the benefit of elected officials who want tons of money for themselves for their service to the 1%.