Robin Vos
GOP Legislature’s fall agenda: pummel Evers in a culture war
Wisconsin Republicans set the stage last week for the fall session by painting a clear picture of how governing and campaigning will take shape into 2022, despite partisan elections being more than a year away. While redistricting — drawing new political maps based on the 2020 census — has taken center stage of late, and […]
Nass asks Republican leadership to sue UW System over COVID mask mandates
Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) wants to pick a fight with Tommy Thompson. Last month, Nass and his fellow Republicans on the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules passed a motion attempting to force all UW System COVID-19 policies to first be approved by the committee. Thompson, the interim president of the UW System and […]
Taxpayer money for election probe funds Gableman travel
Speaker Robin Vos’ blank-check contract with Michael Gableman to investigate the Wisconsin presidential election includes a sizable budget line for travel. The contract also specifies that unlike Arizona, which conducted an election audit largely financed using private funds, the latest Wisconsin audit will be paid for exclusively by Wisconsin taxpayers. In the course of his […]
Vos’ moves to appease conspiracy election-fraud seeking groups appear to be failing
With no public hearing or public meetings — using merely a paper ballot distributed by Republican leadership to members’ offices — the committee that sets the Legislature’s agenda voted along party lines 5-3 to hire staff and officially begin an election audit under the direction of Speaker Robin Vos. The brief 5-line ballot did not […]
GOP to spend “$680,000, at least, to start” in hunt for disproven “steal”
On Wednesday dueling releases from the Republican and Democratic leaders of the state Assembly addressed the election audit that Speaker Robin Vos assured former President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election, he would perform while riding on Trump’s plane to a rally on Saturday. The so-called audit is part of the project for which […]
Conservative think tank connected to former Gov. Walker calls to end Wisconsin Elections Commission
A conservative think tank — run by a former staffer for then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and connected to former Gov. Scott Walker — has called for abolishing the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) and moving the administration of state elections to the elected secretary of state. The think tank, the Institute for Reforming Government, called […]
Vos kisses Trump’s ring
In a disgusting display of cowardice and obsequiousness, Speaker Robin Vos felt it necessary to bow down to Donald Trump and to kiss his ring (or somewhere south of that). This is the same Robin Vos whom Trump had slammed back in June as a liar and a fake leader who was “working hard to […]
Legislative Republicans join fight to stop transfer of power on Natural Resources Board
Republican leaders of the Wisconsin Legislature are trying to join the fight to keep an appointee of former GOP Gov. Scott Walker in his post as chair of the Natural Resources Board long after his term has expired. The board member, Fred Prehn, has refused to leave his seat even though his term expired on […]
First shots in the redistricting wars come with census data arrival
Thursday’s release of the delayed census data for each state was the official kickoff of the redistricting process — and officials and groups throughout Wisconsin reacted less to the new information and more to the battles about to ignite as the process of drawing legislative maps gets underway. Redistricting takes place every 10 years as […]
‘Big Money Behind the Big Lie’ exposes the Bradley Foundation role
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos caved to the right-wing of his Republican caucus on Friday, expanding the election review he had ordered to include a full, “forensic” dissecting of ballots in an effort to find fraud in an election that has been reviewed and found to be accurate and fair by various courts, canvasses and the […]
Speaker Vos caves on new election audit after another scolding
Last Tuesday, Speaker Robin Vos swatted aside a request for an Arizona-style forensic audit of the Wisconsin election that was being initiated by Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls). Vos responded that he was already conducting such an audit and she should take a look at his scope statement if she had any doubts. He also […]
Assembly veto override: So many speeches amounting to nothing
On the Assembly floor during Tuesday’s surprise session, Minority Leader Gordon Hintz remarked several times that the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee paid to fly GOP representatives back from wherever they were vacationing during summer recess just to try to override of Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of their bill immediately ending pandemic supplemental unemployment benefits. And […]