Tag: Robin Vos

Democrats say Republicans spoiled chances for bipartisanship with a lame-duck session that peeled power away from Democratic Gov. No," Evers said. As we get further down the line in the budget-making, I’m sure we’ll meet more often.” Fitzgerald said lawsuits challenging the laws Republican legislators passed to limit Evers' power are hampering progress. RELATED: Lame-duck scorecard: Where the cases stand in the fight over GOP laws limiting Wisconsin governor "I think we’re still trying to figure out who to talk to, how to talk to them, and when to talk to them," Fitzgerald said in a statement. If they talked regularly, Evers might be able to persuade Republicans to adopt some of his budget plans, Vos said. Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said Evers is not interested in political strategy but in addressing public policies. Evers." "Is this something that could be done without legislation?" "I’m happy with the relationship we’ve been able to build with Speaker Vos and the Assembly — we’ll continue to work together and hopefully the governor will decide to engage," Fitzgerald said. Hintz said it's also up to Republicans to be willing to negotiate with a Democratic governor.

She wasn’t planning to attend the inaugural ceremony for Gov. And when Lt. Gov. “I’m not a terribly emotional person,” Holden said after the ceremony concluded. But she “finds it very moving” that the new administration “is going to try to make Wisconsin a state that will work together.” “I’m an economist,” she added. “I think good policy is not a partisan issue.” She noted that the state needs an educated workforce and that Evers, the state’s former schools superintendent, has worked in a field where “you can’t be partisan… and you have to work with everybody.” In keeping with his conciliatory tone since ousting two-term Gov. We’ve been indifferent to resentment and governing by retribution.” Walker was presumably one person Evers had in mind with this reference to the politics of resentment. That was left to Josh Kaul, who, after being sworn in as attorney general, declared that the inauguration was taking place “in atypical circumstances.” “Last month the powers of two of our state constitutional officers were diminished after the elections of those offices had been held,” Kaul said. Barnes, who is black, was sworn in after State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski and Secretary of State Doug La Follette. Godlewski, who started by noting she was a fifth-generation Wisconsinite, promised to revitalize the treasurer’s office. “It’s hard to believe we nearly lost this constitutional office but together we made our voices heard.” In April, Wisconsin voters rejected a measure to eliminate the treasurer’s office.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is refusing to release an $850,000 contract Republican lawmakers drew up with a law firm to help them defend legal challenges to legislative district boundaries. Citing attorney-client privilege, Vos spokeswoman Kit Beyer refused to release the contract to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported on the denial Monday. Assembly Republicans had hired the Chicago-based law firm Bartlit Beck to help defend the GOP-drawn boundaries in a long-running federal lawsuit. Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel had been representing the state in the case but lost in the Nov. 6 elections to Democrat Josh Kaul. Now both Kaul and the Bartlit Beck attorneys will defend the maps. Wisconsin Freedom of Information President Bill Lueders said he believed the denial of the newspaper’s request is illegal. Vos’ refusal to release the contract comes as a longstanding legal battle over the state’s redistricting plan looks poised to begin another chapter. A panel of federal judges ruled in 2016 that the state’s redistricting map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and ordered new districts to be drawn in time for the 2018 election. But the U.S. Supreme Court changed gears in June, putting the order on hold after finding a group of Democratic voters who were plaintiffs in the case lacked standing to sue.

Vos, who has been speaker since 2013, is used to being at the center of Wisconsin's biggest political battles. Scott Walker leaves office, Vos is positioning himself to take over as the state's most powerful Republican and is determined to protect conservative interests in the key Midwestern swing state from Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers. It's a natural transition for Vos, a key player in Walker's 2011 battle against public unions and a partner during nearly a decade of Republican dominance in the state. Since ascending to speaker, Vos has helped build a Republican majority that reached its highest mark since 1957, with 64 members following the 2016 election. Vos maintained that Republicans won fair and square based on their record of success. He makes roughly $51,000 as speaker. I try to always look for how can we accomplish the end goal." His chief of staff runs the committee that works to get Republicans elected to the Assembly. That has increased donations to the Assembly campaign committee that his chief of staff ran and that provided financial support to Republicans running for office. "I am not going to run for governor," Vos said.

Scott Walker signed all three sweeping lame-duck bills into law in Green Bay on Friday, concluding an eleventh-hour effort by Republican legislators to roll back some of the next governor’s authority. Walker, who has faced national scrutiny and calls from Democrats and some Republicans to reject the legislative package entirely, said during the bill signing he was approving the three bills in full, without line-item vetoes. “The overwhelming executive authority that I as governor have today will remain constant with the next governor,” Walker said in front of a faulty Venn diagram trying to show how Evers and Walker would continue to have the same powers to introduce budgets and veto bills, among other powers. However, the diagram didn’t explain key changes included in the bills that limit Evers’ power over economic development, lawsuits and administrative rules. +2 Walker’s signature on the bills provides a victory to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who championed the controversial package that will strip some powers from the governor and attorney general, and limit early voting to two weeks before an election. Vos in a statement lauded Walker’s signature on the legislation as an acknowledgment of “the importance of the legislature as a co-equal branch of government.” Evers, along with other Democrats and some Republicans, including former Gov. For example, lawmakers originally proposed to allow the Legislature to override the attorney general by appointing its own counsel in cases where state law was challenged. One of the most contentious measures in the package will take away Evers’ authority to allow the state to drop out of ongoing lawsuits and give the Republican-controlled Legislature the right to join ongoing litigation without the permission of the attorney general. Republicans have argued the measure would provide consistency in early voting statewide, because municipalities have had more freedom in choosing when to allow in-person absentee voting. The liberal group One Wisconsin Now, which has challenged previous Republican-led restrictions on early voting, is planning swift legal action to address the early voting measures in the lame-duck legislation.

Republican legislators, in an extraordinary push before their party surrenders full control of state government, want to restrict the incoming Democratic attorney general’s and governor’s powers and the state’s timeline for early voting in a lame-duck session early next week. More than 40 proposed changes in state law on a variety of subjects were unveiled Friday at about 4:30 p.m. in five bills up for a public hearing in the Legislature’s budget-writing committee Monday. One bill would fundamentally change the role of the state attorney general, giving lawmakers broad new powers to constrain the state’s top law-enforcement official. It may bar Gov.-elect Tony Evers from taking what he said would be one of his first actions in office: ordering Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul to withdraw Wisconsin from a multi-state legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, according to Madison lawyer Lester Pines, a Democrat. The bill would allow lawmakers to appoint special counsel to effectively replace the attorney general on specific litigation if a legislative panel determines it would ensure “the interests of the state will be best represented.” Another key bill would bar early voting from starting earlier than two weeks before an election — despite a federal judge’s ruling two years ago that struck down similar restrictions as racially discriminatory. One bill would give GOP lawmakers more power over Walker’s job-creation agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which Evers has sought to dissolve, and strip the governor of the power to appoint the agency’s CEO. “The Legislature is the most representative branch in government and we will not stop being a strong voice for our constituents,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a joint statement. In 2016, U.S. District Judge James Peterson struck down a host of early voting restrictions in state law, including one imposing a 10-day pre-election window in which early voting could occur. The extraordinary session is scheduled to open Monday morning. Also on the agenda is a bill that passed the Assembly last year, but stalled in the Senate, that would help people with pre-existing conditions get health coverage if the federal Obamacare law is repealed or struck down in court.

Republican legislators, in an extraordinary push before their party surrenders full control of state government, want to restrict the incoming Democratic attorney general’s and governor’s powers and the state’s timeline for early voting in a lame-duck session early next week. More than 40 proposed changes in state law on a variety of subjects were unveiled Friday at about 4:30 p.m. in five bills up for a public hearing in the Legislature’s budget-writing committee Monday. One bill would fundamentally change the role of the state attorney general, giving lawmakers broad new powers to constrain the state’s top law-enforcement official. It may bar Gov.-elect Tony Evers from taking what he said would be one of his first actions in office: ordering Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul to withdraw Wisconsin from a multi-state legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, according to Madison lawyer Lester Pines, a Democrat. The bill would allow lawmakers to appoint special counsel to effectively replace the attorney general on specific litigation if a legislative panel determines it would ensure “the interests of the state will be best represented.” Another key bill would bar early voting from starting earlier than two weeks before an election — despite a federal judge’s ruling two years ago that struck down similar restrictions as racially discriminatory. One bill would give GOP lawmakers more power over Walker’s job-creation agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which Evers has sought to dissolve, and strip the governor of the power to appoint the agency’s CEO. “The Legislature is the most representative branch in government and we will not stop being a strong voice for our constituents,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said in a joint statement. In 2016, U.S. District Judge James Peterson struck down a host of early voting restrictions in state law, including one imposing a 10-day pre-election window in which early voting could occur. The extraordinary session is scheduled to open Monday morning. Also on the agenda is a bill that passed the Assembly last year, but stalled in the Senate, that would help people with pre-existing conditions get health coverage if the federal Obamacare law is repealed or struck down in court.