Speaker Robin Vos Joins The Resist Movement

To my Dem friends: “as ye sow, so shall ye reap”

Less than 24 hours after Governor Walker’s concession speech in the 2018 Wisconsin governor’s race, a very disheartened and apparently bitter Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos reached for his personal inner Mitch McConnell and threatened to take power away from the incoming governor.

But before all of you Democrats get all snarky and outraged about that, I don’t see a whole lot of difference between Speaker Vos’ reaction and the RESIST movement that started November 9, 2016. Just chill out a little bit for now.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said Wednesday he would discuss whether to look at limiting Evers’ power with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau). FItzgerald is open to the idea, according to an aide.

“If there are areas where we could look and say, ‘Geez — have we made mistakes where we granted too much power to the executive,’ I’d be open to taking a look to say what can we do to change that to try to re-balance it,” Vos told reporters.

“Maybe we made some mistakes giving too much power to Gov. (Scott) Walker and I’d be open to looking at that to see if there are areas we should change that, but it’s far too early to do that before I talk to Scott Fitzgerald.”

One of the things that Speaker Vos will need to do is learn how to actually govern. He will need to work with Governor-elect Evers and actually get the things done that Wisconsin needs. Will that actually happen? I hope so. Mr. Evers is pretty easy to work with and has experience working with the legislature and the GOP from his years as head of Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. Let’s let this thing work its own way out.

Now that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t watch Speaker Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald like hawks! They still control the majorities in both houses of the legislature. But please keep in mind that most of the authority vested in the governor’s office and the legislature itself is defined in the state constitution. And despite the checks and balances nature of our form of republican and federal government, I am not sure how much control the legislature has on the ‘power’ of the governor. For now I am just writing this off to Speaker Vos voicing his frustration out loud.

And certainly, I expect the GOP majority to block every possible bill and initiative put forth by the Democrats. It would be totally out of character for them to do anything else. But I also expect that the Democrats will propose every measure that they ran on. That they will spend the time and visit the state selling their ideas directly to the electorate…and rinse repeat…as Speaker Vos and Senator Fitzgerald obstruct them. Govern on what got you elected. And govern on how you got elected. Grass roots interactions…on education…healthcare…clean environment. Don’t let anyone distract you in the short run!

Now…on to the media. It would be nice if you would explain what powers allocated to the governor the legislature thinks it can limit or control…instead of just publishing Speaker Vos’ rant. After all from what we’ve seen in 2016 and now in 2018, an understanding of civics isn’t America’s strong suit even at the level of the presidency.

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