Wisconsin Senate Is Out Of Control

and they have absolutely no idea what they are doing…

Now before I go on let me remind you that this is the same GOP controlled Senate who in the dead of night voted to restrict the authority of the incoming Democratic governor and later fired his agriculture secretary after delaying his confirmation in a snit with the governor.

Anyway as regular readers know the GOP controlled legislature sued the governor in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court for extending his ‘safer at home’ policies designed to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus in the state. The same governor who has put forth a three step plan to eventually re-open the state using scientific and medical data as suggested in federal guidelines.

Sound familiar? Sound like someone who you would expect any type of co-operation from if you were the governor? Well let’s look!

Republican leaders suing to block Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ restrictions on daily life haven’t yet said what rules — if any — they want to replace the governor’s order.

Instead, the GOP leaders are asking the Evers administration to work with them to quickly craft a new plan on containing coronavirus — a cooperative dynamic the two sides have rarely been able to achieve before.

emphasis mine

Sound good? Well…it then gets more interesting:

And the committee that could have veto authority over a new plan, known as an emergency rule submitted by the Department of Health Services, includes the most vocal critics of the agency’s current approach — three GOP senators who have called on their colleagues to fire the agency’s leader.

emphasis mine…again.

Aaaah yes, the famous brass knuckles in a velvet glove approach. Couldn’t find three Republican Senators who weren’t quite so toxic and who could maybe sit down with the governor and talk? By the way, the agency leader mentioned here has not been confirmed yet either and she was appointed in JANUARY of 2019!

I don’t know…if you sued me and I thought I was doing the right thing…I’d guess I’d let the court thing decide it (btw: letting the court process run its course will probably mean there would be no court decision before mid-May or essentially 10/11 days before the governor’s current extension will expire). I wouldn’t be too eager to work directly with the plaintiff.

As I said earlier, the current plan to re-open relies on guidelines from the White House:

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a White House briefing Wednesday that social distancing has helped to slow the spread of the virus and that state and federal officials are at a point to think seriously about how to lift restrictions.

But he also said the economy must be revived in a measured way according to guidance released by the White House last week, which requires a downward trajectory in cases for 14 days — a benchmark Republicans in Wisconsin have questioned.

emphasis mine

Now for emphasis: guidelines from the White House. Governor Evers isn’t making this stuff up to piss off the Republicans…he really wants to prevent more Wisconsinites from getting sick…and dying. And across the Rotunda in Madison?

Neither Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald nor Assembly Speaker Robin Vos proposed specific measures or answered questions.

So, I know that no one is enjoying this. But really no one wants to do this again. And no one wants to see more death and illness. So let me close with this:

Meanwhile, public health experts and economists warn that reviving the workforce before the virus is contained in the state — even by lifting restrictions regionally — might necessitate another lockdown.