The copy shared below was published on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s JSOnline website on Monday January 24, 2022 but it is behind a firewall for subscribers only. But once more it brings into question how legislation is drafted in Madison by our state legislature. And although the lead Republican here comes off as somewhat sympathetic, you still have to wonder why this is out in wild and who is undercutting her authority?
I am not commenting on any positions around lock boxes with this point…I may later…but it seems to me that the Wisconsin legislature is out of control.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday blew up an emerging plan from Republicans who are drafting changes to the state’s election laws, sending lawmakers scrambling after he condemned the effort because it would allow the use of absentee drop boxes.
First, Donald Trump can just shut his pie hole about Wisconsin election law. He has no legal authority here. But WTF is he even aware of draft legislation in Wisconsin??
Bernier (Sen. Kathy Bernier, a former election clerk from Lake Hallie and chairwoman of the Senate’s elections committee) said she is working with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on a number of election-related bills based on recommendations from a nonpartisan state election audit and an election study from the conservative group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
One of the bills would set rules for ballot drop boxes, limiting their number and location. A draft of the legislation was posted by the conservative website Gateway Pundit on Sunday morning, a day before Trump issued a news release on the measure saying the “fools are playing right into the Democrats’ hand.”
So once again, why is this out in the wild? And who released it? Sen. Bernier? Assembly Speaker Robin Vos? ???
So a bit more on the confusion.
Within hours, the Assembly speaker distanced himself from the plan, and Republicans eyeing the governor’s office signaled they would not sign the measure if they were elected.
The fallout of Trump’s statement was a surprise to the Republican lawmaker working on many of the changes: Sen. Kathy Bernier, a former election clerk from Lake Hallie who has been criticized by members of her own party for her defense of how the 2020 election was administered against complaints fueled by Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.
“I feel like open game these days,” Bernier, chairwoman of the Senate’s elections committee, said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Rather than come to me and say, you know, we don’t believe that drop boxes are necessary or make your arguments as to why it shouldn’t be in the bill … it’s in draft form now.”
“We can certainly take it out. It has not been introduced. It can be amended in committee. But the discussion should go on with the author of the bill, not through some right wing media source. Disgusting.”
In July, a number of Assembly Republicans authored a bill that would allow absentee ballots to be returned to a drop box at an election clerk’s office — a provision of the bill Trump is targeting. Vos also embraced drop boxes as legislative leaders argued against a ballot-collection event being conducted in Madison ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
But then the gold plated golf shoe dropped:
In his statement, Trump took aim at Vos and Bernier without naming them.
“Some Rino Republicans in Wisconsin are working hand in hand with others to have drop boxes again placed in Wisconsin,” Trump said, using a term for “Republicans in Name Only.” “Drop boxes are only good for Democrats and cheating, not good for Republicans.”
A-A-A-ND then Boss Vos did what?
“Sen. Bernier was kind enough to share her election reform bill draft with my office. I am not the author of this draft and never planned to be,” Vos said in a statement. “I agree that we should focus on election reforms suggested by the Legislative Audit Bureau, but do not support the expansion of drop box use in Wisconsin.”
So to quote, Sen. Bernier: “Disgustig.”
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