Over the past several weeks, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has made a series of inconsistent statements about the controversial lame-duck legislation that, unless vetoed by Gov. Scott Walker, will strip authority from incoming Democrats and bolster Republican chances in the 2020 election.
The day after Wisconsin Democrats swept statewide races in the midterm election, Vos said he would seek to “re-balance” power between the legislative and executive branches. He stuck with the claim even after Republicans submitted the 141-page proposal at around 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 30, revealing a sweeping GOP plan to preserve the conservative policies enacted over the last eight years.
When asked directly by conservative talk radio host Dan O’Donnell on Dec. 4 if the legislation was about taking power from Gov.-elect Tony Evers, Vos responded unequivocally: “That’s absolutely not true.”
Later that day Vos offered a different take, warning that if the measures didn’t pass, “we are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in.” Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald echoed this at a news conference the same day: “Listen, I’m concerned. I think Gov.-elect Evers is going to bring a liberal agenda to Wisconsin.”
Yet, when opponents described the measures as a “power grab,” Vos cried foul. “Democrats have been exaggerating and resorting to hyperbole throughout the debate,” he tweeted on Dec. 5. “The vote is about ensuring equal branches of government exist in #Wisconsin especially during this time of divided government.”
This statement triggered the dreaded Twitter ratio — an unofficial online indicator of bad takes in which a tweet amasses a significantly greater number of replies than it does likes. Among those dunking spectacularly on Vos was Kevin Kruse, a Princeton University historian who studies modern American politics. “I just wanted to congratulate you on having secured a spot in the histories that will eventually be written about the political dysfunction and partisan insanity that marked this era,” he wrote.
After protests at the Capitol on Dec. 3 and 4 and an all-night session, the Legislature passed the bills the morning of Dec. 5, about 112 hours after releasing details about what was in the proposal. After the vote, Vos complained that lawmakers didn’t get a fair opportunity to tell the public what the bill does — an audacious statement, considering how citizens begged him to delay the vote. But during the extraordinary session, Vos said his constituents had told him: “Don’t give in — Do whatever you have to so the reforms don’t go away.”
Stephen Lucas, a UW-Madison professor specializing in politics, rhetoric and culture, sees the political messaging as an attempt to “give a veneer of legality or legislative propriety” to what is effectively a power grab — and, like gerrymandering and voter ID laws, an attempt to further disenfranchise Democratic voters.
“Politicians have never been known for logical consistency, or a high degree of truthfulness, or a high degree of transparency,” he says. “We shouldn’t expect total consistency from either party, but it seems to be particularly brazen in these cases.”
Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, put it more bluntly: “Scott Fitzgerald and Robin Vos are trying to pull off a Donald Trump-level gaslighting with their excuses for why they called a sore loser legislative session.”
But Lucas says the Wisconsin GOP’s actions fit within a larger, nationwide pattern of Republicans reacting to political losses by “fundamentally changing the rules of the political game.” It would be deeply problematic regardless of party, but Republicans disproportionately engage in these practices. Political scientists have called this “asymmetric polarization” or “asymmetric constitutional hardball.” In the case of Wisconsin, Lucas believes the brazenness of the misinformation campaign suggests that lawmakers don’t fear repercussions. Blame gerrymandering, he says.
“As long as the system is rotten at its core,” he says, “they might be able to get away with it.”
Vos and Fitzgerald have also made misleading, politically charged claims about the impact Wisconsin’s urban centers have on election results. They argue that the makeup of the Legislature, where Republicans dominate, is the most authentic representation of Wisconsin voters. “State legislators are the closest to those we represent,” Fitzgerald wrote in a statement on the outcome of the extraordinary session. “We spend countless hours each year holding town hall meetings, communicating with local elected officials and hearing concerns from constituents. Citizens from every corner of Wisconsin deserve a strong legislative branch that stands on equal footing with an incoming administration that is based almost solely in Madison.”
And they portray Wisconsin’s two biggest cities — both Democratic strongholds — as corrupting influences. “If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority — we would have all five constitutional officers, and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature,” Vos told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in November. “As much as they complain about gerrymandering and all the things I think are made-up issues for their failed agenda, I think we won a fair and square agenda.”
However, voters from Dane and Milwaukee counties made up only about 25 percent of the electorate in November — roughly the same percentage as when Walker won in 2014. Barry Burden, director of UW-Madison’s Elections Research Center, points out that the third largest county for Democratic votes is Waukesha, a blood-red county Walker won this election with 66 percent of the vote. “The truth is that no single community or party dominates Wisconsin elections,” he says. “The popular vote is probably the best way to determine the electorate’s preferences. By that standard, in 2018, Wisconsin voters endorsed Democrats to run state government.”
Mike Wagner, a UW-Madison journalism and political science professor, also disputes that Vos has a mandate. “It is disingenuous of Speaker Vos to say that Madison and Milwaukee elected Gov.-elect Evers as their votes did not constitute anything approaching a majority of their overall support,” he says. “To say that, negates the votes of the vast majority of Evers supporters from around the state. The election was a close one to be sure, but to frame the results as Madison and Milwaukee versus everyone else is not true. Evers improved Democratic candidate vote totals from previous gubernatorial elections in about half of the state’s counties.”
Julia Azari, a professor of political science at Marquette University, says politicians who push narratives about “the people who elected [them]” are following a rhetorical trend that’s been developing for a long time. And while it might not be persuasive, “it’s effective in reframing debate as a clash between two constituencies — the more rural and suburban constituencies of Republicans in the state Legislature, and the urban ones of the Democrats.”
The lame-duck legislation — along with the GOP’s framing and rhetoric — is “unusually bold” and “bluntly political,” says Kathy Cramer, a UW-Madison political scientist who examined Wisconsin’s rural-urban divide in her 2016 book The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. She says tapping into these feelings helped bring Walker — and later Trump — to power. And she says with their dismissal of Madison and Milwaukee voters Fitzgerald and Vos are using the same tactics in justifying the lame-duck legislation.
“It’s a very divisive thing to do,” she says. “It’s reinforcing the us-versus-them divide — and I wonder how well that’s going to work in the long term.”
