We can count on Robin and Scott

The GOP leaders will do the wrong thing every time

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Sometimes people will disappoint you. People you respect will turn out to have flaws. Christian Yelich will struggle to bat .200. 

But in a world of uncertainty there is Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald. The Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader will never let us down. You can count on them to do the wrong thing every time. 

Just off the top of my head, there was the destruction of most public employee unions in Act 10 followed by the destruction of private sector unions in the right to work bill; there were the bills making it harder to get unemployment benefits coupled with the refusal to fix an antiquated computer system; there was the most egregious gerrymandering in state history; there were the lame duck bills that took away power from an incoming governor and attorney general simply because they were Democrats; there was the forcing of in-person voting during a pandemic; there were their lawsuits challenging perfectly reasonable public health measures to control that same pandemic; there was the firing of a well regarded agriculture secretary solely because he uttered words of justified criticism directed at Republicans; there was the quick dismissal of the governor’s special session on police reform. And I’ve just scratched the surface. 

See what I mean? A lot of public officials will toss you a curveball once in awhile. Mitt Romney will show up at a Black Lives Matter protest. The late John McCain voted against repeal of Obamacare. Chief Justice John Roberts and even conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn will side with the liberals from time to time. This kind of behavior is frustrating. Just when you want to write people off and say to yourself, “whew, I can cross that off my list at least,” people like this make you think again. And, really with so much going on in the world, who needs to think again about anything? 

That’s what’s so great about Vos and Fitzgerald. They really are out to get you. They really have no interest at all in what’s fair or decent or just right. You can take it to the bank. 

What brought this to mind is their latest caper. Robin and Scott hired a lawyer at taxpayer expense to send Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl a “cease-and-desist” letter to try to stop her from making voting easier for people. Witzel-Behl had the creative idea to set up stations in parks, staffed by sworn elections personnel trained by her office, to help voters through the process. Mostly they were there to accept absentee ballots because many voters were nervous about sending them in the mail. And, by the way, they were nervous about that because the president that Vos and Fitzgerald support has done everything he can to hobble the U.S. Postal Service and to raise doubt in people’s minds about the process. 

Mike Haas, the new city attorney and former counsel for the state Elections Commission, worked with Witzel-Behl to make sure it was all done by the book. No matter. Vos and Fitzgerald spent taxpayer money to hire a lawyer to bloviate. She wrote that the threat Witzel-Behl’s program posed to the integrity of the process was “manifestly obvious.” Whoa. When lawyers pull out the big guns like “manifestly obvious,” you know they’re serious and you pay more for that. You also know they’re serious when they’re being redundant as the definition of manifest is, well, obvious. 

Also, the phrase “cease and desist” is very powerful, particularly when it’s employed by someone who has the power to order you to do either, which in this case, Vos and Fitzgerald don’t. I’m sure that that was manifestly obvious to their lawyer, but she threw it in for good measure anyway. You gotta like the attitude. 

Here’s the big picture. A lot of people who are confident in their ideas wouldn’t have any trouble competing in the political arena fair and square. They wouldn’t feel the need to defund the opposition, rig the maps and suppress the vote. But Vos and Fitzgerald do all three as much as they possibly can. 

In this crazy mixed-up world you can’t seem to count on anything, So it’s good to know that there is Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald. They’ll never let you down because they’ve never lifted you up. 

When it comes to doing the wrong thing these guys never cease or desist and that’s manifestly obvious.