Vos' dis of Rep. Anderson: shallow political ploy, or the shallowest?

WI GOP Assembly Leader Robin Vos is begging political scientists to measure his heart. 

Others might ask if he has one.

Because...a wheelchair-bound Wisconsin Democratic legislator who is paralyzed from the chest down, and who sometimes needs the assistance of personal care helpers, must attend committee meetings in person and cannot call in, according to a ruling by Vos he explained this way:

"It just comes down to the fact that I think it’s disrespectful for someone to be asking questions over a microphone or a speakerphone when individuals are actually taking the time out of their day to come and testify in person," Vos said. 

I guess who better than the Speaker to get to the heart (sorry) of the matter and identify speakerphones as the problem, since who doesn't know that speakerphones are just awful, so ew!

It would be easier to jump all over Vos and accuse him of heartless (sorry) partisanship, but, remember, he's a proven expert on things like meeting attendance and mobility, the record shows.

Robin Vos, lawmakers took $4,300 trip to Ohio on state airplane

Look: Vos is only trying to preserve the integrity of the legislative process by guaranteeing the most transparency possible.

He's smart enough to know that he'd be accused of all sorts of hypocrisies and contradictions about claiming to be the guardian of fair legislative processes if he'd, say, rammed through an unprecedented package of legislation drafted in secret and adopted at the 11th hour that curbed the powers of newly-elected Democratic state officials. 


Especially if the final voting took place when Rep. Anderson was physically unable to vote in person, suggesting a possible pattern of Assembly behavior which could run afoul of federal law ensuring the rights of people with disabilities.

Anderson in January raised concerns that Assembly leaders did not accommodate his needs when they held an overnight session in December on legislation to curb the power of incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

The bills were stalled for much of the night and Anderson went home so he could get out of his wheelchair. Votes were held with little notice starting about 4:30 a.m. Anderson could not make it to the Capitol by the time they were held.

And it would be even more foolish for a fiscal conservative to court litigation which would have to covered by state taxpayers if there was a history of that, too.

A law firm hired by Republican state lawmakers to help defend them in a redistricting lawsuit can collect up to an $840,000 fee, but taxpayers could end up paying even more, according to a newly released contract. 

The lawsuit is part of an ongoing court battle over Wisconsin’s legislative district maps passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and then-Gov. Scott Walker in 2011. Before the latest contract, taxpayers had already paid some $2.5 million to outside law firms to draft and defend the maps in court.

Like I said, it's important to line up the facts with Vos' record, and not jump to the conclusion that he had a weak grasp of the legislative process or would display a shallow political ploy:

Republicans demand apology from Vos over terrorist comment  

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said..."the speaker's comments demonstrate a weak grasp on the events that transpired in the hours before the budget was passed on the Senate floor," Fitzgerald said in a statement.... 

Nass called it a "shallow political ploy" to re-ignite budget disagreements to thwart conservative proposals in the fall.