Vos: WI needs more COVID litigation right now

WI GOP Assembly Speaker and man spotting a taxpayer's wallet on the floor - Robin Vos - is threatening yet another payday for GOP lawyers - (pattern noted) - to snatch management of Federal COVID grants from Gov. Evers so GOP gerrymandered legislators can gain control over the money.

This from the same Republican legislators who spent most of 2020 on vacation collecting full salaries, refusing to come up with their promised COVID policy package while also litigating against Evers' initiatives, as this 2020 news story points out:

Evers sent GOP legislative leaders a letter in early October asking them to bring him a plan they could accept to combat the virus, given the repeated challenges to Evers' ideas, but neither Vos or Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald responded.

Republican leaders of the state Senate suggested this weekend they haven't yet contemplated what, if anything, to put in a plan to combat the raging outbreak nine months after the virus began to spread in Wisconsin and six months after they sued Evers to eliminate his plan.... 

“Gov. Evers has consistently said he will not even talk to us until we have our own plan, which I think is idiotic,” Vos said.   

I love Vos's pose of helplessness about the next partisan lawsuit he'll have have taxpayers finance: 

"If for some reason the governor vetoes this bill, we will have no choice but to go to court.”

And the millions of our dollars for partisan purposes fly out the window. 

Because, as Vos says, Republicans have no choice.

It's pre-ordained.

Their hands are tied. 

And, as you know, they're dealing with a dictator:

Nothing says "work with us" more sincerely than labeling the other party a "dictator" and "czar."

Vos says Evers ‘acting like a dictator’ in issuing health emergencies without Legislature’s support 

The Rochester Republican said in a WisPolitics.com virtual event Thursday the guv’s decision to keep reissuing emergency orders every 60 days without getting approval from the Legislature was illegal. 

He said the Legislature has been asking “since last June, to be able to work with us and do it in the process that’s legal, as opposed to one where you kind of take the law into your own hands and act like a dictator.” 

Remember that Vos, his Senate GOP colleagues and then-Gov. Walker began their 'work with us' outreach to Evers prior to his inauguration in late 2018 by stripping him of powers Walker had routinely enjoyed.  

Monday bulletin - Evers vetoed the bill. 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Tony Evers killed a bill Monday that would have given Republican legislators oversight of Wisconsin’s share of billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds, instead announcing his own plan for distributing the money.

Evers, a Democrat, took the unusual step of vetoing the bill during a news conference at a Milwaukee cafe, holding up the veto for television cameras. The move reflects the growing animosity between the governor and Republican legislative leaders as the pandemic drags on.  

Mind you, this latest threat to further undermine the Executive branch by grabbing control of COVID-related federal dollars in a manner never applied by Team Vos to ex-Gov. Walker are directed is coming from the same GOP Assembly Speaker who received nearly $300,000 in COVID-related federal grants to support his business, then backed making the receipt of such funds tax-exempt.

We've gone so far down a State Capitol rabbit hole so self-serving these days that many - but not all - legislators participate in law-making which directly impacts their own wallet without flinching at the appearance of conflicts-of-interest.

At least nine legislators or their families have an ownership stake in businesses that received PPP loans, records show. 

Among them are Vos, whose popcorn business received a loan of about $298,000, and Republican Sen. Joan Ballweg of Markesan, whose family farm implement business received a $535,000 loan.

Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, announced last week she would not vote on the measure because her restaurant had received a $65,000 loan.

Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, also refrained from voting. Businesses he or his family have an ownership stake in received $127,000 in loans, most of which went to Hebl's law firm, records show.

Again, pattern noted: 

Some Wisconsin lawmakers double as landlords — and have passed laws that undermine renters' rights

A series of sweeping laws promoting the interests of landlords at the expense of renters, local governments and even public safety have been pushed through the state Capitol since 2011 by a group of lawmakers who moonlight as landlords. 

Backed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos — a college-town landlord with 23 properties worth about $3.8 million — the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted five major bills largely benefiting landlords.  

The measures speed up the eviction process, eliminate some tenant legal defenses, limit the power of cities to police landlords and cap fees tied to building code violations. They also allow landlords to toss renters' belongings on the curb immediately after an eviction, instead of placing the property in storage.