A Rock and a Hard Place « Geoffrey Carter

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

Robin Vos is a dyed-in-the-wool deep-red Republican. He has done everything in his power to keep Wisconsin as red as it can be—by hook and by crook. He has made his name from ruthlessly seizing and consolidating power in the Wisconsin legislature. Since the Republican red wave of 2011, when Vos came into power, he has ruled his party members with an iron fist, demanding absolute allegiance from the Republican caucus. He has consistently and virulently stonewalled and rebuked Democratic party proposals.

During his tenure, Wisconsin Republicans have repeatedly—and mostly successfully—limited voting rights, particularly in democratic strongholds like Milwaukee. Until very recently, they stacked the Supreme Court with conservative justices, and tried to control every aspect of state government, including the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Instruction.

The mechanism that allowed Vos and the Republicans to ruthlessly seize and hold power in the Wisconsin statehouse was their own partisan redistricting of state election maps. They literally drew the map. Vos and then Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald were behind the 2011 redrawing of election districts that resulted in the creation of one of the nation’s most egregiously gerrymandered maps. Even though statewide elections in Wisconsin are traditionally decided by razor-thin margins, somehow, since the advent of these maps, the Wisconsin legislature has been dominated by the Republicans.

Just recently, President Joe Biden and Democratic Governor Tony Evers were elected by the slimmest of margins in the 2020 and 2022 elections—respectively. Yet in those same years, the Wisconsin legislature elected nearly a two-thirds Republican majority in both houses. Same voters, vastly different results. The Senate is presently composed of twenty-two Republicans and eleven Democrats, while the Wisconsin Assembly has sixty-four Republican representatives and thirty-five Democrats. These numbers hardly reflect the fact that Wisconsin is a swing state that has narrowly elected democrats in the last few statewide elections.

It started with the 2010 election that swept Governor Scott Walker and the Republicans into power. Since then, the Republicans have hung on for dear life. They have not relinquished control of the Capitol—mostly because they rigged the election maps and were able—until recently—to keep a conservative majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

And they didn’t stop there. They went national. After the 2020 presidential election—that ex-president Donald Trump insisted (and still insists) was stolen—Wisconsin Republicans initiated one recount, and at least three lawsuits, none of which uncovered anything fradulent. When the results remained unchanged, the state GOP followed the lead of some White House lawyers (now under indictment for conspiracy) and made up an alternate slate of electors to send to the Electoral College certification in Washington on January 6^th, 2021. When that ploy—along with the attempted coup of the Capitol Building—failed that day, Wisconsin Republicans still refused to acknowledge defeat or relinquish their grip on the levers of power.

There’s more. In 2021, Robin Vos hired ex-Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabelman to spearhead an investigation of the Wisconsin Election Commission. The inquiry uncovered absolutely nothing, even though Gabelman spent nearly $900,000 on it. When Vos finally decided to put an end to the investigation, Gabelman attacked him and refused to quit. Vos fired his “investigator”, who nonetheless promised to continue working to uncover election wrongdoing. The upshot of Gabelman’s animus has resulted in the recent attempted firing of Wisconsin Election Commissioner Meghan Wolfe for (so they say) emergency measures she instituted during the pandemic, including excusing election workers from going to nursing homes to collect ballots from at-risk residents. The truth is that her firing looks a lot like deep-red retribution.

These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. Robin Vos, Scott Walker, Scott Fitzgerald, and the entire Wisconsin Republican caucus has stopped at nothing to stay in power. In April 2021, at the height of the pandemic, they forced mandatory attendance to vote in the state primaries, endangering thousands of lives, as well as reducing the number of polling places in democratic strongholds in Wisconsin. They also shortened early voting access, restricted mail-in voting, and spread malicious lies about voter fraud.

Last spring, on the heels of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe -v- Wade, liberal-leaning Judge Janet Protasiewicz was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. During the election, Judge Janet made her feelings about redistricting clear, stating she felt Wisconsin election maps were rigged. She also stated that she supported a woman’s reproductive rights.

As lawsuits challenging the election maps legality will be coming before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming months, it is extremely likely that the court’s liberal majority will demand fair maps.

After she won the election—quite handily—Robin Vos and the Republican majority almost immediately demanded that Judge Janet recuse herself from any case about redistricting because of the comments she had made during the campaign. If not, said Vos, the Wisconsin legislature would begin impeachment proceedings against her.

These threats made national news story and threatened to make the Wisconsin Republican Party—and himself—pariahs. More importantly—to Vos—doing so would most likely enrage the good voters of Wisconsin who had voted in Judge Protasiewicz—particularly women who wanted to protect reproductive rights.

Robin Vos has found himself between a rock and a hard place. If he attempts to impeach Judge Protaseiwicz, he will incur the wrath of Wisconsin voters, Democrats and Republicans alike, for ignoring their will. On the other hand, if he does nothing, Judge Protaciewicz would cast the deciding vote that overturn Wisconsin’s “rigged” election maps, depriving him the levers of power.

So faced with this dilemma, what did he do? Rather than stand by any firm principles, Vos promptly did a weaselly about face, offering up a bill that he assures us would allow for fairer and more equitable maps. By any metric, this is very curious timing. Why would Speaker Vos, after twelve years of living with heavily gerrymandered maps, suddenly decide that it was time to change them? Enlightenment?

The answer is patently and rather sadly obvious—almost pitiful. In a desperate effort to preserve power, Speaker Vos is making a feeble attempt—not at compromise—but to look as if he’s compromising. It is pathetic, sort of like a schoolyard bully making nice to a kid he beat up because the teacher is standing right there. Of course, as soon as the teacher leaves, what will the bully do? We all know the answer.

Speaker Vos and the Republican caucus are not to be trusted. They have ruled our state politics with an iron fist for the past twelve years. Now, when that power might finally be taken away, they pretend to care about the Wisconsin voter. This is a pathetic and desperate ploy to hang onto the reins of power, and the people know it.

Governor Evers has called it bogus. Speaker Vos has been ridiculed and reviled on national news programs for his transparent attempt to continue the ruthless Republican power grab that has plagued this state for over a decade.

Robin Vos is a predator, a snake in the grass, a snake-oil salesman. It’s time for him and his friends to go home.