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Wisconsin Senate to convene special session on Monday

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The Wisconsin Senate plans to convene Monday for a special session to discuss police reform. Governor Tony Evers on Monday ordered lawmakers in both chambers back to Madison, following the shooting of Jacob Blake in the back Sunday by a Kenosha police officer.

Evers wants lawmakers to work on a package of police reform bills which he first introduced in June.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said they’ll do that, as well as considering other legislation by Republican state Senator Van Wangaard.

Fitzgerald’s office said it is not a full floor session, but a procedural move to “open up” the session. No word on Assembly action.

Conservation lobby group releases annual ‘Scorecard’

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It was a disappointing legislative session for Wisconsin Conservation Voters. Jennifer Giegerich is Government Affairs Director for the environmental lobby group, which released its annual Conservation Scorecard this week.

“Not a single clean water bill addressing root causes of water pollution passed this session,” Giegerich said. “And there was not even a single public hearing addressing climate change, one of the top issues addressing our planet.”

The group inducted Speaker Robin Vos into its “Conservation Dishonor Roll” – the only lawmaker to earn that distinction this year. “When we looked at every bad bad bill or any bad situation that came up over the past legislative session, we kept coming back to Speaker Vos being the root cause of it.” Vos’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

Jeff Lamont of Marinette, a community where PFAs contamination remains a major concern, was on a media call this week announcing the group’s Scorecard.

“It was so frustrating . . . that we worked so hard on drafting this legislation with Senator Hansen’s office, and then bringing (Rep. John) Nygren and him together for a compromise bill, and having Vos just shut it down, not even bringing it to a vote,” Lamont said.

While great hopes were pinned on the Speaker’s Task Force on Water Quality at the time Vos announced it’s formation, Giegrich charges it was “a sham,” which accomplished little.

“There were 13 bills that were introduced by the water quality task force. And rather than being a substantive package that would tackle long term problems like nitrate contamination in rural areas, or addressing new issues like setting standards for PFAs, these bills were . . . very small in scope. Almost half of them would have had almost no impact on water quality. And then three of those bills would have actually set us back for protecting water quality in the state of Wisconsin.”

While the package of bills did pass the Assembly with bipartisan support in February, none of the measure were subsequently taken up by the state Senate.

Blank says UW-Madison faces ‘financial crisis’

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Chancellor Rebecca Blank

The chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says the state’s flagship campus is “in a real financial crisis.”

Chancellor Rebecca Blank blames the challenging situation the school faces as the fall semester approaches on the coronavirus pandemic.

Blank told the Rotary Club of Madison that how bad things will get depends on factors like students who are enrolled for the fall semester actually showing up, how deep state budget cuts are, and whether lawmakers give the university the authority it needs to borrow money.

Interim UW System President Tommy Thompson said he will make a personal appeal to Governor Tony Evers and members of the legislature to spare the UW in the next round of budget cuts. The UW already announced system-wide administrative cuts earlier this month.

Mask repeal action looks unlikely in Assembly

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It’s still not clear, whether Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature will be able to roll back Tony Evers’ mask mandate, with Assembly Republicans apparently less interested than their Senate counterparts.

State Representative Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee) hopes they will. “It’s not about masks, per se,” Neylon said Sunday on WISN’s UpFront.

“I think it’s a dangerous overreach of power, and if we aren’t able to overturn him now, what will this lead to in the future.”

Representative Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) agrees there ought to be limits on government power. “But doing what we can to save the lives of our community members by enacting common sense public health measures, is clearly within the role of government.”

While state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has said he’s ready to roll on repeal, Assembly Speaker doesn’t plan to challenge Evers’ order.

WISN‘s Matt Smith asked Neylon whether Assembly Republicans have the votes. “I don’t believe we do, no,” he said.

Sen. Baldwin seeks answers after report that new Postmaster General is intentionally slowing mail delivery

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Senator Tammy Baldwin is calling for an investigation of newly appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy after reports that he’s ordering postal carriers to intentionally slow down mail service. 

“Look I’ve heard from Wisconsin Postal Service workers and many constituents who are concerned about these new policies and I share their concerns.”

The comments come after a story in the Washington Post that that packages from Amazon and regular citizens are being left behind at post offices.  

“It’s wrong for President Trump’s new Postmaster General to direct letter carriers to leave mail behind and delay delivery.”

Baldwin says she’s seen pictures of left-behind packages in the Oak Creek mail facility in southeast Wisconsin. 

Assembly Republicans directly lobby school districts into reopening

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Republican leadership in the state Assembly are directly lobbying school districts into reopening.

That letter sent out to school superintendents was obtained by UpNorthNews.

Signed by 47 Assembly Republicans, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Majority leader Jim Steinike, the letter tells superintendents that they have an obligation to educate students, and that virtual schooling may not meet that obligation in some cases.

It also suggests that if districts don’t reopen to students the GOP will call for the Department of Public Instruction to examine greater open enrollment, which would divert school taxes away from individual districts.

Speaker Vos did not respond to a request for comment, and Representative Stieneke’s office said he was not available.

State Democrats introduce package of unemployment reform bills

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Legislative Democrats have unveiled a package of bills to make it easier for Wisconsinites to claim and file for unemployment.

State Senator Janice Ringhand says they want to undo some of the obstacles that were erected in getting unemployment during the Walker administration. 

(“There were a lot of bills that were passed between 2011 and 2018 that made it more complicated to get unemployment. So this will eliminate some of those obstructions that were put in place during that time frame.”

The bills would peel back application requirements, and would reduce the amount of work Wisconsinites have to do during each week to continue claiming unemployment. 

“There was a bill that was forwarded several years ago that requires four work searches every week, and this reduces that to two. And it gives D W D more authority to make individual decisions.”

The bill will also allow people who both work and qualify for disability benefits to file for unemployment, and allow those getting job skills training to apply as well. 

State Supreme Court rules for Republicans in Lame Duck Law challenge

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has once again ruled in favor of Republicans in the legislature, in a series of lawsuits challenging the Lame Duck Laws. The ruling is being praised by majority leaders in both chambers.

In an opinion issued on Thursday, the court upheld laws passed by Republicans in 2018 that limit some of the powers of the Governor’s office.

One of those laws prevents the governor and the attorney general’s office from leaving federal lawsuits that the state has joined. That law was enacted to keep Governor Tony Evers from dropping out of a number of controversial lawsuits the state was involved in during the Walker administration.

“We had a race for governor in 2018. I won. Unfortunately, things got off on the wrong foot because Republicans immediately passed a law overriding the will of the people and the election, and they’ve been sour grapes ever since,” Evers said on Twitter.

The court also upheld a measure that requires the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee to sign off on lawsuit settlements for the state. That law has led to a protracted standoff between Republicans and Attorney General Josh Kaul on just how the JFC will be allowed to be read in on confidential cases.

Among many provisions, the ruling requires that Attorney General Kaul send settlements to the Joint Committee on Finance for review, according to a statement from Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for the Legislature and all Wisconsinites who want to hold government accountable. A rogue attorney general can no longer unilaterally settle away laws already on the books and unelected bureaucrats can’t expand their powers beyond what the people have given them through their representatives.”

“In grasping at power after the 2018 elections, legislative Republicans demonstrated open hostility to outcomes chosen by Wisconsin voters and made it more difficult for state government to function effectively,” said AG Kaul in a statement. “Today’s decision leaves for another day a ruling on whether most applications of two provisions undermining the authority of the Office of Attorney General are constitutional, but the ultimate result is inevitable: those provisions will be found to be unconstitutional in nearly all of their applications.”

“Our state’s founders established co-equal branches of government in Wisconsin,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in a statement. “This ruling reaffirms that each branch is equal to the other. This idea runs counter to what the governor and attorney general seem to believe. They deem the executive branch is the most important one and should unilaterally rule over the state.”

Open records expert says secret Evers Administration recording is not illegal

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Legislative Republicans continue to challenge Governor Tony Evers over a recording that was made public because of an open records request.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders says the issue is that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald did not expect to be recorded.

“I’m not so sure that it wouldn’t have been a better process if the whole thing had been done in the open. I mean people behave better when they know they’re being watched so I don’t understand why there’s such a need for secrecy about a communication like that.”

Lueders says that even if there’s no documentation about who actually made that recording, it’s probably legally a moot point because only one person who was part of that call needed to consent to it being made. 

“I don’t know how you record a conversation among people without someone who is in on that conversation being aware of it. They would have had to facilitate it or allow it in some way.”

The law also doesn’t require any specific documentation for that consent. Lueders says while this is an unusual situation, if someone had simply taken down a transcript there would be no issue. 

So far the Evers administration has not identified who the person that made the recording was, only that it was being handled internally.

Senator Baldwin backs sweeping federal police reform bill

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Senator Tammy Baldwin is backing a sweeping bill to overhaul how police departments are run in the United States.

Baldwin says too often police have to deal with issues that they’ve never been trained for. 

“They often become mental health counselors, social workers, dealing with addiction issues that should be handled by other professionals and would result in greater community safety if we made those investments.”

Baldwin says having a public safety presence through policing shouldn’t change. “But I do think it’s healthy when we take more than a moment to look at what we’ve built and what might be better to promote safety in our communities.”

Among its many proposals, the bill will peel back qualified immunity laws that protect police from being sued, require more reporting on use of force by police departments, and create a federal registry of police officers who are fired from their jobs for misconduct.