The special election for the 7th Congressional District will have a primary on both sides.  Two Democrats and two Republicans have both qualified to run in the election coming next year. Republican state senator Tom Tiffany will face Jason Church, a veteran and aide to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson.

On the Democrats side, Wausau School Board President Tricia Zunker will face businessman Lawrence Dale. Dale was living in Michigan when he announced his run, but now lists a PO box in Eagle River as his address. The primary is set for February 18.

Republican Sean Duffy resigned from the seat earlier this year.

Governor Tony Evers has released a day’s worth of his emails. After initially claiming that state law prohibited him from doing so, the Democratic governor fulfilled an open records request by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for all emails he sent and received on November 12.

The three emails he provided were copies of two press releases and his daily schedule.

Evers released them after denying a similar request in October from a reporter with WITI-TV, because he said that request was not limited to a specific subject. He’d been criticized by advocates for government transparency.

Rep. Joe Sanfelippo

Attorney General Josh Kaul is pressuring state Representative Joe Sanfelippo (R-New Berlin) to move forward with a bill that would standardize the process for collecting sexual assault kits. He held a press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday. “I have talked to a number of legislators about this, including 14 out of 15 members of the Assembly Health Committee. I have yet to hear from a single member of the legislature who opposes this legislation.”

The bill has bipartisan support in the Assembly and has already passed the Senate. No word on whether Sanfelippo has scheduled that hearing. “It’s critical that a hearing on this legislation be scheduled in the Assembly soon,” Kaul said.

The bill would create a standard procedure for collecting DNA evidence in sexual assault cases. Sexual assault victims would have the option of whether to send a kit to the state crime lab for DNA analysis. If they consent, kits would be required to be tested within 72 hours. If they decline, the kits would be stored for 10 years in case victims change their minds.

Governor Tony Evers has proposed three possible dates in January for his State of the State address. In a letter to Senate President Roger Roth and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Evers requested a joint session of the legislature at 7pm on either: Monday the 13th, Tuesday the 21st or Wednesday the 23rd. \

The session calendar has January 14th through 23rd set aside as a floor period.

A Vos spokeswoman said discussions were ongoing with the Senate “as to when the legislative leaders will be inviting the governor to a joint session” for the speech, according to WisPolitics.

Former Governor Walker and Lt. Governor Kleefisch

Former Governor Scott Walker is not planning to run for governor in 2022 — but he has his preferred Republican candidate “I personally hope Rebecca Kleefisch runs for governor,” Walker said during a WisPolitics event at the Milwaukee Press Club on Tuesday. “I think she would win, and I think she would be a helluva great governor if she was elected.”

Kleefisch served as lieutenant governor with Walker, who said he won’t consider running for elective office again until after his four year commitment to lead “Young Americans For Freedom” ends in 2025. He said he’s encouraged Kleefisch to run.

Walker took a pass, when asked to critique Democratic Governor Tony Evers’ job so far. “I appreciated that Jim Doyle didn’t constantly talk about me, so I’m not constantly talking about Governor Evers.”

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has voted to ask lawmakers to clarify procedures for mailings to voters who may have moved. Those who don’t respond could be removed from the voting rolls.

Monday’s action comes after the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty challenged the legality of the commission’s decision to give those voters up to 24 months to respond before being pulled from the rolls. WILL in its filing argued the move violates a state statute requiring a voters’ registration to be changed to inactive if they do not respond to the mailing “within 30 days of the date the notice is mailed.”

WILL argues that lawmakers intended to remove inactive voters from the rolls promptly. Others say speeding up the response-time amounts to a purge of legal voters.

Rep. Mark Pocan (WRN image)

While former Governor Scott Walker has compared impeachment proceeding against President Donald Trump to 2012 efforts to recall him. Congressman Mark Pocan said Monday that’s not an apt comparison.

“Scott Walker never broke the law, that I remember. This one’s pretty clear. You’ve got a president who had a motive, there’s a crime, there’s a confession, and there’s evidence. That’s quite different than we ever had with Scott Walker.We thought Scott Walker abused his power.”

The 2nd District Democrat said there’s no doubt about President Donald Trump’s intentions regarding a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine. “He clearly said he was holding back anything until they at least announced an investigation. That part is crystal clear.”

Pocan said a House vote on articles of impeachment against President Trump could come very soon. “I can’t say definitively. If I had to give it a percent, I would give it a 75 to 80 percent chance of likelihood that we’ll see a vote this year.”

Pocan also said “it’s kind of sad” watching some Republicans trying to pin election hacking on Ukraine, even though all intelligence reports point to Russia  “It’s a puzzling time you know, when people don’t put country before party. And I see too much of that right now.”

Pocan said the House of Representatives and the Trump administration could be close to an agreement on the USMCA trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, but that the While House rather than House Democrats have been “slow walking” the negotiation process.

The longer the impeachment inquiry goes, the less public support there appears to be for removing President Trump from office.

On WKOW’s “Capital City Sunday,” former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said the public is getting turned off by single-minded opposition to the president. He says he’s reminded of the recall effort against him.

“There’s a long list of video clips out there of Democrats in Congress who’ve talked about wanting to impeach this president since the day he was elected.”

“The left so overreacted that it turned off swing voters. It got to the point where people said ‘is this all they care about?’ And I think that you’re starting to see the same thing when it comes to impeachment.” says Walker. 

Walker says the inquiries are only serving to divide the American people.

“If we want to move forward as a nation, as a country, we have to find ways to talk and communicate that isn’t just taking shots back and forth.”

On “FOX News Sunday,” Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries said it’s Congress’ job to follow the facts and apply the law according to the Constitution.

Walker says lawmakers should instead pass a new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.