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The speaker insists that the moves were primarily to push back against the growing power of the governors office and that he would have sought similar changes even if Walker had been reelected.

We made a mistake in the first two years after Governor Walker [took office]. We ceded too much authority to the governor. We did it for generations, Vos said. So when I became speaker, I became very focused on giving no additional power to the executive.

Whatever the motivation, it was certainly a rocky start for the relationship between the speaker and the governor.

It didnt get any better after Evers took office.

Vos says he asked for one-on-one meetings with the governor, with no staff present. The Evers camp accused him of being sexist, because the governors chief of staff is a woman.

Evers, meanwhile, remembers inviting lawmakers of both parties over for a night of euchre, a favorite card game of the governors and a staple of Wisconsin culture up there with Friday fish fries. But only one Republican showed up because, the governor says, Republican leaders warned their lawmakers not to attend.

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic made the relationship between Vos and Evers even worse. Not only did they disagree over how to handle the public health crisis, the governor and speaker also lined up on different sides as Wisconsin became an electoral battleground and protests against police brutality in the state turned deadly.

When the pandemic started, Evers wanted to postpone Wisconsins April presidential primary and state Supreme Court election. Vos and other Republicans filed a flurry of lawsuits to block the governors moves and won, meaning the state held an in-person election (pictures of Milwaukee voters in long lines to vote in-person circulated the country) while the governors stay-at-home order was still in effect.

Vos volunteered as a poll worker on Election Day and conducted an interview with a local newspaper where he assured voters that it was incredibly safe to go out. The video showed him dressed in latex gloves, a surgical mask, goggles and a plastic gown. He later clarified that the city election agency he volunteered for required all poll workers to wear the protective gear, but Democrats mocked him for pushing for an in-person election under those circumstances anyway.

Later that month, Vos and Fitzgerald sued to block the Evers administration from extending a stay-at-home order, arguing that it would leave Wisconsins economy in shambles. The conservative majority on the state supreme court agreed in May, and Wisconsin became the first state where a court invalidated a governors coronavirus restrictions.

The rebuke from the high court left Evers with fewer options as the pandemic stretched on. He didnt issue a mask mandate until July, after most governors had already done so. Vos and Fitzgerald supported an unsuccessful effort to strike down the mask mandate last fall, but, eventually, the state Supreme Court also blocked Evers from requiring masks this March.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos shows off his signature on the state budget after signing the spending plan in his state Capitol office. | Todd Richmond/AP Photo

Protests against police brutality broke out in August 2020 in Kenosha, not far from where Vos lives, after a white police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times and left him paralyzed.

The governor tried to call the Wisconsin Legislature which had been largely absent in Madison during 2020 into a special session to address police misconduct. Predictably, Vos adjourned the session as soon as it started.

The Republican speaker also criticized Evers for not calling out the National Guard to disperse the protests. He blamed the governor after Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois teen, shot three protesters and killed two of them.

Those people did not need to die, Vos said in a radio interview at the time. But, because of Tony Evers actions, theyre dead. People are literally dead, because folks have had to take to themselves to try to protect their own property.

As the November elections drew near, the governor tried to blame Vos and other Republicans for not taking the Covid-19 crisis seriously. Evers wasnt even on the ballot last year, but Vos was. The speaker faced the best-funded Democratic challenger in his career in that election, thanks to outside groups that wanted to rattle the speaker. Vos won easily. Still, he admitted he was nervous about the outcome. When he won, he called the vote a repudiation of Tony Evers leadership style.

The pandemic is by no means over, but the governor says Vos and other Republican lawmakers did more to hurt, rather than help, the states recovery efforts.

They were not in session for 300 days during the pandemic, Evers said in an interview. The work that was done in the state of Wisconsin, that Im proud of getting the PPE, making sure we were getting shots in arms, making sure we had a good testing program all of the things that happened during this pandemic, we did alone. The Legislature had nothing to do with it, except to make it more difficult for people.

The speaker says the pandemic underscored how much power governors across the country exerted, and he worried that too many of them failed to work with their legislatures as the pandemic progressed.

Vos argues that it is legislatures that should take the lead.

I want the Legislature to never weaken, because we are the most representative body in the country, Vos said. We are the ones who have public hearings. We are the ones where you can call somebody and get a return call. You can go to a town hall meeting anywhere in the state and talk to a legislator, because were that accessible.

Democrats chafe at the idea that the Wisconsin Legislature is representative, because of what they see as gerrymandered districts that prevent Democrats in urban areas like Milwaukee and Madison from having their votes count in the statehouse. (A panel of federal judges also redrew two legislative districts under the original GOP plan, because they found the districts would have weakened Hispanic voting strength.)

Hintz, the leader of the Assembly Democrats, says the district maps protect Republican lawmakers from repercussions at the polls.

The speaker and the Republicans have suffocated the legislative process, because they dont want Gov. Evers to be successful, Hintz said. So they scheduled fewer days, we meet fewer days, we pass fewer bills and the governor signs fewer laws. And theres no accountability, because theres no chance that they were going to lose their seats.

But Evers could erase some of the Republicans advantages in upcoming legislative races. The governor can veto any redistricting plan Republican lawmakers advance now that new Census numbers are out, which would likely throw to the courts the decision over what maps to use. (Democrats have already filed a lawsuit to try to get federal judges to draw new maps.)

Thats not a guarantee that Democrats will prevail in the 2022 legislative elections, but it probably beats trying to win under the maps drawn by Republicans a decade ago.

The governor and Republican legislators recently clashed on the rules for the upcoming elections, too. Evers vetoed six GOP bills that would have made it harder for voters to obtain and use absentee ballots, put restrictions on voting in nursing homes and stepped up scrutiny of local elections officials.

That came after Vos announced the Assembly would hire its own investigators, including a former state supreme court judge, to investigate what he calls irregularities in the 2020 elections. Vos said he regards Joe Biden as the winner of the states presidential contest, but he raised questions about disparities in how officials in Wisconsins 1,850 municipalities ran their elections.

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How Wisconsin is ruled by a Republican shadow governor - POLITICO

That included a demonstration Tuesday near the Capitol, as well as nationwide rallies planned for Friday including in West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

The compromise bill, dubbed the Freedom to Vote Act, incorporates much of a sweeping overhaul that House Democrats passed earlier this year. The Senate version of that bill remains stalled in the Rules and Administration Committee.

The Senate tried in June to bring a revised version of the elections and campaign finance overhaul up for debate but mustered only 50 votes, short of the 60 needed.

The new Senate version, like the original overhaul, would establish minimum standards for voting across the country, such as same-day voter registration, universal voting by mail and minimum periods for early voting.

It would also require additional disclosures for groups that engage in election-related spending. The revised bill seeks to put an end to partisan gerrymandering by setting specific criteria for congressional redistricting. It also provides new protections for election workers and would set Election Day as a federal holiday.

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New election overhaul bill faces same Republican opposition - Roll Call

Rep. Michael McCaulMichael Thomas McCaulRepublican taps CNN reporter to investigate Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal Blinken grilled in first hearing since Afghanistan withdrawal Sunday shows preview: Biden issues new vaccine mandates; House committee marks up .5T reconciliation bill MORE (R-Texas) has hired a formerCNN journalist to serve as an investigatorforthe House Foreign Affairs Committee as it probes President BidenJoe BidenNewsom easily beats back recall effort in California Second senior official leaving DHS in a week Top Republican: General told senators he opposed Afghanistan withdrawal MORE's withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan this summer.

The journalist, Ryan Browne,has workedfor CNNsince 2015 covering the Pentagon and international security matters. He has reported from countries across the Middle Eastand was embedded as a contractor adviser to the Afghan National Army from 2011 to 2013 before joining CNN.

"I look forward to putting together a comprehensive, independent and facts-driven investigation,Browne said in a statement issued through McCaul's office.

It is crucial we discover what led to the chaos of the emergency evacuation, and examine the administrations failed efforts to evacuate all American citizens, green card holders, local allies and other vulnerable Afghans fearing reprisals from the Taliban," he added.

McCaul and other Republicans grilled Secretary of State Antony BlinkenAntony BlinkenTop Republican: General told senators he opposed Afghanistan withdrawal Overnight Defense & National Security Details of Trump's final days prompt call to fire Milley Senate lawmakers let frustration show with Blinken MORE on Monday about the troop withdrawal.McCaul,the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he appreciated Blinkentestifying butaddedthe secretary "once again provided us with little to no new information."

What we saw in Afghanistan was a systemic failure of the federal government that led to the chaos and horrific devastation,McCaul said in the statement.That resulted in the death of 13 American service members and the abandonment of American citizens, green card holders, and our Afghan partners in a country controlled by a brutal terrorist organization."

Blinken defended the Biden administration's response, including its failure to predict how quickly the Taliban would overtake the county after the U.S. withdrawal.

Nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a collapse of the government and the security forces in 11 days, Blinken told lawmakers. This unfolded more quickly than we anticipated, including in the intelligence community.

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Republican taps CNN reporter to investigate Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal | TheHill - The Hill

The right-wing backlash against the coronavirus vaccines has forced Republican politicians to make an agonizing choice. On the one hand, public health and public opinion both militate strongly in favor of vaccination. On the other hand, a vocal segment of their own base demands resistance.

Most have tried to navigate the fine line between these competing pressures by formally endorsing the vaccine as a personal choice while loudly standing up for the rights of vaccine refusers. Ron DeSantis, the partys leading choice to lead it should Donald Trump decide not to run, exemplifies the careful balance. On Monday, DeSantis announced tough new measures to punish any city or county in Florida that requires its public employees to receive a vaccine, with a $5,000 fine per infraction.

At his press conference, DeSantis stood beside a man who claimed the vaccine changes your RNA, a completely false anti-vaxx talking point. You could tell DeSantis knew this immediately. As soon as the line was uttered, he looked down at the ground, then nervously thrust his left hand into his pocket. His careful work to frame the issue entirely as a matter of rights was suddenly going up in flames:

After this uncomfortable moment, DeSantis still had a choice. He had a turn to speak afterward, and could have explicitly denounced the dangerous, paranoid nonsense that had just been circulated with his imprimatur. But to do so would have been to alienate a crucial constituency. The DeSantis game is to bring along anti-vaxxers without explicitly attaching himself to their most toxic beliefs. They could babble about RNA and Bill Gates all they wished offstage; onstage, the message would be relentlessly focused on the abstract issue of peoples rights.

The forces that brought DeSantis and his party to this pitiable position were roughly twofold. First, the Republican Party has developed a growing skepticism of scientific authority over time. Fifty years ago, Republicans actually trusted scientists more than Democrats did, but the conservative movements attacks on science (especially the varieties of science that implied the need for regulation of pollution or consumer goods) hardened into an institutionalized skepticism; the first COVID skeptics out of the gate were disproportionately drawn from climate-science skeptics.

Second, Trumps panicked response to the coronavirus was to deny it altogether. Once Trump decided the pandemic was a hoax designed to sabotage his reelection, his followers embraced that view, from which it naturally followed that every measure putatively aimed at containing the pandemic was described as unnecessary or harmful.

Republican Party elites found anti-vaxx sentiment embarrassing and unhelpful. Most of them have endorsed the vaccine as a choice, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Yet they have found themselves stuck with an anti-vaxx core too large to risk alienating. This has set off the same kind of finely parsed calculation that they employed to respond to various Trumpian outrages.

Their answer has always been to find a way to avoid defending the indefensible and instead change the question to the excesses of the other side. Was Trumps recorded confession of sexual assault morally acceptable? Who knows? But they did know that Hillary Clintons socialist schemes werent. Was it okay for Trump to strong-arm a foreign government into ginning up a scandal against his opponent? That didnt matter the real issue was the unfairness of the impeachment proceedings, held in a basement, and so forth.

DeSantis had perfected the art of anti-anti-anti-vaxx politics. He had given the jab his official endorsement, yet day after day he sent signals that he would defend the rights of anti-vaxxers. If necessary, DeSantis would trample traditional conservative principles to do so. Conservative Republicans normally respect freedom of contract, but DeSantis used his power to prohibit cruise lines from requiring their passengers be vaccinated. Conservative Republicans also dont generally treat government employment as a sacrosanct right, but here he was insisting, We are gonna stand for the men and women who are serving us. We are gonna protect Florida jobs. Nor do they generally approve of state authority overriding local control of schools, unless that authority is being used to prohibit mask requirements.

The gambit works in theory, as long as everybody can stay on message. The problem with the theory is that hardly anybody actually cares about the abstract principles that DeSantis is claiming to defend. The idea that bodily autonomy trumps personal responsibility, property rights, and local control is a hierarchy of values invented for this circumstance. (My body, my choice is not a notable Republican slogan.) The real point is to signal political solidarity with anti-vaxxers, to show that he believes their views are deserving of respect.

The trouble is that his message that anti-vaxxers have a legitimate point of view has the effect of legitimizing their message. Whats more, getting the anti-vaxxers to stick to the approved talking points is tricky, given the notorious difficulty kooks have with message discipline. Putting a kook in front of a microphone and asking him not to share with the world the evidence of the dubious conspiracy hes uncovered is to demand an unrealistic level of impulse control.

Once a political partys percentage of kooks has risen above a certain threshold, its no longer practical to kick them out. They must instead be placated. It is a constant process of papering over distinctions to avoid an internal schism that would enrage the kooks. The Republican Party didnt set out to position itself with vaccine skeptics. But they have found themselves, once again, standing shoulder to shoulder with the absurd, looking down at their feet and pretending it isnt happening.

Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.

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DeSantis and the Agony of the Anti-Anti-Anti-Vaxx Republican - New York Magazine

Im old enough to remember when the Republican party stood for limited government and Ronald Reagan thundered Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.

Todays Republican party, while still claiming to stand for limited government, is practicing just the opposite: government intrusion everywhere.

Republican lawmakers are banning masks in schools. Iowa, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and South Carolina are prohibiting public schools from requiring students wear them.

Republican states are on the way to outlawing abortions. Texas has just banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know theyre pregnant. Other Republican states are on the way to enacting similar measures.

Republican lawmakers are forbidding teachers from telling students about Americas racist past. State legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho are barring all references to racism in the classroom.

Republican legislators are forcing transgender students to play sports and use bathrooms according to their assigned gender at birth. Thirty-three states have introduced more than 100 bills aimed at curbing the rights of transgender people.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are making it harder for people to vote. So far, theyve enacted more than 30 laws that reduce access to polling places, number of days for voting and availability of absentee voting.

This is not limited government, folks. To the contrary, these Republican lawmakers have a particular ideology, and they are now imposing those views and values on citizens holding different views and values.

This is big government on steroids.

Many Republican lawmakers use the word freedom to justify what theyre doing. Thats rubbish. What theyre really doing is denying people their freedom freedom to be safe from Covid, freedom over their own bodies, freedom to learn, freedom to vote and participate in our democracy.

Years ago, the Republican party had a coherent idea about limiting the role of government and protecting the rights of the individual. I disagreed with it, as did much of the rest of America. But at least it was honest, reasoned and consistent. As such, Republicans played an important part in a debate over what we wanted for ourselves and for America.

Today, Republican politicians have no coherent view. They want only to be re-elected, even if that means misusing government to advance a narrow and increasingly anachronistic set of values intruding on the most intimate aspects of life, interfering in what can be taught and learned, risking the publics health, banning whats necessary for people to exercise their most basic freedoms.

This is not mere hypocrisy. The Republican party now poses a clear and present threat even to the values it once espoused.

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Republicans once called government the problem now they want to run your life - The Guardian