The Speaker believed responsible conservatism wins elections.
Not many Assembly speakers have cut so wide a swath as Robin Vos or engendered so much bilious spite — from members of his own Republican party.
A record 14 years leading the majority party is itself historic, especially considering that my Republicans are less disciplined than feral cats on catnip. Republicans (too many self-employed small business people) just don’t fall in line like the community organizers in the other party. Case in point: Joe Biden taps Kamala Harris as his successor and Democrats take a knee.
Speaker Vos, for just the latest example, managed to cut taxes and still increase spending on schools and child care — a package minority Democrats nonetheless disdained in favor of a campaign issue. Tony Evers was forced to sign it, anyway. Ed Sullivan would have booked that kind of balancing act for his Sunday show! Vos and his party also forced the state university system to decouple a little from DEI. Made Wisconsin a right to work state, gave low-income families the opportunity to escape failed government schools, kept major league baseball in Milwaukee, secured elections with Voter I.D. (which Democrats still oppose).
‘A relentless cabal’
In the history of the state, there has never been a person more mistreated and unfairly reviled by some people on their own side than Robin Vos – yet more consequential. The stress gave the man a heart attack. It was shameful behavior by a small but relentless cabal — some still at it today. — Jessica McBride, Wisconsin Right Now
Mr. Wisconsin Nice
No trash talk, never demeaned a woman’s appearance, never depicted his adversaries as apes or blamed the dead for their own murders.
Screw all that, say too many Republicans. He fired Mike Gableman, a since disbarred former state supreme court justice who sided with My Pillow Man, drunk Rudy, and the Proud Boys in their paranoid delusion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Even today, an over-represented and noisome gaggle of reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers would sooner purge their way to a smaller tent than entertain independent voters tiring of the storm und drang of constant grievance and retribution.
Rep. Vos meant well when he brought Gableman to the dais at the 2021 state convention and tasked the once respected jurist with proving or dispelling election fraud once and for all. When, after expending $676,000, Gableman found bupkis, he turned on Vos and supported his primary election rival, the conspiracy mongering Adam Steen — whom Donald Trump promptly endorsed.
Turns out that the only election cheater was the group backing Steen. (Charges were recommended but never filed.) Twice the crazies tried to recall Vos.
Bitching isn’t winning
The bitter enders did succeed in discouraging Vos — the most powerful Republican in state office — from attending last year’s GOP convention in Mosinee. Why submit to the booing, the catcalls, the condemnatory motions from the floor?
It escapes their notice that the Speaker could do that which they could not: win elections! Assembly Republicans won seats from Kenosha County to Eagle River; currently holding 54 out of 99. And that, after Democrat gerrymandering! The winners chose Vos to lead them. On their own, voters de-selected Stolen Election cultists like Janel Brandtjen and Timothy Ramthun. But their ilk remains over-represented at convention and on the state party’s board of directors.
Vos can boast 14 years of Republican legislative majorities swimming upstream against recent statewide losses by Eric Hovde, Tim Michels, and Brad Schimel — all burdened with MAGA endorsements.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Speaker Vos deserves his chapter in any revised edition of Profiles in Courage for refusing to do what the Wisconsin state constitution says he cannot: overturn an election. For refusing to endorse the Big Lie. The partisan tacticians at the Werkes also appreciate Robin Vos for something else: the man knows how to win in purple Wisconsin.
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