Opinion

The latest controversy stems from a years-long project that other states should admire.

One key reason: they see Tony Evers as weak.

Legislators “don’t trust” newly elected governor, so they want to take away Evers’ power.

Not just Democrats are stuck in the childhood game of “Statues” – Stop Motion and Freeze! -- because of the lame-duck legislation dropped on Scott Walker’s desk, those controversial new laws that attack the new governor, the new attorney general, voting rights and basic protections for the citizenry against governmental overreach while tangling us in red tape.

Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald aren’t just limiting the power of the offices of the governor and attorney general. They’re undermining the basis of our system: that rules should apply equally regardless of who is in office.

The extraordinary session of the state Legislature was not a “coup” or a “power grab.” It wasn’t even a so-called lame-duck session because voters re-elected strong Republican majorities in both chambers for next session. The extraordinary session was merely an effort to ensure that in divided government, every branch of government has an equal seat at the table.

Our state was on the front pages of The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other papers because Republicans who control the state Legislature showed there is no limit to how low they will go.

But don’t buy the “outrage” for a moment. The prevailing feeling among Democrats instead is one of glee that Republicans handed them a p.r. advantage by mishandling “the optics.”

The bills we passed focus on ensuring the governor cannot unilaterally go around the legislature to change state law.

The party of Lincoln sinks lower in Wisconsin and nationally, while a troubled economy goes down.

It's the most expensive way to go and payers are increasingly rebelling.

As the books close on 2018, the WisOpinion Insiders, Chvala and Jensen, share their biggest political stories of the year. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties...

Throughout this decade, Gov. Scott Walker, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos made Wisconsin politics an ugly, zero-sum blood sport, and even with Walker defeated, that playbook is unchanged.

So desperate were the outgoing governor and state legislative majority to pass what amounted to a sweetheart deal for some of their biggest political backers that they did what was until then unthinkable—they sprang Jeff Wood from jail so he could vote.

The activities of American office-holders after they have been voted out of office have vexed incoming politicians since at least the “Midnight Judges” appointed by John Adams in March of 1801, much to the consternation of President Thomas Jefferson. It’s rough politics—unsavory and often untoward—but it is not unprecedented, and it is not a usurpation of power.