Opinion

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.

One of the trends we identified as part of our Undemocratic: Secrecy and Power vs. The People series for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism was the increased fast-tracking of bills under Gov. Scott Walker.

Ambassador Tom Loftus, ambassador to Norway, 1993-1998, was the keynote speaker at an event entitled "Statesmanship" Nov. 27 at the Madison Club. It was jointly sponsored by the Wisconsin Education Association Council and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. These are his remarks.

Here we are 17 years later and still bogged down in Afghanistan, even though that day FDR said would live in infamy should have taught us something about picking our fights — that we should know the enemy and how to beat him.

Perhaps it is simply human nature that our appreciation often comes too late. Every generation is born ungrateful and our memories are selective and shaded by our own self-regard. But it was the singular misfortune of the Greatest Generation to be succeeded by that most self-absorbed of generations, the Baby Boomers, my own generation.