Happy Friday, Wisconsin!
It feels weird to state the obvious, but we don't think anyone should be above the law. And yet, we now live in a world where insurrectionists, fake presidential electors, and rogue election investigators can just—in the words of a judge yesterday—run amok.
Legislators can rig political maps, get paid a full-time salary, and go sit at home for 10 months. A former president can simply walk away with boxes of classified documents. Politicians in judges' robes can remove rights on a whim after 50 years. Good ideas can't advance in the US Senate, even with 59 votes, because an arcane rule says you need 60.
It's enough to make some people want to turn away—not participate in civic activity, not vote anymore.
Don't let that happen to you—or to our country.
We want to take a moment to thank all you who are standing up for rules, norms, institutions, the Constitution, and democracy itself—whether it's bringing legal action against fake electors, seeking protection of public records, passing dozens of local referendum measures for fair maps, standing up for public health and science, or running long-shot election campaigns in gerrymandered districts. The odds are long, but you don't give up.
You are the best of America. And after another week of grueling headlines, we offer our gratitude as you get set to do the next good thing for our country.
Have a great weekend. Here's today's tl;dr...
- Every Wisconsin Republican in the US House voted against emergency help to address the baby formula crisis.
- Ron Johnson and nearly every Republican in the US Senate voted against help for restaurateurs in danger of going out of business—a "no" vote sure to cause job losses.
- An attorney for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos made it official on Thursday: Michael Gableman is accountable to no one, even the state's most powerful Republican, who hired him.
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Welcome to the State of WisCommonSense
3 Things to Know About Wisconsin Today
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Office Space (1999)
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The attorney for Wisconsin's most powerful Republican, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, told a judge Thursday that even though Vos is the person who hired a former state Supreme Court justice to investigate the 2020 election, nobody can control what Michael Gableman does and whether he's complying with the judge's orders to not destroy records of his activity.
"I don't have control over Mr. Gableman," said attorney Ronald Stadler, according to a Wisconsin Public Radio report on Thursday's court hearing in the open records lawsuit brought by a watchdog group.
"I still don't have anything from Mr. Gableman as to what the heck he did," said Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn.
Bailey-Rihn reminded Vos' attorney that Gableman is a contractor, paid by taxpayers, and should be accountable. But Stadler response indicates that Gableman, whose work is vocally supported by former President Donald Trump, faces no accountability.
"I don't have the authority and nobody in the state has the authority to walk into his office and demand that he sit for an inquisition, a deposition, anything like that. I can't go to his office and search his computers. I can't search his desk," said Stadler.
"What you're telling me is Mr. Vos hired a contractor who should be under his control, and he's just run amok and is flatly refusing to follow any of the court's guidance or orders," Bailey-Rihn said. "That leaves me to think that they're hiding something."
Gableman's office has not uncovered any suspicious activity about the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, but Vos—under pressure from Trump—has allowed the probe to continue long past its original end date.
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The headline in a food industry publication summed it up: The Restaurant Revitalization Fund is dead. But the bill that Senate Republicans killed on Thursday also affects theater, concert, and sports venues, gyms, and other small business sectors that survived the pandemic but are still crawling out from under two years of losses and now struggling with inflation.
Several Wisconsin restaurant owners traveled to Washington, DC this week to plead with Sen. Ron Johnson to save the package—which had already passed the Democratic-controlled House. Among the grassroots lobbyists was Dave Heide, a recent recipient of national recognition from the Small Business Administration.
“When he [Johnson] was coming to say how grateful he was for me winning the Small Business Person of the Year from Wisconsin, all he could talk about was how much he loved small business and appreciated it,” Heide said. “And this [was] his chance to actually show it with his vote.”
Johnson joined nearly every other Senate Republican in voting to protect a filibuster against the bill, effectively killing it.
Nearly 4,000 Wisconsin restaurants that applied for aid received no help from the original restaurant fund because it ran out of money.
Not replenishing the fund means “there will not be a lot of restaurants left to go back to when this is over,” said Evan Dannells, owner of Cadre Restaurant in Madison.
—Read more and see a video of the restaurateurs in DC on our website.
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An employee walks near empty shelves where baby formula would normally be located at a CVS in New Orleans on Monday, May 16, 2022. President Joe Biden's administration has announced new steps to ease the national shortage of baby formula, including allowing more imports from overseas. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
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Every Wisconsin Republican in the US House of Representatives voted against a bill Wednesday that aims to ensure the ongoing shortage of baby formula doesn't happen again. The bill passed on a bipartisan vote and moves to the Senate.
Instead of taking action to solve the crisis, Republicans are blaming the babies of immigrants rather than the corporation that was forced to close its factory after contamination was found that may have led to the deaths of two babies.
Sen. Ron Johnson tweeted an article from a right-wing news site highlighting his effort to blame the babies of migrants for the formula shortage. Johnson, who is up for re-election this fall, has asked the Department of Homeland Security and the Food and Drug Administration to investigate why migrant babies—who did not ask to come to the US, are in detention, and need formula to survive–are receiving formula.
Johnson isn't alone in scapegoating immigrant babies for corporate America's failures.
“Americans cannot even find baby formula at their local grocery stores, but the Biden administration is reportedly using your tax dollars to make sure people who are not American citizens have some. Americans last, illegals first!” Rep. Tiffany tweeted.
Neither made clear what it is they want to happen to immigrant babies.
The actual cause of the shortage is the closure of the Abbott Labs factory in Sturgis, Michigan. The bill that Tiffany voted against would let the US Food and Drug Administration hire more inspectors to improve oversight of formula production and prevent fraudulent products from hitting store shelves.
While Johnson and Tiffany fear-monger about immigrant babies, congressional Democrats want Abbott to explain maintenance at its plant prior to its February closure—when it has also spent $8 billion in stock buybacks since 2019.
—Read more on our website.
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The mailbag address for Founding Editor Pat Kreitlow is >>>
Pat@UpNorthNewsWI.com
No-Nonsense Wisconsin News.
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