Vos is Flailing

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos seldom looks desperate. He looks that way this morning.

Vos’ moves over the past couple of days remind me of a drowning man with two life preservers just out of reach. He lunges for one, comes up short, then lunges for another and then sinks for the second time. 

Okay, enough with the analogies already. Let’s get down to brass tacks. 

A couple of days ago Vos tossed a Hail Mary into the end zone (analogy again, sorry) when he suddenly decided that a nonpartisan redistricting process, akin to the one in Iowa, was just the way to go. This after a couple of decades of saying it wasn’t necessary because redistricting was the legislature’s responsibility and anyway, the Republicans enjoyed their huge majorities not because of any shenanigans, but because they just had superior candidates. 

Democrats, cynical bloggers and anybody not born yesterday saw this as a transparent attempt to head off the new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court from imposing its own new maps. They pointed out key differences between Iowa and Vos’ proposal. 

The most important one is that Vos’ bill would allow the legislature to draw its own maps after two attempts from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau failed to get enough votes. Iowa has that provision too, but the big difference is that Vos’ bill would allow the legislature to draw its own maps on a simple majority vote, instead of requiring a two-thirds supermajority. That’s the whole ballgame because, with their huge majorities, Republicans could just reject two attempts from the LRB and then adopt another set of gerrymandered maps (likely the very same maps they have now) on a simple majority vote. If two-thirds were required the Democrats would have to be involved. 

And it doesn’t stop there. Vos scheduled a vote on this proposal straight away, without any referral to a committee or public hearings. There’s no reason for that kind of speed and it just adds to the notion that this is all just window dressing, designed to make it look like Republicans are trying to be reasonable and it’s the Democrats who want partisan maps drawn by the Supreme Court liberals. 

Then the following day Vos lunged at the second life preserver. He said he would appoint a commission made up of three retired justices to examine whether new liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz committed an impeachable offense when she said during her campaign that the current maps were “rigged.”

He didn’t announce which three justices he would appoint, but David Prosser confirmed that he’s one and Patience Roggansack didn’t return calls from reporters, suggesting she’s another. Michael Gableman, Janine Geske and Dan Kelly all said they had not been appointed. We should only lament that Geske didn’t make the cut.

Prosser’s only comment was that this would take more than a few weeks to sort out. It could be that what Vos wants is simple delay. He’ll make the argument that Protasiewicz shouldn’t vote on redistricting until the commission offers its opinion. Run out the clock long enough and it becomes too late to change the maps for 2024. 

This commission idea combined with the Iowa-lite gambit suggests that Vos got out in front of his caucus on impeaching Protasiewicz. Several members from less than deep red districts have expressed skepticism about it. While Vos has latitude to allow a dozen or so of his members to vote against impeachment, what might be happening is that many members don’t want to have to take that vote at all. Some of his members might not want to vote for impeachment but also don’t want to incur the wrath of the hard-right and risk being primaried. 

The bottom line is that Vos, for once, looks like he doesn’t know which way to turn and the Democrats would appear to have the upper hand.