Dems Mess Up Again

Speaker Robin Vos is a master at getting the Democrats to take bad votes. He did it again this week — twice in the same day.

Vos pushed two bills to the floor on Tuesday, designed to make Democrats look bad. The first one reinstated standardized test score reporting and the second would require sheriffs to work with ICE on certain deportations. The former bill is good public policy while the latter isn’t, but isn’t worth fighting either. Let me go on.

Democratic-backed Superintendent Jill Underly rigged the test scores last year in an attempt to make her record look better as she faced reelection this spring. Even Gov. Tony Evers, who once held her job, criticized her for that move as did both of her opponents in the February primary. One of those opponents was Jeff Wright, a Democrat himself who had run for Assembly under that label twice. Unfortunately, Wright was the odd man out in the primary, but Underly’s remaining opponent, Brittany Kinser, has built much of her campaign around this issue.

And that’s why Vos brought the bill to a vote now. He wants to highlight Underly’s underhandedness. I have no problem with that. The Democrats would have (and should have) done the same kind of thing if they were in charge. It’s a legitimate issue and it’s fair game.

But then all the Dems voted against the bill, I suppose because they felt the need not to embarrass Underly. Two points about that. First, approving the bill might have defused the issue and actually helped her. And second, it’s fair to say that what Underly did to water down standards is heavily unpopular with voters. Reinstating the standards is good policy and good politics. The Democrats voted against both.

Then there was the sheriffs bill. This isn’t such good policy because I don’t think the Legislature should be mandating enforcement of any particular laws. That’s always going to be a case of local priorities. If the problem in your county is a rash of car thefts, where does the Legislature get off telling you to spend time on this? And, by the way, if you’re going to mandate enforcement of the laws, how about mandating enforcement of gun control laws, which many sheriffs have said they won’t enforce?

But Vos is a clever guy. So, the bill he brought to the floor only mandated that citizenship be questioned when a person was arrested for a serious violent offense. The 30-second ad writes itself. “Rep. Smith even voted against deporting illegal aliens with violent criminal records. Call Rep. Smith and tell her to protect Wisconsin families, not coddle violent illegals!”

Look folks, if this were a matter of important principle, I’d say go ahead and do the unpopular thing anyway. But this is a case of marginally bad, but overwhelmingly popular, public policy. Compromise your principles, swallow hard, vote for it, take the issue out of the hands of Vos and win the majority at the next election. Your principles will be a lot better off if you’re running the place.

So, let’s sum up. At the national level, Democrats can’t muster the votes to take on Trump where it counted, when he needed their votes to prevent a government shutdown. But at the state level, when the votes didn’t much matter at all, the Democrats took the unpopular position anyway.

My party is in the wilderness because we’ve wandered off into it all by ourselves. God help us.

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