Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’d be open to looking at taking away some authority from the executive branch.
“Maybe we made some mistakes giving too much power to Governor Walker,” Vos told reporters in the state Capitol Wednesday. “I’d be open to looking at that to see if there are areas we should change.”
Vos emphasized he’ll first need to meet with Fitzgerald to determine whether to “rebalance” power in the statehouse.
A aide for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said the lawmaker was open to the suggestion, and it would be discussed in caucus today.
As a matter of good governmental structure, I would like to see more power centered in the legislative branch and less in the executive branch. Wisconsin’s governor is very powerful compared to most other governors and pulling some of that power back into the legislature would be a good thing.
There is, however, a time and a place. This would have been an interesting initiative this Spring when we could discuss it as a matter of good government. Doing it now just looks like a power grab because Evers won.
My hope is that this is just a signal from Vos and Fitzgerald that they intend to govern with a spine and represent the views of the voters who elected them.
“Doing it now just looks like a power grab because Evers won.“
I never heard a peep from Vos when Walker had all the power. No matter what, postponing till a later date would still be a power grab.
The entirety of the state votes for Governor. Majorly gerrymandered districts vote for representatives. The Governor represents everyone, and the legislators represent only those they chose to vote for them.
This is what is known as “firing across the bow”.
A little reminder is a good thing. I just wish Vos would have twisted the screw another notch with some comment about holding Evers to his no tax increases stance.
I’m taking bets on how long “I’m planning to raise no taxes” will last.
Republicans have strong majorities in both houses.
There should be no reason legislative Republicans cannot keep Evers liberal damaging plans for the state from being implemented.
“liberal damaging plans”
Yup, things like transportation funding, protecting our environment, and wise use of our natural resources are liberal damaging plans.
Why do you have such intense dislike for your fellow man?
Golly, has anyone within the WisGOP dare to suggest such a notion to Vos and Fitz?
Nord,
Walker was funding transportation. Doyle raided transportatin fund for other things. Democrats have a history of deceit and dishonesty on the topic.
“Protecting the environment”. Depends on what you mean. republicans did a fine job. If it means Doyle forcing an $8 million sewer plant down someone’s throat, doubling the water bills of the poor, with no difference in water quality….Democrats have a history of dishonesty and hurting the poor on this topic. So I am skeptical of more insane liberal motives.
Everyone is for “protecting natural resources”. Free market does an excellent job in utilizing those resources for the best cost.
Have you tried the tap water in Kewaunee County, Kevin?
This is just such unexpected behavior from Vos and Fitz, isn’t it? They’ve never behaved like this before, have they?
k:
If so, why did he just defund 94 between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges? Or take $90 million of local transportation dollars and stick it Foxconn ? Or refuse to keep transportation funding current with inflation? It isn’t hard to verify that stuff, so why try to sneak your nonsense past us again? (PS: Doyle hasn’t been in office for almost 8 years. You really need to keep up with the times.)
Again, you make lots of false claims, but refuse to provide proof. (PS: Rates are set by the municipality, approved by PSC. But you know that, just don’t want to admit it.)
G-Tac, Foxconn, NR 103, rescinding local zoning control, hi-cap wells, CAFOs, failure to follow WEPA, ignoring CWD, ….. the list goes on and on……. You are way out your league with your claims…
Oh nord,
When DNR hammers you with an $8 million mandate, how the hell are you suppose to pay for it?
I voted “no” at municipal level, and if the PSC would have stopped it, that would have been interesting….
You are so foolish with your statements.
Just because a power grab looks like a power grab isn’t sufficient reason not to execute a power grab.
No matter how the Democrats and their media mouthpieces spin Evers’ win, Wisconsin voters did not chose to increase representation by Democrats in either the Assembly or the Senate. Based solely upon Evers’ campaign rhetoric it would lead any reasonable person to assume that his relationship with the Legislature will be nothing but antagonistic. Republicans would be negligent not to tie up every loose end possible prior to Walker leaving office.
Redefining the powers of Wisconsin’s executive branch by codification is well within the rights and responsibilities of the Legislature if they choose to do so. It is not yet necessary for outstate Wisconsinites to submit to the whims and wants of Milwaukee and Madison while they still hold the political upper hand.
k:
Nope, I’m not foolish, just grounded in reality. But now is your chance, prove your claim, you have the records available to you……. But you won’t because the facts don’t fit your victimhood. Carry on.
Nord,
I am not going to upload hundred of pages of documents here.
Send me your email.
Nope, put them on here or forever hold your piece.
Sorry, that should be, “peace”.
Nord,
As fun as it sounds to not only scan in, but then copy and paste it here, I am going to pass.
I don’t reward unreasonable temper tantrums in my children either.
And I will not make fun of your innocent typo, since I tend to do it as well.
k:
The big difference between you and me, (there are a lot more than one), is that when I make a mistake I will correct it, and apologize (see above). You double down on the error.
So you are too lazy to find the page that supports your claim, yet blame me for a temper tantrum. Excuses, excuses……..
Nord,
Not doubling down on anything.
Your ignorance of wastewater permit mandates is shocking.
You don’t give a child (or adult) gasoline and matches when they have such a poor understanding of the danger.
Sorry k, but there are no “mandates” in a WPDES permit. But then you probably have no clue as to what a WPDES permit is. Why not just submit the facility plan recommendation, or the EA/CEA findings? Oh, that’s right, you don’t know what they are either. You are the last person on earth to talk about the ignorance of others…
No mandates in the WPDES permit?
That is the biggest piece of crap lie in the history of this blog.
So all the crap in the permit a municipality is required to do, ….and if we don’t it….it revokes the discharge permit…. the threats of having fines, penalties and other DNR legal threats for not doing what is in permit is all made up?
Wait until I tell the current and past Kewaskum Village board. They will laugh at you as the most ridiculous person in WI.
If you can find the word “mandate” in a WPDES permit please supply the citation, line, etc. But you won’t because it isn’t there. That is all a product of your imagination.
And resorting to bad language is a sure sign of your uncertainty on the subject. It that christian behavior?
You want some whopper lies from this blog? Here goes; The earth is 6000 years old; climate change/global warming doesn’t exist; evolution is a hoax; any accusation paul ever made.
Doing a word search of the most recently posted WPDES permit draws up 195 instances of “shall.” A mandate is a statute or regulation that compels a certain action. Some ambiguity with the use of “shall”, as in some court challenges the government has not always made clear if the requirement is mandatory or optional, as “shall” can be interpreted as either “may” or “must”. Depends if the lack of action results in some kind of penalty, adverse action, or denial. A significant number of the “shalls” do cite state statutes and/or administrative codes which for all practical purposes are mandates.
https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wastewater/documents/merrill_perm.pdf
Like I said there are 195 instances of permittee being advised of what the “shall” do, which is the kind of mandates Kevin Scheunemann refers to.
Because of the ambiguity of the use of “shall” meaning either “must” do(mandatory versus “may” do (voluntary), the Federal government is requiring their agencies to revise their documents to replace the word “shall” with “must” when it is a mandate.
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/plain_language/articles/mandatory/
The Federal Plain Writing Act and the Federal Plain Language Guidelines only appeared in 2010. And the fact is, even though “must” has come to be the only clear, valid way to express “mandatory,” most parts of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) that govern federal departments still use the word “shall” for that purpose.
@Mark. Given the explicit use and confluence of the words “requirements”, “shall”, and “may” in the Merrill app you link to, I would guess that no court in the land would conclude anything other than shall = must.
Mark: 195 Nort: 0
It’s difficult to have a conversation with Nord because anyone arguing a sewer discharge permit has no unfunded mandates in it is like someone arguing a forrest has no trees.
I’ve never conversed with anyone so clueless before.
mark and m:
I applaud you for your research. You certainly spent more time and effort on the issue than k ever has. Now take your findings and apply them in the context of a permit to use a public resource, issued by the state under delegated authority from the feds. k had (or still has) options, especially if the alleged “mandate” was in regard to a lift station. Since k refuses to provide any information other than his opinion, forming any opinion on his mandate claim is very premature. If protecting the waters of the state problematic for you folks I can’t offer you much to change your mind. I’ve tried with k and some things just can’t be remedied.
k:
Any time you want to discus forest trees, let me know.
Nord,
Now you admit mandates in permit?
Don’t you want to apologize now that you have gone 180 on this?
Walker pulled funding on 94 from downtown to Zoo because 1 million regional residents DID NOT WANT ANY MORE ROAD CONSTRUCTION.
But hey! Maybe I can persuade him to pave over your house. Send an address. Expect an eminent domain letter on Tuesday.
k:
No. You are making stuff up again. Why do you have such a need to tell untruths?
One more thing about I-94 in Milwaukee: Tommy (Milk-Carton) Barrett and the (D) machine in the City have fought like Hell to keep the I-road at 3 lanes. The last thing they want is better roads in/out of the city for fear that more of the middle class will leave, fast, and only show up in the city when they’re there to work. The (D)s cannot afford to lose property-tax revenues from the middle class.
I understand that you Left-O-Wackbirds want it both ways, of course; use every means available to keep it to 3 lanes while screaming that Walker should have funded 4. We know that without your double standards, you would have no standards at all. And you prove that daily!
Looks like it was Vos, not 1million residents, that wanted it cut.
From MJS:
“Walker’s two-year budget proposal would drop plans to work on the 3.5-mile east-west portion of I-94 in Milwaukee between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges. That would free $31 million over the next two years for long-delayed work on the section of I-94 south of Milwaukee — a top priority for Vos — and avoid for now at least the total costs that could run $852 million or more.
That raised concerns for Steve Baas, a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. He questioned whether it made sense to make massive investments on upgrading the Marquette and Zoo interchanges and then leave a “choke point” of aging highway between them.”
Nice to see folks arguing about how to spend money that doesn’t need to be spent at all.
The ride on I-94 between the Marquette and the Zoo isn’t all that bad. It slows during rush hours, but it still gets the job done with three lanes. Neither of those interchanges supports an express lane configuration and the distance between is less than six miles, so how much do you spend to cut three minutes of drive time from somebody’s morning commute? Twenty hours of every weekday a fourth lane would collect dust (or snow).
Milwaukee’s east-west “choke point” occurs because they still lack viable northwest and southwest diagonals in and out of town to the suburbs. The state should encourage Milwaukee to upgrade and promote the use of their existing diagonals before spending even another dime on an already adequate I-94.
Nord,
Did you see the JS above the fold article this AM?
DNR hit squad is gearing up to punish the poor on water and sewer rates.
You should listen to me more often. I warned against this nearly a week ago.
Nort reads upside down: Looks like it was Vos,…
Uh, no, it really was the Milwaukee Socialists Club:
The project plan had faced a federal lawsuit filed by the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP, Sierra Club John Muir Chapter and Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope, or MICAH. Those groups dropped their lawsuit as a moot pointafter federal officials dropped their earlier approval of the I-94 reconstruction plan. The lawsuit, dismissed in October, argued the highway expansion would worsen the region’s racial and economic segregation.
And Choo Choo Barrett wasn’t hip to it either..
Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, was less critical, saying that if it means more funding for local road aid, then nixing the east-west project was “not necessarily a bad thing.”
Wizard says: It slows during rush hours,…
…or crashes, or 80 times a year (see: Brewers), or when any other construction occurs (like 894 now), or duffuses who don’t know how to merge (see: Minnesotans)
I agree with you that it isn’t that bad in lane count but as one who travels regularly in that area and has spent hours moving along at 3mph even at off peak times, the area is in bad need of ramp reorganization. There are on-ramps left and right and off-ramps left and right, with people trying to get on, scoot three lanes over in a 1/2 mile, and get off at the next ramp. The Miller Park on/offs are insane.
And if you are going to re-ramp, you might as well add the 4th thru lane because retrofitting is always twice as expensive as fix-it-now.
I can’t tell you what a joy it is to reach WB I-94 around 70th street, leave that hell ride behind, and see that sucker open up wide and clear to the horizon.
>Looks like it was Vos, not 1million residents, that wanted it cut.
Looks like it was Milwaukee Socialists Club, not Vos, not 1million residents, and not Scott Walker that wanted it cut.
There, fixed that for you LeRoy. At the end of the day, you’re still wrong, and twice in the same discussion!
>”If so, why did he just defund 94 between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges”
>”Sorry k, but there are no “mandates” in a WPDES permit”
No. You are making stuff up again. Why do you have such a need to tell untruths?
LeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy can’t even read his own pull-quotes, so don’t expect him to read AND understand your stuff, MJM.
Compared to the horrific mess of Four-Lane 294 at the O’Hare/I-90 junctions, the Three-Lane I-94 is a walk in the park.
However, I’d be happy to expand 94 in a couple of years just to watch the Marxists’ heads explode. Pink mist, and all that…..
k:
No, perhaps you could share with us all. Especially the hit squad part, and where DNR is going after poor folks.
You have warned, (or was it threatened?) me on a lot of things. None of which ever came to fruition.
When the government lets a CAFO pour more manure on soil that lets it drain right to the water table, making the wells undrinkable for hundreds of homes, who benefits?