Here & Now

Vos on COVID, Election

Frederica Freyberg:

Following Evers’ address, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos picked up the phone and called the governor, this after six months of stalemate between Republicans and Evers over how to deal with COVID-19 in Wisconsin. Speaker Vos this week also charged the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections to investigate alleged election irregularities in Wisconsin. A joint committee of both houses takes up the inquiry next week by calling election clerks to testify under subpoena. Speaker Vos joins us now and thanks very much for doing so.

Robin Vos:

Hi Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

So first to COVID. What prompted you to call the governor directly following his statewide address where he told everyone to stay home?

Robin Vos:

Well, the first thing is I wanted to make sure that now that the election is behind us, we know that Democrats spent literally tens of millions of dollars over the course of the past six months trying to create a narrative that somehow Republicans didn’t take COVID seriously and didn’t want to actually work together to get it done. The opposite is actually true. We passed a very good bipartisan bill that encouraged Governor Evers and really empowered him to be able to deal with the virus in one of the first bills that passed in the country. I now think as the virus has gotten worse and of course we know that more cases are rising every day, we do want to offer and say let’s work together and find areas of common ground that doesn’t require a shutdown, doesn’t require us to close our economy, but certainly gives additional tools that might be necessary to help ensure that the virus spread slows and hopefully once a vaccine comes, we can get our economy fully operational.

Frederica Freyberg:

That package of bills which you mentioned happened when, back in April? And so the Republican-held legislature has come under criticism over these months as COVID-19 has surged for really not taking any action since then. What about that?

Robin Vos:

It’s really a political argument that’s been made by the liberals and their allies all across the state once again with out-of-state billionaire funded money just to try to win the legislature back. There isn’t a law that we can pass that will outlaw the pandemic, right? That just isn’t going to happen. We provided resources, made it easier to get unemployment. We certainly got rid of a lot of barriers and regulations that made it harder to deal with the virus. But look, I think there are areas where we should certainly do better. Governor Evers has unilateral control over the course of the summer, no legislative input whatsoever in how to spend the over $2 billion in federal funding. Some of those areas I think he spent it wisely. Other areas I think it leaves something to be desired. From my perspective, I want to make sure we have more money going to help the small businesses that really suffer because of the decisions that have been made. I think we could have done a much better job with contact tracing. We only have a little bit over 1,000 employees hired when they should certainly have had way more than that. We know even on issues as simple as rapid testing the federal government has provided over 1.7 million rapid tests and those have not been utilized anywhere near in the way that they should. So look, if there are areas we can work together, there’s been more than enough politics in 2020 god willing we don’t have to deal with that going forward. That’s why we wanted to be sincere in saying, look, I got reelected, I watched his address, I wanted to make sure we reached out and said let’s find areas we can work together on and let’s hope that we can actually get that done.

Frederica Freyberg:

Have you talked with him since you left that message for him on areas where you can work together?

Robin Vos:

Yeah. We’ve actually played phone tag. I know both of our chiefs of staff have been in regular communication to say let’s look at what ideas they have. We’re doing the exact same thing. My goal would be to have us get together as early as next week so we can have ideas fleshed out and hopefully get things moving as quickly as possible to see again where there are those parts of common ground.

Frederica Freyberg:

You’ve talked a little bit about relief for small businesses. Are there other things that you’ve seen come from the other side that you feel like you actually could come together on specifically?

Robin Vos:

We really haven’t seen any specific ideas from them as of today. I am certain that they have them. The only one they’ve really talked about is some kind of an additional lockdown. I don’t want to do that. But I certainly believe that we are totally in agreement on following the CDC guidelines. We’ve been saying that for months. The mainstream media just chose to focus on the Democrats’ narrative of saying we didn’t care when it’s not really true. We believe you should use a mask. We believe you definitely should socially distance when you’re able. Of course wash your hands and stay at home unless you’re required to go out. I think those are things we already have common ground on. We’ve been trying to explain that to our constituents but at the same time we see that as the cases rise, we need to see if there are additional things that the department or the public health agencies need. I’ve been in regular communication with my Department of Public Health and by and large the locals are doing a really good job. A lot of times it comes down to resources. That’s something that the state of Wisconsin cannot afford to do by itself, which is why we needed that CARES money that the President and the Congress allocated that is being utilized this year and we’ll hopefully be able to spend that as smartly and wisely as we can.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s talk about the election. Why for the first time in 50 years are you arming an Assembly committee with subpoena powers to investigate election irregularities?

Robin Vos:

Because we want to make sure that every single person who voted in the November 3rd election has confidence in its results. There is no doubt as we have gotten literally thousands of telephone calls, emails, Facebook messages that people doubt the election was run in the way it should be. Now as I’ve said before, I think it’s unlikely that we’re going to find enough irregularities to overturn the election. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t find areas that definitely need improvement or potentially things that would lead to a change in the outcome. Again, I think it’s unlikely, but I don’t know why we would not want to have the most thorough, most accurate count so every legal vote is counted and people have absolute confidence at the end of the day that whoever wins the presidency did it lawfully.

Frederica Freyberg:

It kind of sounds like you don’t trust the election officials in Wisconsin when they say that they are finding no irregularities.

Robin Vos:

Oh, no, I trust the clerks. I think that by and large they do a good job. But we do see there were instances all across the state where Republicans weren’t allowed to be in the counting room. We know that people said that they were indefinitely confined because it was a way around the voter ID law and I have a hard time believing that none of those people have left their house during the time that they said they were indefinitely confined all the way until the election on November 3. So I think there are a lot of irregularities that we are going to investigate. Again, whether or not they overturn the election, I think that’s unlikely, but I certainly believe it’s going to be a reason that we continue to look at our election laws to make sure that no one doubts the integrity or the sincerity of those who run the elections or the final outcome as it’s determined by those results.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you accept the results of the presidential election?

Robin Vos:

From my perspective in Wisconsin, it seems like the election was fairly well run. Again, I only know my perspective of what I saw in my own area where I think our clerks did a pretty good job. But I have had reports of other people who have first-hand knowledge where they saw things that looked fishy to them I think we should investigate. I wasn’t in the thousands of polling places all across the state. I did not witness all of those incidents that people are now reporting to us. But I certainly think we owe it to every person who votes in Wisconsin to do a thorough investigation and ensure that the results are accurate, fair and able to be justified to every single voter.

Frederica Freyberg:

We leave it there. Speaker Robin Vos, thanks very much for your time.

Robin Vos:

Thanks very much.