If a panel of historians someday held a retrospective 2020s Q & A with Wisconsin GOP officials, I imagine the transcript might read something like this:
Q. 2020 saw high-profile killings of African-Americans by police officers, and Democratic Governor Tony Evers Wisconsin Governor proposed several reforms to address that reality. How did you handle those proposals?
Q. The Governor had also asked you to pass some very popular gun safety measures. How did you deal with his public safety proposals?
A. We adjourned immediately. But we did hold a prayer meeting and news conference first.
Q. You had complained loudly about the way Gov. Evers managed the state's unemployment compensation system that he inherited after decades of funding neglect. How did you handle his request for an infusion of funds to upgrade the system.
Q. Overall, how long was your 2020 adjournment?
A. About nine months. Maybe ten. Until the pandemic began to abate.
Q. Did you manage to take or facilitate any actions to address the pandemic?
A. We drove out the State Secretary of Health and Human Services.
A. Actually, she was only the acting Secretary, because we never gave her a confirmation hearing.
A. Remember, we could outright fire anyone we wanted because we set up the Legislature with a permanent Republican majority even though Democrats get more votes statewide. And just because the Governor appointed someone doesn't mean they got the job,
A. Unless a different Governor made the appointment; then the appointee got to stay as long as he wanted.
A. Or an elected official who break a promise about stepping back from another term was free to do that, too.
Q. Back to public health actions. Did the pandemic help sway you towards extend Medicaid coverage as Gov. Evers' proposed to the 90,000 low-income residents who continue to lack medical care coverage in Wisconsin? After all, the federal government was going to supply more than a billion dollars to cover the costs.
A. No. We adjourned immediately.
Q. Any special motivation for that action?
A. Well, we'd been turning down that kind of welfare for several years. We're the party of consistency. If people want health insurance, they should get off their couches and get a private sector job. Not like ours.
A. Had you made private sector work more attractive in Wisconsin by increasing the minimum wage from the long-standing level of $7.25 per hour?
A. No. We're not liberal, Progressive, Marxist socialists here, like that Joe Biden.
Q. Did you promote or take the highly-effective COVID19 vaccine?
A. No.
Q. Weren't you afraid of getting it, or worse, inadvertently passing it on to a neighbor?
A. Excuse me, but you must have me confused with someone who gives a s**t.
A. I actually put up a video on YouTube with important COVID facts of my own.
A. I publicly advised my kids to refuse the vaccine.
A. We also sued to get the Governor's anti-virus health orders rescinded.
A. Because he was a dictator, and we recognized only one King.
A. We also told everyone it was "incredibly safe to go outside."
Q. And did you go outside?
A. Well, sure, with all the right equipment and protections. Because we're the party of personal responsibility - and good connections to get the right gear.
Q. But I read that more than 675,000 Wisconsinites had caught the virus and over actually 8,000 died.
A. Well, those weren't necessarily "regular folks."
A. Or people who'd taken the time to learn our customs, ways and dedication to personal responsibility,
Q. Switching gears, another big issue at the time was climate change. I'm sure you've noticed the increases in greenhouse gas emissions, reduced snowfall, more heat emergencies and ozone warning days.
A. We added extra registration fees on electric and hybrid vehicles.
Q. Because?
A. Libs who complained were free to switch to a traditional gasoline-powered pickup. It's a free country.
A. And we added more fees to home solar energy hookups.
Q. Because?
A. Even state-approved monopoly utility companies deserve a bonus from time to time. Remember, corporations are people, too, my friends. Homeowners who didn't like fee they were free to stick with natural gas or fuel oil. It's a free country.
A. We also cut bus funding by 50% to Wisconsin's two largest cities.
Q. Because?
A. Hey, this is America, not France. And screw their roundabouts, too. We like our traffic accidents like we like our steaks: T-boned.
A. And for years we'd fought urban trolleys, killed an Amtrak extension, banned regional transit authorities and blocked a commuter rail line connecting Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha where a Chicago commuter train also has a station.
A. We also sued the Federal government to weaken clean air standards.
A. It better matched up with our weakened clean water policies. You can't have one without the other. Along with personal responsibility, we're the party of certainty and predictability, too.
A. Which is why we got the EPA to relax clean air standards over densely-populated southeastern Wisconsin so a major Taiwanese corporation we were subsidizing could build big-screen TV panels for shipment in a special highway lane built for driverless trucks headed for a new export zone at Milwaukee's airport.
A. Plus, we'd also weakened our wetland protections and gave the company special permission to pipe in Lake Michigan water because big-screen production finishing requires millions of gallons of fresh water every day.
Q. So, you gave them water, wetlands, legal exemptions, air pollution permissions and billions in subsidies in exchange for flat-panel screen production. How did that work out?
A. They never built a single one.
Q. Because?
A. C'mon: no one had a crystal ball!
Q. Anything else I've missed? That you're particularly proud of?
A. We voted to end a $300 per month Federal payment to people who'd lost their jobs during the pandemic because slackers needed to get off their couches and the dole and find a job.
Q. But when you were on that long 2020 hiatus you collected your full salaries, correct?
A. Of course.
Q. You even got mileage and meal reimbursements without submitting receipts if you drove to and from the Capitol, correct - so isn't your opposition to that $300 payment even more hypocritical?
A. Not at all. Were we expected to drop everything and drive to the Capitol when we're on vacation to vote and then adjourn on empty stomachs?