There is more evidence that Wisconsin GOP legislators are misusing their time and the money we send them work for us.
This abuse begins with gerrymander they have embedded that has also provided them a surplus of taxpayer-paid staffers to distribute party brainstorms -
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos added two new staffers last month, filling the last of the 14 positions he put under his authority for the session....The speaker’s staff is more than twice the size of Minority Leader Gordon Hintz’s.
- and that brainstorm factory continues to meddle in serious matters that could make a range of issues - many enumerated, here - even worse.
And unlike the phantom Foxconn factory at which Republicans have thrown billions without it having produced a single flat-screen television or airport coffee kiosk - the Republican brainstorm factory has a long work history.
Remember its release of words about everything from the appeal of marinated wolf meat (with a side of grilled sandhill crane) to why a notably voluble white State Senator called for the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa to be shunned and attacked.
But let me direct you to the latest words from suburban GOP State Legislator Joe Sanfelippo which he aimed at the City of Milwaukee:
Rep. Sanfelippo Calls For National Guard To Patrol City
Now. to be clear; no one minimizes the impacts that reckless driving and other violent behavior is inflicting on Milwaukee, and communities nationally, that thoughtful people say is related to the economic stresses spun out by the pandemic, but there's no evidence that sending in National Guard soldiers would do anything except waste public dollars and exacerbate problems.
City residents have seen this noisy, Republican do-nothing pander and play to conservative suburban base voters before.
I recall when Village of Menomonee Falls Republican right-wing State GOP Rep. Janel Brandjten even said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett bore personal responsibility when suspects crossed municipal borders.
Her regionally-uncooperative and brainstormy solution?
A proposed cut in Milwaukee's state funding, even though Milwaukee provides her residents with all city services and benefits for free when they play, work or visit in Milwaukee, and supply her village its drinking water, and sends her Village's budget through shared revenue a nice chunk of change every year that lowers her residents' property taxes.
But back to bright-ideas-Sanfelippo and a bit of his history:
* He was the state legislator who sabotaged and delayed the passage of a bi-partisan bill to expeditiously process unexamined rape evidence kits while victims waited for justice and perpetrators remained unpunished.
* And you may also recall that Sanfelippo and other Republican legislators offered nothing but punting through instant adjournments - not once but twice - when they had the chance to legislate on justice and policing matters, but chose to spend most of 2020 on paid vacation while the COVID pandemic raged statewide.
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| GOP State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, (R-West Allis) |
In fact, Sanfelippo - despite 'serving' as chair of the Assembly Health Committee - had nothing to offer while COVID was killing hundreds of state citizens monthly and hospitalizing many more - when he said in October he couldn't think of anything more the state could do about the pandemic.
State Rep. Joe Sanfelippo argued Tuesday there is nothing more Wisconsin lawmakers can do to address the coronavirus after passing legislation to help hospitals and the unemployed six months ago.
“Beyond that, I think we have to remember that this is a virus. There is nothing that government can do,” Sanfelippo said in an interview with the WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network. “You know, we can’t wave a magic wand and make it go away.”
What, me worry?
Or stop suing to overturn public health orders?
Or actively promote mask-wearing and, later, fact-based/fear-free vaccination campaigns?
But Sanfelippo isn't the only GOP state legislator vying for worst Idea of the Month, as the aforementioned Menomonee Falls GOP State Rep. - and Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee chair - Janel Brandjten - just threw out this doozy:
Brandtjen, Murphy say they’d like to see Arizona-style audit of Wisconsin’s November election
The 'Arizona-style audit' which Brandjten is endorsing now includes the hiring of inexperienced cyber sleuthing ninjas who failed to find traces of bamboo in state paper ballots allegedly smuggled in from China to tip the Arizona outcome to Biden.
And the latest twist in this ridiculous exercise: the removal of Arizona ballot date to a remote cabin - in Montana - for further 'scientific' examination, according to NBC News:
MISSOULA, Mont. — New developments in the latest audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County 2020 general election results reveal a connection to a cabin in the remote Swan Valley of northwest Montana.
We'll keep an eye out if Brandjten's office in the GOP ideas factory pumps out a release about moving Wisconsin Elections Commission ballot data for an Arizona-style fly-specking in an equally secure and distance cabin - perhaps in rural West Virginia, on stilts in a Louisiana bayou or in a van down by the river.