“It’s called doing your job!”
-Senator Nass
(MADISON)—Today, Senator Tim Carpenter issued the following statement on the dereliction of the state legislature during the pandemic, and over the course of the 2019-2020 session:
“Many Wisconsinites have grown exceedingly frustrated and angry that the Republican-controlled state legislature hasn’t met in session for 189 days. Over the course of the 2019-2020 Session, the Do-Nothing GOP Legislature has shown they are dysfunctional as a governing body.
“Seven months into the Coronavirus Pandemic, the worst threat to public health since the 1918 Spanish Flu, Republicans have put partisan politics over protecting people.
“The Republican legislators have failed to do their job. They have spent all of their time pursuing taxpayer funded lawsuits in court to stop the governor from doing his job of protecting the people of our state. They have passed only one COVID-19 bill, which was railroaded through the Senate during the Virtual Senate Session on April 15th, during which they cut Democrats out of the process for developing the legislative response to COVID-19.
“It is unbelievable, that during this health crisis the Republican Senate has been in session only 3 days in 2020.
“Overall the Republican controlled State Senate has met just 14% of its 89 regularly scheduled session days for the entire 2019-2020 session. They didn’t even bother to show up for all but one of the special sessions called by the Governor to address the needs of the people, instead they directed nonpartisan civil servants to gavel in and out for them, and found judges to take action for them, because they were too cowardly to do it themselves.”
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