Takeaways from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Gableman, abortion, Donald Trump, Milwaukee sales taxes

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Friday said if he could go back in time, he would not have hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to review the 2020 election and said Gableman became a "rogue agent."

"Sometimes, elected officials have to look the taxpayers in the eye and say I screwed up, and that is why I should have never hired Michael Gableman," Vos said during a Milwaukee Press Club appearance Friday at which he added he still felt a review of the 2020 election was needed.

Vos fired Gableman in August, more than a year after he hired him to probe the 2020 election and three days after Vos barely survived a primary challenge Gableman supported.

Salaries and legal fees related to lawsuits filed against Gableman and Vos over ignored requests for public records brought the taxpayer-paid cost to the Gableman review to nearly $2.5 million, according to a WisPolitics review.

Vos also addressed his views on former Republican President Donald Trump, abortion, an Assembly proposal to increase funding to local governments, transgender girls in women's sports and more during the appearance in which he took questions from a panel of three journalists.

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Here's what he said on the various issues:

Vos on elections and Donald Trump's next White House run

Vos followed up on comments on WISN's UpFront about Trump's run for the Republican presidential nomination, saying he did not think Trump could win Wisconsin.

"I don't want to nominate people who can't win, I do not want to nominate losers," he said.

Vos said in his mind Trump is the one Republican who Democratic President Joe Biden could beat in the 2024 election.

And, he said, he is not preparing for a scenario in which Trump becomes the 2024 Republican nominee and he and his supporters again push the state Legislature to take over the election results.

He said he would not support the Legislature taking such a role, saying, "It would be no different than having the secretary of state, elected on a partisan basis, run it. I don't think it would get the confidence of either side. The outcome of an election should not depend on the Legislature. That's what we pass laws for. We do not run elections, and we never should."

Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes. Two recounts paid for by Trump, nonpartisan state audits, judges and a study conducted by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty have confirmed the election result.

On elections more broadly, Vos said he anticipated two Constitutional amendments would be taken up this fall that would be on the April ballot. One would require that only U.S. citizens would be eligible to vote. The other would ban private dollars from being provided to local governments to run elections.

Vos endorses Brian Hagedorn's re-election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court

State Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn got an endorsement from Vos on Friday — a rarity in GOP circles since Hagedorn sided with the court’s liberal minority on cases involving Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ pandemic powers and in lawsuits filed by former President Donald Trump and his allies seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

“I’m glad Justice Hagedorn is on the court. I supported him when he ran against (Appeals Judge Lisa Neubauer). I think it would have been awful for the state had he lost and I hope he considers running for reelection,” Vos said.

“He’s done a good job in almost all the cases but once in awhile he disagrees and that’s not a bad thing.”

Hagedorn has been persona non grata among Republican circles since 2020, however, and was at the center of the spring’s state Supreme Court primary. Former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly in his quest to prevail in the Feb. 21 primary election accused Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow of being potentially another Hagedorn. Kelly and Dorow were both vying for conservative support in the officially nonpartisan race.

“We need to have people who do look and call balls and strikes,” Vos said.

Vos says Janet Protasiewicz shouldn’t sit on redistricting lawsuits

Vos also said Friday that newly elected state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz should recuse herself from lawsuits that come before the state’s highest court involving the legislative and congressional maps.

Vos said because Protasiewicz said during her campaign for the court that the maps were “rigged,” she has forfeited her ability to be neutral on such cases.

“She has in my mind taken herself out of the running,” Vos said Friday.

Protasiewicz in January said the state’s election maps were designed to take away votes from people in larger communities including Dane and Milwaukee counties.

"They do not reflect people in this state. I don't think you could sell any reasonable person that the maps are fair," Protasiewicz said at a candidate forum in Madison. "I can't tell you what I would do on a particular case, but I can tell you my values, and the maps are wrong."

Vos would support a so-called 'heartbeat bill'

Vos said if the state Legislature ultimately gets to decide a new abortion law in Wisconsin, he would support banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, often characterized by anti-abortion advocates as a “heartbeat bill.”

But Vos also said Democrats and Republicans should find a “middle ground” on the issue.

“I think abortion was one of those issues where if we're going to be smart, we need to say we need to find a middle ground, that we can actually explain to voters why it's right, and show that the legislature can work,” he said Friday.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade last year, abortions have been banned in Wisconsin unless a woman would die without one. The 2022 decision put back into effect a 19th Century law that makes it a felony crime for doctors to perform abortions.

Vos and a small group of Republican lawmakers have put forward a bill that would make exceptions to that law for rape and incest victims and would make clear that doctors may perform abortions to preserve the health of a woman experiencing pregnancy complications. But the state Senate has refused to take up the measure.

Vos and other Republican lawmakers passed a law in 2015 banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He said Friday that was in response to Roe v. Wade being on the books and now supports stricter limits on abortions.

"Heartbeat bills" have been proposed and implemented in some states by Republican lawmakers since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Health experts argue that the bans are so early that many women don't even know they're pregnant by six weeks.

The "fetal heartbeat" is detectable at approximately six-weeks after a pregnant person's last period. However, doctors say that term is misleading because at six weeks gestation, a fetus does not have anything resembling a heart. Rather, what is being detected is electrical activity from a grouping of cells in the fetus that is picked up by the ultrasound machine.

Additionally, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found, menstrual cycles are highly-variable on an individual level, with 1 in 5 women having an "irregular" cycle. For some, that activity can be detected 35 to 37 days after the beginning of their last period.

Vos 'couldn't imagine' raising new taxes without a referendum

Vos also weighed in on referendum requirements for a sales tax in Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, a provision in a local government funding bill that local leaders think could doom their ability to avoid drastic service cuts in imminent years.

"If you want to enact a brand-new tax that's never been done before, I can't imagine not doing it at a referendum," he told reporters after the event.

The proposal, which includes a host of policy provisions in addition to boosting funding to communities across the state, would require voters' approval for Milwaukee to implement a 2% sales tax and Milwaukee County to add a 0.375% sales tax to its current 0.5% tax.

And, he contended that the bill does not remove control of local elected officials to make decisions for their communities.

"We're actually not," he said. "We're empowering the city to solve their own financial problems when they convince the residents that it's the right thing to do."

Municipalities and counties across the state have argued they need increased revenue because the state's current funding structures are making it increasingly difficult for them to continue to provide services to residents.

Much about the proposal could still change as the Assembly bill moves through the legislative process on its way toward Evers' desk.

Among those changes could be a removal of what some have called arrest and citation quotas as one factor that could be tied to the amount of shared revenue a community receives, he said.

Bills to ban transgender girls in sports will likely return

Wisconsin lawmakers will likely again take up bills that ban transgender girls and women from school sports, Vos said Friday.

In 2021, Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women's sports at every grade level and in college.

The move was part of at least a dozen proposals across the country at the time and drew a heavy rebuke from the state's transgender community and its advocates, who say the effort pushes a harmful message to transgender children that they don't deserve to live like everyone else.

The bills’ authors said at the time that the legislation was needed to ensure female athletes weren't competing against someone with insurmountable physical advantages.

The measures ultimately did not pass the Legislature at the time.

Vos said Friday he thinks the proposals will come back.

“I hope we pass it,” he said.

Devi Shastri of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Assembly Speaker Vos weighs in on Gableman, abortion, Donald Trump