Divided Wisconsin legislature will focus on COVID-19 relief, redistricting in new session We try to work together but it is hard to work with someone who doesn’t want to talk to you, representative says
Herald Archives
The Wisconsin State Legislature will center its focus on COVID-19 aid and redistricting policies as it pushes through another session of divided government.
The legislature convened for its 2021 session Jan. 4 and is scheduled to adjourn Dec. 31. Results of the 2020 election left Republicans with a 21-11 majority in the Senate and a 61-36 majority in the House, according to the political database Ballotpedia.
A viewer asked News 3 Investigates to ask Wisconsin’s legislators whether they’d gotten the Covid-19 vaccine. We polled 130 members of the legislator (two seats are currently empty) over email and follow-up outreach to determine who planned to or had already gotten the vaccine; 60 lawmakers (40 Democrats, 20 Republicans) responded; 10 Democrats and 60 Republicans did not.
MADISON, Wis. Many Republican and a few Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin’s legislature aren’t disclosing whether they’ve had or plan to get the Covid-19 vaccine, in response to questions emailed to 130 Assembly and Senate lawmakers over the past week.
60 lawmakers from both parties responded to questions about whether they’d received or planned to get the Covid-19 vaccine in the future, with the vast majority falling in age brackets below eligibility but saying they planned to get it once it was available. Very few of responding lawmakers, just six of those eligible by age, had received or schedul
The Assembly has voted to send a bill to Gov. Tony Evers' desk that would clear a path for overhauling the state's antiquated unemployment system, after months of backlog and unemployment claims went unanswered in 2020 as unemployment spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic.
State Lawmakers Defy Governors in a Covid-Era Battle for Power
Legislators across the country, mostly Republicans, are moving to strip the powers of governors, many of them Democrats, who have taken on extraordinary authority to fight the pandemic.
Republicans in the G.O.P.-controlled Idaho State Senate have moved to limit emergency powers wielded by Gov. Brad Little, a member of their own party.Credit.Keith Ridler/Associated Press
Feb. 22, 2021
Partisan warfare over pandemic lockdowns and mask-wearing is on the wane in Washington: A bitter presidential election has been decided, coronavirus cases are plummeting nationally and vaccines are rolling out slowly but steadily.