Vos hopes for bipartisan approach to COVID-19

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said that he hopes that legislative Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers can move forward on a bipartisan plan to fight COVID-19, even as the Legislature sues to block the safer-at-home order in court.

Vos, speaking at a Wisconsin Health News webinar Wednesday, said GOP lawmakers might end up creating their own plan to address the pandemic, but it wasn’t something that he wanted.

“We might end up having to do that, but that is not certainly step one,” he said. “I would much rather work collaboratively and much rather have us sit down, talk through it, try to find a plan that is the Wisconsin plan.”

Vos said other states have been successful in doing that and that it doesn’t have to “become adversarial.”

The Legislature is asking the Supreme Court to block the safer-at-home order and make the Evers’ administration submit a plan subject to legislators’ review through the emergency rulemaking process.

Vos said he asked the governor, during a virtual discussion this week, if there’s an ability to negotiate on the plan or if the governor was asking for input and would make his decisions on his own.

“I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but it certainly seemed to be more the latter than the former,” he said. “And that isn’t the way that we’re going to be able to get this done by having one person continue to make every decision and just pat everybody else on the head as they give input. It’s supposed to be equals sitting at a table with the best idea coming forward based on medicine and science, not kind of this black box theory where nobody really understands.”

Melissa Baldauff, Evers’ spokeswoman, said it was disappointing that the speaker was resorting to “playing politics” again.

“Just the other day he put out at a statement thanking the governor for a good meeting and everyone involved in the meeting agreed to keep the dialogue going,” she said in an email. “The Legislature has met just once since the governor declared a public health emergency and there is a lot of work for them to do.”

She said they’d like to hear the GOP’s “science-based ideas” but haven’t as of yet.

She added that Evers’ decisions have been based on science, citing information on the outbreak posted on the Department of Health Services’ website, including gating criteria and models.

“The speaker should share with the governor and the public his best ideas based on science and medicine using the same level of transparency on those decisions that the governor has provided,” she wrote.

Vos said during the webinar that he’s talked with hospitals and long-term care facilities. He added that he’s also talked with other healthcare professionals, ranging from those working in chiropractic care to those in ambulatory surgical centers.

He also said they’ve relied on information provided by the Wisconsin Hospital Association as they’ve pushed for a gradual, regional reopening of the economy, as opposed to Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide approach. He noted Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan are going with a regional model.

More than half of the cases identified in Wisconsin so far have been in Brown and Milwaukee County, and other counties have seen single-digit case counts. Some counties still have no confirmed cases.

“I think the idea of saying that everyone should be treated like Milwaukee or Brown where you see a much more intense outbreak makes no sense,” he said.

Evers has stressed the need for a statewide approach, and has at times pushed back on a regional reopening by citing that rural areas have fewer healthcare resources and could be overwhelmed by an outbreak.

Vos said that unless the state “builds a wall” with bordering states, they’re not going to be able to stop people from coming in.

Baldauff noted that Evers has said repeatedly in media briefings that he’s open to a regional approach in the future.

“But right now the science dictates that a statewide approach to boxing in the virus is the best way to ensure the health and safety of the public,” she said.

She said that Evers told Vos that Monday. And she added that Ohio is taking a statewide approach in reopening.

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