Robin Vos

Robin Vos (R-Rochester) is one of the state’s most powerful elected officials. First elected to the Assembly in 2004 and Speaker since 2013, he has worked along with outgoing Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) to help carry out Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s agenda over Walker’s two four-year terms, subsequently clashing frequenlt with Gov. Tony Evers. Aided by a voting map that GOP leaders drew up in secret after the 2010 census, at a $4 million cost to taxpayers for outside legal advice, they have maintained a Republican majority in both houses, even though more votes were cast for Democratic candidates statewide than for Republicans in recent elections. In December 2018, after Evers narrowly defeated Walker’s third-term bid, Vos and Fitzgerald engineered a lame-duck session to cut back the powers of the incoming governor, as well as of incoming Attorney General Josh Kaul, before the two Democrats took office. Vos and Fitzgerald have since gone on to block many of Evers’ initiatives in the first two years of his term.