As Wisconsin’s longest-serving Assembly Speaker announces his retirement, Dan O’Donnell reflects on his towering achievements.
In the aftermath of Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ retirement announcement, there was a wave of jubilation unlike any in recent political history. For Democrats, it was a signal that they were more likely than not to win back control of the Assembly for the first time in nearly two decades. For borderline-insane Republicans who tried to recall Vos, it was a signal that “true conservatism” could now return to state politics.
Both responses were unintentionally indicative of one undeniable fact: Vos was the most important and impactful Wisconsin political figure of the past decade and the most effective leader that legislative Republicans ever had.
From the trenches of the battle over Act 10 to the all-out war against the insane liberalism of the Tony Evers years, Vos has been the architect of conservative triumphs that saved taxpayers billions and fortified the state’s economy against Democrat-induced disaster.
First elected to the Assembly in 2004, Vos quickly rose as a fiscal hawk and policy powerhouse whose true rise began when he was selected to co-chair the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee in 2011 and ensured that newly-elected Governor Scott Walker’s reforms became law.
This landmark legislation curbed public-sector unions’ stranglehold on state finances and has saved taxpayers an estimated $35 billion since its passage, but it was much more than that; it a seismic shift that fundamentally recalibrated the balance of power in state politics and sparked a nationwide movement towards fiscal conservatism.
Vos’s steady hand ensured Act 10’s passage amid chaotic but highly coordinated left-wing protests (that served as a model for similar actions across the country today) as well as an unprecedented but ultimately ill-fated move by Senate Democrats to flee the state to avoid a final vote.
This leadership proved Vos’ mettle as a fighter who refused to flinch even against seemingly insurmountable odds and gave Walker a rock-solid partner on whom a foundation of conservatism could be built in Wisconsin. Vos was elected Speaker of the Assembly in 2013, and Republicans delivered massive tax cuts to Wisconsinites as well as Voter ID and Right-to-Work legislation.
Yet it was after Walker’s term that solidified Vos’ legacy. In a series of bold moves aimed at reclaiming legislative authority, he passed legislation curbing the expansive powers of the executive branch and then refused to alter new Democrat Governor Tony Evers’ first state budget and instead ripped it up and created a new one from Walker’s final budget proposal.
Because of this, Wisconsin’s budget was balanced each year of Evers’ term—an almost-unthinkable feat considering Evers’ budgets would have created multibillion dollar deficits—and Vos was able to deliver one of the largest tax cuts in state history in 2021.
Even Evers recognized the brilliance of this and, against all odds, refused to veto the Republican budget and instead signed it into law with minimal changes. Then, naturally, he took credit for the tax cuts he vehemently opposed. How could he be so brazen, a reporter asked him, as to claim that Vos tax cuts as his own?
“Well, I could have vetoed that [budget] and I didn’t do that,” he said.
That, in a nutshell, was the story of Vos during Evers’ term. Every political win, every benefit to Wisconsin’s taxpayers, was his doing (even if Evers claimed credit). Every liberal failure was either stopped in its tracks when it reached the Legislature or was blunted to the best of Vos’ abilities.
Despite this, he faced two recall attempts from rogue crazies in his own movement upset over nonsensical theories about election fraud and Chinese influence but, in true Vos fashion, defeated both easily.
Vos won nearly every battle he fought; successfully suing the Evers Administration to end both his “Safer at Home” COVID lockdown and statewide mask mandate, beating back Evers’ attempts to dramatically expand Medicaid (costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars) and impose draconian green energy mandates (costing hundreds of millions more).
Vos, more than anything, was a winner, and that’s why his enemies are now celebrating his retirement; because they think they’ve finally beaten him. They haven’t: Not only is he leaving on his terms, his legacy of conservative reform will shape Wisconsin’s direction forever.
