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Quotes of the week

“I’m all for transparency, I think we way over-classify information, and the result is all sorts of wrongdoing can occur.”
-U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson on CNN discussing the GOP probe into the Russia investigation that led to President Trump’s impeachment.

“I’ve been stonewalled frankly — in terms of getting detailed information about where it went, and who ordered it — and that’s very troubling to me.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin to WISN 12 on where a shipment of 335,800 tablets of hydroxychloroquine ordered to Milwaukee went last week.

 

This week’s news

— U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan says if Joe Biden picks U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin as his running mate, it would lock in Wisconsin as an “absolute win” for the presumptive Dem presidential nominee.

“You need to win the state of Wisconsin — she’s extremely popular here,” Pocan said of the Madison Dem in an interview with WisPolitics.com. “She won by 11 points when other people statewide won by one point, she’s brilliant, passionate, a very effective senator and would be an effective campaigner.”

Pocan also discussed a coronavirus relief package that passed in the House last week and the chamber’s decision to allow members to vote remotely.

— Biden slammed President Trump’s response to COVID-19, saying it has been marked by “denials, delays, distraction, and bald-faced lies.”

Biden yesterday did a virtual roundtable with La Crosse-area participants and a rally with participants largely from the Milwaukee area. In both, he said the president’s response to the pandemic has fallen short. During the roundtable, he paid particular attention to rural issues, saying the president’s trade policies prior to the pandemic put farmers in a weakened position to deal with the economic fallout of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Republicans knocked the former vice president for what they said was an “anemic campaign effort” in Wisconsin compared to Trump’s state operation.

See more here.

 

— The state’s House delegation split along party lines on the Dems’ $3 trillion COVID-19 bill that would in part provide federal aid to states and cities to make up for lost revenue due to the economic downturn.

Dubbed the HEROES Act by Dems, it cleared the chamber 208-199 with all four GOP members of the delegation opposed and all three Dems in support.

See the roll call here.

 

—  Tom Tiffany was sworn in as Wisconsin’s 7th CD representative Tuesday morning.

The Minocqua Republican resigned from the state Senate at midnight, taking the chamber’s partisan balance to an 18-13 GOP majority.

Jason Bauknecht, who most recently worked as federal affairs director for Americans for Prosperity, will serve as Tiffany’s chief of staff.

Bauknecht is a former aide in the Wisconsin Capitol, last working for then-Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald in 2011. He joined Madison lobbying firm ‎Hubbard Wilson & Zelenkova before going to Washington, D.C., to work for AFP.

After he was formally sworn in today, Tiffany said when he was elected to the state Legislature a decade ago, his commitment was to advance the cause of freedom and liberty.

See more here.

 

— Dem Tricia Zunker, who lost to Tiffany by 14 points on May 12, says she’s running for the northern Wisconsin seat again this fall.

Zunker, president of the Wausau School Board and a justice for the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court, opens the video reading a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that it’s not the critic who counts. The “credit belongs to the person in the arena” and if at worst they fail, “at least fail while daring greatly.”

“I’m standing up for what I believe in,” Zunker says. “I invite you to join me in the arena. This November, let’s dare greatly and win this seat.”

See the video here.

 

—  A committee led by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has voted along party lines to authorize a subpoena in an investigation relating to Joe Biden’s son Hunter. 

Dems on the committee have pushed back strongly against the move, which has been in the works since late February. They alleged earlier stages of the investigations “could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russian or other actors.” 

The subpoena from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee seeks to compel testimony from Blue Star Strategies, a Dem public affairs firm that did consulting work for a Ukrainian energy company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board. 

See more here.

 

— Johnson also appeared on CNN to discuss the recently declassified list of Obama-era officials who were behind the unmasking of Michael Flynn.

See the release here.

 

— Wisconsin House Dems introduced a bipartisan bill to expand the existing USDA Milk Donation program to help get milk into the hands of the food insecure, instead of dumping surplus milk. 

See the release here.

 

— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity will receive $1.5 million for manufacturers to prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

See the release here.

 

— U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher and Sen. Robert Cowles called for Gov. Tony Evers to distribute funding to Brown County to support and bolster the county’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, citing the large number of cases in the county.

See the release here.

 

— U.S. Reps. Gwen Moore and Marcia Fudge led a letter to House leadership to call for the inclusion of the WRCR Act, which would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit in the next major coronavirus response package.

See the release here.

Posts of the week

 

ICYMI

Baldwin Calls for Meat Industry Protections
Johnson says declassified Rice email shows Obama officials ‘sabotaging the incoming administration’
Local Congressman pushes for timely economic relief
Rep. Mike Gallagher Pushes for More Frigates in the U.S. Navy
Rep. Kind Joins Reps. Pocan and Moore in Introducing Bipartisan Legislation to Help Dairy Farmers While Reducing Hunger

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