Republicans have officially elected Burlington Representative Robin Vos as the new Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Vos co-chaired the legislature's powerful budget committee last session and he ran the Assembly Republican campaign effort this year. Under his leadership the GOP will return to Madison with a 60-to-39 majority in the Assembly. Vos says one of his top priorities next session will be some kind of tax cut, though he won't say for sure what it will look like. "As you know, we weren't able to repeal a single one of Governor Doyle's tax increases because our budget was so out of whack," he says. "Now's the time as our revenues return to give some of that back to taxpayers and also have an opportunity for all of us to look for real reform to make the tax code easier, flatter, fairer and more simple to fill out." Vos said he also wants every one of his standing committees to review the state's administrative rules, which are effectively the fine details of state laws, crafted by state agencies, not legislators. "And just ask a few simple questions," he says. "Does it protect the public? And if so, I'll assume it's necessary. But if it doesn't do that and it was put in there for a special interest or when times were different, maybe we should ask the question does it hamper economic development and does it stop us from creating jobs." Assembly Democrats today elected Peter Barca of Kenosha to return as the chamber's minority leader. Also today, Senate Democrats chose Chris Larson of Milwaukee as the Senate's Minority leader. Senate Republicans voted last week to make Scott Fitzgerald the Senate's Majority Leader.
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