GOP allies Scott Walker, Robin Vos have heated Twitter, text exchange on Wisconsin budget

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GOP allies Scott Walker, Robin Vos have heated Twitter, text exchange on Wisconsin budget https://jsonl.in/2oaPHMV via @journalsentinel

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GOP allies Scott Walker, Robin Vos have heated Twitter, text exchange on Wisconsin budget
Jason Stein and Patrick Marley , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Published 2:36 p.m. CT April 7, 2017 | Updated 38 minutes ago


Can Republican Gov. Scott Walker agree with his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature about plans to fund transportation and public schools?
roads

(Photo: Associated Press)


MADISON - After years of going to work on their adversaries, Gov. Scott Walker and fellow Republican Robin Vos have gone to work on each other — both in public and in private.

The tension took on a bitter tone in text messages between the two last week that were released Friday under the state's open records law. The raw private exchange between the governor and Assembly speaker — in which both men blamed the other for infighting over the state budget — underscores how the top Republicans have been at odds in recent actions.

"As I recall, the debate started with the unprecedented discussion of starting with a new budget & the continued attacks on transportation. It would be odd if I didn't defend my positions," Walker wrote at one point in the text exchange.

"I think it actually started with the decision of your office to not really involve us before the process began unlike each of your other budgets ... So without giving us ownership of anything in your budget it's kind of hard for us (to) just rubber stamp it," Vos responded.

"Unlike the last budget where we met with nearly every member in advance & got trashed," Walker snapped back.

For years, Wisconsin Republicans have avoided the kind of party infighting that brought down the federal bill to repeal Obamacare and threatens to capsize efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation's tax code and infrastructure. Since 2011, Walker and GOP lawmakers have approved the concealed carry of handguns, put new rules on abortion and rolled over once powerful unions — the biggest shift in state politics in a century.

But the differences on issues such as road funding are beginning to tell here.