IN FOCUS – Another legislative season for Wisconsin is on the horizon.

One major task ahead Wisconsin lawmakers is redistricting, which will set the stage for the next ten years of elections in Wisconsin. That’s not all however, there is also a new state budget and the mitigation of a global pandemic.

“The first thing we want to do is to stop arguing about what we do about the virus,” said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican from Rochester. “We know over the course of the summer, there have been some failures in Wisconsin that we have got to fix.” Speaker Vos said there are several aspects of managing the virus that were not handled as well as possible, ranging from the amount of contact tracing, a lack of help to small business, and a staffing shortage at just about every medical facility in the state to name a few. He says too much time has been spent on arguing and not enough on “moving the ball forward.”

Speaker Vos said there are some things he and other Republicans are never going to support, however, he says there are some areas where there could be some bipartisan compromises.

“The most important thing I hear from folks is they would like to find a balance between following the CDC guidelines, which I continually say to ensure we wear a mask and socially distance and stay home from social events when you can,” said Speaker Vos, “the things I know we can work together on are the issues that really remain unsolved.”

Speaker Vos said one of those areas could be unemployment. The speaker says there are a lot of people who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus. Unemployment claims across the country have severely spiked due to the virus, and that is being felt in Wisconsin as well.

“This is an area where we have been trying as hard as we can to say let’s get the Department of Workforce Development to process all of these unemployment claims,” said Speaker Vos, “there are tens of thousands of people who have been waiting months to even get an answer.”

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development issues unemployment data every Tuesday. Throughout November, the department is reporting a resolution to the now more than 8 million claims received as of March of this year at more than 90 percent. This means less than ten percent of unemployment claims are currently being processed, which is currently more than 500,000.

On the Wisconsin economy more broadly, Speaker Vos said the state is poised to do better than others simply because of the budgets passed before by the state.

“We are lucky in Wisconsin that not only do we have the largest rainy-day fund in our state’s history, but we also have a surplus because of the budget that Republicans passed without a single democratic vote in the legislature,” said Speaker Vos.

Democrats in the state legislature have a different plan for priorities ahead of the 2021 legislative session.