Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, right, speaks during a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, at the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)

A recent Marquette University Law School poll revealed just a 16% favorability rating for Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester).

Vos has been at the center of many controversies during his 10-year career as speaker, including opposition to Medicaid expansion, flip-flopping on his support for Donald Trump and petitioning to lower state flags after conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh passed away. More recently, Vos chose to vehemently oppose Ssate Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz after she was elected in April. Vos threatened to impeach Protasiewicz if she did not recuse herself from a case that could overturn Wisconsin’s legislative maps, which are notoriously gerrymandered by the GOP majority.

Vos even formed an impeachment panel made up of three former state Supreme Court justices, all of whom were conservative. Despite two-thirds of the panel advising Vos against impeachment, he refused to say it’s off the table. Last Friday, a Dane County Circuit Court judge ordered former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack to turn over records related to her work on the impeachment panel. Roggensack has previously refused to provide any records to watchdog group American Oversight, despite public records requests.

Vos is also refusing to support pay raises for University of Wisconsin-Madison employees until the school decreases its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion funding.

“Hopefully, once we’re able to conclude some kind of a deal on changing how we deal with diversity, equity, inclusion will be able to have that come up,” Vos said at a press conference Monday. “We have the engineering building, and we have the pay raises. They’re all kind of part of one big package. So, my hope is that is just one of many that can happen once we have an agreement.”

Wisconsin Republicans are blocking the raises for thousands of staff members if the school doesn’t implement a $32 million cut that Vos proposed.

“Just since 2017, almost 1,700 new positions have been created at the university, very few of which are actually focusing on students or teaching,” Vos explained. “So, the goal would be to try to make sure they go back and have a focus on educating students, not indoctrinating and really focusing on having more kids get access to faculty as opposed to just people who are telling them what to think and how to act.”

The 55-year-old first joined the Wisconsin Assembly in 2005, and he first became speaker in 2013.