Thompson: GOP wrong on COVID
UW System won’t follow directive requiring legislative OK on rules
University of Wisconsin System interim President Tommy Thompson said Tuesday the System will not follow a directive by Republican lawmakers to seek legislative approval for COVID-19 rules, essentially daring members of his own party to take the now month-long fight to the courts.
In a statement and an interview with reporters Tuesday, Thompson said the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules’ attempt to control and block campus COVID-19 prevention protocols was “both wrong on the law and wrong as a matter of public policy.”
The motion, proposed by state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, and passed on a party-line vote Aug. 3, requires UW to seek permission from the rules committee for policies such as those that require students and visitors to wear masks or get regularly tested for COVID-19.
The committee, which is made up of six Republicans and four Democrats, could then vote to block some or all of the rules.
“Had this happened last academic year, the university might never have been able to set up community testing and vaccination sites, or even isolate sick students,” Thompson said. “It would have been a disaster.”
After the motion passed, rules
committee co-chairs Nass and Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, told UW System leadership they had 30 days to comply with the directive or “cease implementation and enforcement of these policies, whether current or future.”
On Tuesday, Thompson said the System won’t seek approval from the committee and vowed to take any fight up to the state Supreme Court if necessary.
“I’m fairly confident we’re going to win. I have no doubts (of) that if the Legislature sues us,” Thompson said. “I don’t think they will, but if they do, so be it. I’m not abdicating my responsibility. We will contest it. I don’t want a fight with the Legislature, but we will contest it aggressively, whether it be the circuit court, the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.”
He added: “We think we’ve got a great case.”
Thompson said UW’s situation is grounded in different legal arguments than the Wisconsin Supreme Court case that struck down the statewide mask mandate. UW System’s independent authority to run the schools is enshrined in Chapter 36 of the state statute, he said.
Nass fired back Tuesday, railing against UW’s “Ivory Tower administrators” who he claims are using pandemic rules “to control every adult that dares to walk on their campuses.”
If UW did not comply with the rule by Sept. 2, he said, he would ask Republican state Assembly and Senate leadership to take legal action “to force the UW System to comply with state law.”
“It is sad that Interim President Tommy Thompson has once again shown his belief in big government control over the rights of individuals to make their own health related decisions,” Nass wrote in a statement.
Neylon, Nass’ rules committee cochair, took a more measured approach, saying he’d talk to his colleagues before deciding how to move forward.
“I respect UW System President Tommy Thompson a great deal,” Neylon said. “In many ways he’s been my political role model and I consider him a friend. But we disagree on this issue. I understand he has a responsibility and I hope he understands we do too.
State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, did not respond to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel inquiry into whether they support suing the UW System.
Meanwhile, UW schools are implementing COVID-19 policies as they always have, with several campuses reinstating masking requirements indoors regardless of vaccination status. UWMilwaukee and UW-Madison are also requiring weekly testing for unvaccinated students as the virus continues to spread at high levels statewide in the days before school starts.
Thompson said he wants to reassure parents and students who are worried about the uncertainty and political drama.
“Come and enjoy your classes,” he said. “Forget about the squabbles . ... Your students, your children are going to be safe. We’re going to make sure they are. And we’re going to use science in order to do that.”
Thompson — Wisconsin’s longestserving governor and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services — is one of few prominent Wisconsin Republicans who have urged the public to take COVID-19 seriously and promoted ways to prevent the spread of the virus, like wearing masks and getting vaccinated.
He brought political clout to the state universities’ pandemic response, working on the state and federal level to secure millions of dollars in COVID-19 tests while monitoring coronavirus spread on campuses from a “war room” atop Van Hise Hall in Madison. Despite outbreaks early on, UW schools as a whole pulled through the school year with low case rates compared with the rest of the state.
“I’m still a strong Republican, there’s no question about that,” he said. “But I put my Republican bonafides to the side while I run the university to the best of my ability.”
The fight to come may be his most prominent in the role yet, as Thompson takes on Republican members of the state Legislature — his former colleagues — who did not meet for months during the COVID-19 pandemic and supported eliminating Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide mask mandate. State Republicans have largely stayed silent on whether the public should be vaccinated against the virus, instead backing legislation that would bar vaccine requirements in workplaces and elsewhere.
Evers’ spokeswoman Britt Cudaback tweeted Tuesday that Thompson’s opposition showed there is bipartisan support for the idea that “the Legislature should stop playing politics and obstructing efforts to keep Wisconsinites healthy and safe.”
Nass is a longtime, relentless critic of the UW System. His rule only applies to UW schools, despite the fact several Wisconsin technical colleges have also reinstated mask mandates this month.
The senator is also one of the strongest opponents of COVID-19 mitigation efforts and blocked Evers from implementing new policies through the rules committee in a similar way to the UW rule.
In his statement, Nass claimed his fight is really about “the desire of multiple chancellors to dictate every student, employee and campus visitor be vaccinated for Covid-19 or be banished from their campuses.”
Despite more colleges requiring the vaccination against COVID-19 following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of the Pfizer vaccine, Thompson on Tuesday stood by his many previous statements that the System would not require the shots but highly encourage them.
With just days before the school year begins, Thompson said he had not seen vaccination rates for the System or individual campuses, but added he is “not locked into any position” on vaccine mandates should the pandemic’s circumstances change. He said he’d continue to put public health and science first.
“I’m going to stand my ground and we’re going to do what is necessary to keep the university open and safe and healthy,” he said.