GOP critic of election review plans to retire
MADISON – The only Republican lawmaker to defend the state’s election system in recent months announced Friday she is retiring — a move that comes just weeks after calling her GOP colleagues’ taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election a “charade.”
But Sen. Kathy Bernier, of Chippewa Falls, a former county election clerk, said the backlash she received to her criticism played no role in her decision to retire after 12 years in the state Legislature.
“The choice to retire was a difficult one to make, but I have been contemplating this decision for some time now and I decided ‘now is the time,’ ” she said in a statement. “As I go ... I want to make it perfectly clear that no one has forced me out and politics has not played a role in my decision.”
Bernier, 65, has been one of the most vocal critics of Assembly Republicans’ review of the last presidential election and legislation aimed at overturning former President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat in Wisconsin.
“This is a charade,” she said of the review during a panel discussion on election issues in mid-December. “There’s a simple explanation for almost every single thing that people accuse election officials of doing.”
Bernier was joined on the December panel by Ben Ginsberg, who spent nearly four decades representing Republicans in election disputes, and Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel during Barack Obama’s presidency.
“These made-up things that people do to jazz up the base is just despicable, and I don’t think any elected legislator should ever play that game,” she said.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Gableman last summer to conduct a review of the 2020 election. The probe was launched after former President Donald Trump issued a statement falsely claiming Vos and other Republican legislative leaders were trying to cover up the real outcome of the election.
President Joe Biden beat Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, an outcome confirmed by recounts and judges. A recent legislative audit and study by a conservative legal group also showed no evidence of widespread problems.
Gableman’s work is expected to cost taxpayers about $675,000.
Bernier in December suggested she would need to bring a firearm with her for protection to see Gableman address a crowd in her home county because his work “keeps jazzing up” people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
In an address to the Chippewa County Republican Party, Gableman said Bernier should resign.
“It’s just that she had been so afraid of her own constituents that she wanted to be armed,” Gableman said. “And I guess I had several reactions to that, one of which was, geez, if you’re an elected official and you’re so afraid of your constituents that you think you have to bring a firearm to see them, you should take a long hard look at what you’ve been doing. And then, frankly, resign.”
His comments were met with applause.
Gableman was initially supposed to complete his review in October. His contract expired Dec. 31, but Vos said this week he is in talks with Gableman to extend it into February at least.
On Friday, Bernier suggested more lawmakers should follow her lead.
“Bernier hopes whoever takes her place continues her philosophy: Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do,” the announcement read. “Kathy believes when our elected representatives put good policy above politics, we are all better off.”