Rep. Robin Vos uses extortion to shakedown Democratic Business Owners.

Wisconsin is "open for business," as long as it's REPUBLICAN business.

Republican Assembly leader Rep. Robin Vos may have let something very illegal slip from his lips on last Sunday' on Upfront with Mike Gousha. It was an online segment of the show that didn't make the broadcast.

In a breathtaking moment of honesty and arrogance, Vos used the threat of political extortion for any business not on the same page as Republicans. Of course Vos was also referring to pay-to-play campaign donations as a way to smooth things out. I'm still literally speechless. Gousha looked stunned but at the same time amused, and kept the conversation going:

Vos: "As I said this week, having one of the Bucks new owners go and greet Barack Obama on the tarmac in the middle of the Mary Burke campaign probably wasn’t the wisest decision.

Gousha: “Why should that bother you? You know he’s been a long time Democratic donor, why does that bother you?

Vos: “It sure does bother me because as you’re coming to us saying you want to be an active participant in the community, picking a team is something like me not picking the right team. Um, I don’t care what his political benefits are, but coming to us saying they want to have hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, and not taking the wherewithal to say, I’m not gonna get involved in this political discussion in Wisconsin when I don’t have too, sure would have been a better decision from my perspective.”

Gousha: “It bothers you?”

Vos: “It does, I think it makes it harder for me to sell to our caucus. Don’t forget, for people who live in most of the rest of Wisconsin, they look at Milwaukee as a place that already gets too much of our money. And now what you’re doing is making an even more difficult decision happen for a lot of folks around the state. So they’ve got to be a lot smarter with their technique. I mean, I want to bring those jobs and keep them in Wisconsin, but having us give hundreds of millions of dollars to big-time donors who give to Democrats, but also have billions of dollars of their own? That’s a hard sell. So I don’t think they need to do anything that makes my job more difficult."

This appears to be a violation of state law, no matter how "honest" Vos claims he's trying to be:
(13) No state public official or candidate for state public office may, directly or by means of an agent, give, or offer or promise to give, or withhold, or offer or promise to withhold, his or her vote or influence, or promise to take or refrain from taking official action with respect to any proposed or pending matter in consideration of, or upon condition that, any other person make or refrain from making a political contribution, or provide or refrain from providing any service or other thing of value, to or for the benefit of a candidate, a political party, any person who is subject to a registration requirement under s. 11.05, or any person making a communication that contains a reference to a clearly identified state public official holding an elective office or to a candidate for state public office.