Wood Unable to Force Floor Vote on Own Expulsion

I’ve long thought that the move to expel Jeff Wood (I-Chippewa Falls) was use­less, and that the guy should save us all from it by sim­ply resign­ing.  Since Jeff Wood con­tin­ues to prove he’s a amoral jack­ass by not resign­ing from the State Assem­bly, this lit­tle move doesn’t come off as a shock to me.

Rep. Jeff Wood early Fri­day morn­ing failed in an effort to force a deci­sion in his ethics case at a moment when the law­maker lead­ing it was prepar­ing for his mother’s funeral.

The Assem­bly dead­locked 47–47 and did not take up the pos­si­ble expul­sion of the inde­pen­dent from Chippewa Falls, who racked up three intox­i­cated dri­ving charges within a year. The vote required a two-thirds mar­gin. If expelled, Wood would be the first law­maker ousted from the Leg­is­la­ture by his col­leagues in nearly a century.

Wood tried to com­pel a vote on his pos­si­ble dis­ci­pline at a moment when the law­maker lead­ing the effort against him, Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), was absent get­ting ready for his mother’s funeral to be held later Friday.

Democ­rats who voted to take up the mat­ter said they wanted to vote for a lesser dis­ci­pline than expul­sion such as cen­sure. Repub­li­cans said they would take the mat­ter up on Tues­day when Nass returns.

Nass aide Mike Mikalsen denounced the move as “despi­ca­ble,” say­ing Democ­rats and Wood put Repub­li­cans at a dis­ad­van­tage because Nass knows more about the issue than other GOP colleagues.

“There was a deci­sion to play pol­i­tics while he was mourn­ing the loss of his mother,” Mikalsen said.

Wood said on the floor he wasn’t try­ing to shut out Nass and instead wanted to resolve the mat­ter ahead of a sched­uled no-contest plea in one of his intox­i­cated dri­ving cases Mon­day. He said it was a bad prece­dent for the Assem­bly to expel a mem­ber for con­duct unre­lated to his offi­cial duties.

“I’m not mak­ing excuses for what I did. I’ll face the con­se­quences in the judi­ciary. But that’s the appro­pri­ate place for it,” said Wood, who declined to answer ques­tions afterward.

What’s amaz­ing in all this, is that in this entire time, nei­ther Nass or Wood have squared off pub­licly about the expul­sion mea­sure.  You can see the 47–47 roll call here.

But to try to get to the floor on the eve of the night Nass is try­ing to bury his mother…classy move from an admit­ted drug addict.

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