The Supreme Court of Wisconsin threw out Vos' attempt to avoid a deposition late Tuesday, setting the stage for him to take questions under oath on Wednesday.
It was the third court defeat for the Rochester Republican in 24 hours as he tried to avoid answering questions from the liberal group American Oversight. The group is looking for records of a partisan review of the election.
The high court threw out Vos' last-minute request to cancel his deposition just hours after he made it. The court's three liberals and Justice Brian Hagedorn, who was elected in 2019, made up the majority.
Hagedorn has split with the court's conservatives on politically charged issues.
Vos is scheduled to take questions just hours before he is scheduled to begin a two-day fundraiser in Key West, Florida for the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee. The $6,000-per-person event includes a tour of Ernest Hemingway's home.
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Vos was dealt his first blow last week when a judge ordered him and his staff attorney to sit for depositions about how they responded to records requests.
Vos asked the District 3 Court of Appeals to prevent him from having to sit for the deposition. Vos didn't show any harm he would suffer by answering questions, the appeals court said on Monday.
On Tuesday, she said she would not stay her previous decision.
"These open records have been pending for a long time, so additional delay may cause harm in the way of documents being destroyed or becoming outdated," Bailey-Rihn wrote.
Vos went to the Supreme Court because American Oversight could not depose him at this stage of the lawsuit.
The judge in the county where the subpoenas were allowed let them stand for now.
There's no chance that Wisconsin's Legislature will take over awarding presidential electors.
The Supreme Court turned him down quickly.
Hagedorn wrote that Vos wanted the justices to only grant cases that were the most rare. He noted that to prevail Vos needed to show the lower court had acted outside of its authority and that he would suffer serious harm if the deposition were to occur.
Hagedorn wrote that the petition came nowhere close to meeting legal standards.
The dissenters wrote that they would have canceled the deposition so they could consider important issues, such as whether lawmakers can be forced to take questions while the legislative session is ongoing.
The dissenters wrote that the majority denied all relief without considering the constitution, caselaw or basic principles of attorney-client privilege.
Hagedorn and Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet were part of the majority.
The Chief Justice and Justices Rebecca Bradley and Patience Roggensack dissented. The Bradleys are not related to each other.
The election review is ongoing.
Michael Gableman was hired by Vos to look into the 2020 election. Even though courts have found that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in Wisconsin, Assembly Republicans want the review.
Vos gave Gableman a taxpayer-funded budget. Some records about their review have been released.
In November, American Oversight won a ruling requiring Vos to turn over more documents. The group wants Bailey-Rihn to find Vos in contempt of court because he hasn't produced all the records he should.
Vos won't be punished until she knows what happened. The depositions with Vos and Fawcett are meant to determine what records of the review they have maintained, whether they destroyed any records and what they did to search for documents when they received records requests.
She doesn't understand why Vos doesn't have a lot of records about the review. She emphasized that view in the ruling.
"If there are no documents responsive to the request, what are the Wisconsin taxpayers paying for?" she asked.
Vos' attorney Ronald Stadler acknowledged in his filing to the Supreme Court that Vos might not have some records because they aren't required to keep public documents. Lawmakers carved themselves out of the requirement to retain public records.
Two more lawsuits have been brought against Vos and Gableman. The cases are still going on.
Patrick Marley can be reached at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on the social media site.
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The Supreme Court has cleared the way for a liberal group to depose Speaker Robin Vos.
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