Wisconsin state Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R) was caught on video voting on behalf of an absent lawmaker despite a rule that only the members present in the Assembly Chamber may vote.

WTMJ confronted Kleefisch who responded, “It depends on how you interpret the rule. The rule says you have to be present in the chamber. The bathroom counts as the chamber. And the parlor counts as a chamber if you are going to eat.”

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As a Georgia lawmakers weigh a ban on most women getting abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, Democratic lawmakers protested the move by introducing a bill that would drastically limit vasectomies, the Augusta Chronicle reports.

The bill calls for no more vasectomies that leave “thousands of children… deprived of birth.”

Said state Rep. Yasmin Neal (D): “Women’s reproductive rights are always debated. No one ever talks about the male side of the issue. We just want them to know how it feels just this once… It’s about fairness and showing how preposterous the abortion bill is.”

In a letter to fellow Republicans, Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris (R) called the Girl Scouts a “radicalized organization” that supports abortion and promotes “homosexual lifestyles,” the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports.

Morris said he did some research on the Internet and found “allegations that the Girl Scouts are a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood, that they allow transgender females to join, ‘just like any real girl,’ and encourage sex.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) administration “has touted for months its efforts to balance the state budget, but now it also has acknowledged a significant way in which the budget isn’t balanced,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

“To keep the possibility alive of making further cuts to state health programs, the Walker administration quietly certified to the federal government on Dec. 29 that the state had a deficit. Federal law allows the state to drop tens of thousands of adults to save money on health care costs if the state can show it has a deficit. Walker has said he wants to cut health care spending in other ways, but
hasn’t ruled out dropping those 53,000 adults if the other methods
aren’t approved by the federal government.”

Kansas state Rep. Terri Lois Gregory (R) attempted to covertly record a private conversation with state Sen. Vicki Schmidt (R) about controversial health reforms sought by Gov. Sam Brownback (R), the Topeka Capital Journal reports.

During the meeting, Schmidt noticed a small flashing light in Gregory’s satchel. It wasn’t a telephone.

Said Schmidt: “I asked her, ‘Are you recording me?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ”

“A bipartisan contingent of legislators said Gregory violated an unwritten code of conduct among lawmakers that frowns on clandestine recording of colleagues in closed-door meetings.”

“I don’t read newspapers in the State of Ohio.”

— Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), explaining that it doesn’t give him “an uplifting experience.”

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The Wichita Eagle reports a Kansas teenager “is in trouble after mocking Gov. Sam Brownback (R) during a mock legislative assembly for high school students.”

Emma Sullivan tweeted: “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot”

“Sullivan was called to her principal’s office and told that the tweet had been flagged by someone on Brownback’s staff… Sullivan said the principal ordered her to write letters of apology to Brownback… and others.”

Two Republican Illinois lawmakers “say Chicago-style politics are dominating the state and they have a solution,” the State Journal Register reports.

“They’ve proposed Cook County, which is the second most populous county in the U.S., to become one state and the other 101 counties in Illinois to become another.”

A new Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert College poll in Wisconsin finds 58% think Gov. Scott Walker (R) should be recalled from office.

That compares to just 47% who said in April that he should be recalled.

Key findings: “The growth in support for a recall came, surprisingly, from Republicans. In the spring, only 7% of Republicans supported recalling Walker but that grew to 24% in the fall. Support among Democrats held mainly steady at 88% in the spring and 92% in the fall.”

A Hart Research survey of Ohio voters who voted in Tuesday’s election finds Democrats nearly unanimous in opposing restrictions on collective bargaining, 94% to 6%, and that independent voters also decisively rejected the measure, 57% to 43%.

There is also significant political fallout for Gov. John Kasich (R). Among those who voted for Kasich last year but voted against the measure, his job approval rating has fallen to just 28%.

“I am the government.”

— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), quoted by Capital Tonight,
addressing popular distrust of the New York State government despite
his own strong approval numbers in an “assertion, which if taken out of
context, could be a potentially tough one for the governor to live down
one day.”

“It’s time to pause. The people have spoken clearly.”

— Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), quoted by the New York Times, after voters rejected a law limiting collective bargaining rights.

Mississippi voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative to legally define “personhood” as beginning at fertilization.

Ohio’s new collective bargaining law was defeated “after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment,” the AP reports.

“In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.”

National Journal: “The repeal of Issue 2 is also a blow for Kasich, whose approval
numbers have already been lousy this year. Republicans in the state who
supported the measure will also have to carry the baggage of vouching
for something that was overturned. And looking ahead to 2012, that’s
something that could potentially affect races at the federal level, as
Democrats will surely blast Republicans who supported SB 5 and cast its
repeal as a rejection of the GOP agenda.”

“A Texas judge faces a police investigation and judicial probe after a video showing him beating his then-16-year-old disabled daughter was posted on the Internet,” CNN reports.

“The graphic video drew international outrage after it was posted by a woman who said she was the victim of the beating seven years ago and that her parents — including her father, Aransas County, Texas, Court-At-Law Judge William Adams (R) — were the ones seen beating and cursing at her in the video.”

Adams confirmed the video’s authenticity to KXTV: “She’s mad because I’ve ordered her to bring the car back, in a nutshell, but yeah that’s me, I lost my temper. Her mother was there, she wasn’t hurt.. it was a long time ago.. I
really don’t want to get into this right now because as you can see my
life’s been made very difficult over this child.”

Adams is up for re-election in three years.

A new Bliss Institute poll in Ohio finds that registered voters oppose Issue 2 — the ballot referendum on public employee collective bargaining — by a double-digit margin, 37% to 25%.

However, voter opinion on these issues is fluid and changeable, with 38% of voters still undecided.

After locking her husband out of their home, Illinois state Sen. Suzi Schmidt (R) “called 911, identified herself as an elected official, asked police to ‘ignore’ her husband if he called and said he feared her because she had ‘connections,’ according to newly released police reports and recordings of the call,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

“Amid a host of allegations — that the Republican senator rammed her car into her husband’s during a subsequent row in August and then, just this week, bit him and struck him with a cellphone — the recordings raise the question of whether Schmidt was seeking to use her political clout to influence Lake County authorities.”

Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason (R) apologized for referring to blacks as “aborigines” and says his words were “careless and unnecessary,” the Montgomery Advertiser reports.

Beason was heard on FBI recordings made while helping investigate claims of gambling corruption.