Legislators advance anti-abortion license plate in bitter, late-night session

In a return to form, the state Assembly closed out its last regular session day of the year Friday in the wee hours.

At center stage as Thursday slipped into Friday was a bitter debate over creating anti-abortion license plates. Legislators implied their colleagues were disreputable, questioned their motives, complained they were all acting like schoolchildren and griped about postings on Twitter.

The Assembly mostly avoided late-night votes in 2013 despite a long history of overnight sessions. But Thursday night the Assembly veered off its new, businesslike course and didn’t wrap up its work until just after 2 a.m.

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The fight over the anti-abortion license plates capped a marathon session in which Republicans approved measures to reinstate Wisconsin’s voter ID law, tighten early voting hours, limit the ability to recall elected officials and restrict access to the site of a proposed iron mine in the North Woods.

As the night wore on, Republicans accused Democrats of wasting time, and their patience expired just after Democrats attempted to take up a resolution to honor the victims of last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

That resolution passed the Senate in September with unanimous support, but most Assembly Republicans blocked the measure from passing Thursday.