'Republican' Register Of Deeds Request Rings Hollow Official Says

RACINE COUNTY, WI -- Racine County Register of Deeds Tyson Fettes announced that he is stepping down from his post in order to take on a new executive position with Community State Bank in Burlington.

But before he does, he will bear witness to a round of political theater surrounding the otherwise quiet county office.

That's because a raft of local political leaders are calling for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to appoint a Republican to replace him in office.

The reason why? Local officials, including: Speaker Robin Vos, state representatives Robert Wittke, Tyler August and Chuck Wichgers, State Senators Van Wanggaard, Steve Nass David Craig, County Executive Jonathan Delagrave, District Attorney Patricia Hanson, Sheriff Christopher Schmaling, Clerk Sam Christensen and Treasurer Jane Nikolai, say voters support of State Supreme Court-Elect Brian Hagedorn reflects the county's support for conservative reforms.

"Voters endorsed his leadership in 2012 and 2016, decisively backing him as a Republican candidate for Register of Deeds with more than 60 percent in both elections. On April 2, Racine County voters reiterated their support for conservative reform, giving Judge Brian Hagedorn a margin of nearly 14 percent," the letter stated.

Racine County Supervisor Nick Demske said he felt the letter was "very reductive of the job Tyson did in his role of Register of Deeds."

"To say that, in replacing him, we need someone who belongs to the same political party, rather than someone who has the same level of commitment and forward thinking as him, just strikes me as really unfortunate," Demske told Patch. "It's like saying if we replace a good public servant with a box of rocks that has an R written on it, no one will know the difference."

A check of election results from both 2012 and 2016 shows the following:

Fettes won re-election in 2012, garnering 65,716 out of a possible 9104,356 total votes in an unopposed election in which there were 38,037 undervotes.

Fettes won re-election in 2016, garnering 65,135 out of a possible 96,911 total votes in an unopposed election in which there were 31,774 undervotes.

Fettes was appointed by former Gov. Scott Walker to the post in 2011, and was re-elected to the position in both 2012 and 2016.

Since taking office, Fettes has been credited with leading a number of changes at the office, including: the modernization of the GIS system to allow for greater public access to data, the digitalization of all real estate records including making information on all 70,000 county plats of land available online, while also implementing a notification system to track and prevent fraud.