Kaul scores wins, clashes with GOP during first year

MADISON, Wis.- Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul’s first year in office was a mixed bag of big wins and frustrating defeats for the Democrat.

Kaul fulfilled a campaign pledge by finishing analysis of thousands of untested rape evidence kits. He switched the state Justice Department’s stance in cases challenging factory farms and high-capacity well permits to support environmentalists. He withdrew from a lawsuit seeking to undo the federal health care law. He sued Oxycontin manufacturer Purdue Pharma. But he saw Republicans dramatically weaken his authority during a lame-duck session, still hasn’t developed a process for working with them to settle lawsuits and couldn’t get any new gun control measures passed.

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