MONROE — The enduring GOP-led election law accusations and investigations are a bad look for the state of Wisconsin, said U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who was in Monroe April 13 to tout a $200,000 grant for a local human service agency.

“It’s time that they end this thing,” said Pocan, whose visit also coincided with election season, as the November general race looms and various courts have ruled on the legality of election law. “It’s sad that people are looking pathetically at Wisconsin because of this.”

Earlier this month, Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a host of bills passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature that would have made a number of changes to election laws in what has become a battle-ground state on the national scene. Courts, numerous recounts and audits of various types have all maintained President Biden’s nearly 21,000-vote lead. Amid the election season, ads have popped up in some markets questioning the integrity of the state’s elections, widening the rift between the left and right in the state.

Pocan, a senior member of the house appropriations committee, hopes the issue doesn’t continue to impact politics here.

“We are looking pretty bad nationally,” he said.

But Pocan also was in town to promote the positive aspects of the recent U.S. Congress, including the American Rescue Plan for COVID-19 relief and the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan.

“Two of the biggest bills ever happened in one year,” he said, touting the leadership of the House and President Biden for getting those passed.

The money from those bills is now filtering down to state and local governments and Pocan said voters will soon feel the positive impact of the money at home. Another issue Pocan said impacts rural Wisconsin voters is postal service reform and Pocan said he and his colleagues made great strides to ensure the federal funding remains to keep the service thriving and local post offices open in small towns and big cities.

Those national spending measures, he said, will fuel creation of 1.5 million jobs and kept the country from a financial downward spiral.  As part of that funding, the local grant to Green County Aging and Disability Resource Center will be used to create a mobile-health outreach unit.

“It was the right thing to do, period,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said perhaps the biggest issue for voters, is inflation and there is a limited amount government can do stem the growing tide of prices. However, he said that a key factor with inflation is gas prices. And during hearings with oil executives last year he said they admitted to Congress being wildly profitable in recent years. In fact, Pocan says he thinks they’ve taking advantage of current events to gouge consumers.

“I don’t think they (oil companies) have been good corporate neighbors,” he said. “They still get subsidies amid millions in record profits and that’s screwed up.”