That issue contributed mightily to the party’s losses in November, and the legislature’s action ensures that health care will remain a liability for the GOP going into 2020.

More substantively, GOP legislators limited the new governor’s ability to seek waivers from federal programs and codified Walker’s new work requirements for Medicaid recipients. They also sharply limited the role of the newly elected Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, by giving the legislature control over lawsuits involving the state and by giving legislators the authority to hire private attorneys to defend state laws.

The rest? A grab bag of legislative fixes, bureaucratic rules, and power shifts, some good, some odd, but all mostly small bore.

Read: “Wisconsin has never seen anything like this.”

Truth be told, Republicans can mount a case for all of this, starting with precedent. Eight years ago, Democrats under former Governor Jim Doyle tried to use a lame-duck session to ratify state-employee union contracts that would have greatly limited Walker’s flexibility. Republicans remember how the Democrats, desperate for a win, brought back a disgraced state representative named Jeff Wood to vote on the contracts. Wood was actually still serving a jail term for his repeated drunk-driving arrests and used his work-release privileges to cast a crucial vote. (The measure ultimately failed in the state Senate.)

Republicans can also argue that they were merely affirming the powers of a co-equal branch of government (something their counterparts in Washington might wish to emulate.) Their case, however, is weakened by their lack of concern for excessive executive powers prior to the November 6 election. In any case, they have big majorities in both legislative chambers and will be able to provide a powerful check on the incoming governor after he is sworn in, even without the last-minute legislation. In other words, the lame-duck bill only marginally increases their preexisting legislative clout.

Perhaps aware of the de minimis nature of some of the measures, they have been quick to accuse their critics of hysterical overreaction. “You are so grossly exaggerating the words of this bill, it makes me sick,” complained one of the architects of the legislation, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Walker, for his part, has expressed support for the last-minute legislation and is widely expected to sign most, if not all, of it.

But—and I write this as a longtime friend of Walker—that would be a huge mistake. Signing the lame-duck legislation would be an especially classless way for Walker to leave office; it will tarnish his reputation in ways that I’m not sure he grasps. And, frankly, it’s just not worth it.

Read: The Republicans’ Midwest “power grab”

Walker, obviously, is not one to walk away from a scuffle. His confrontation with union power made him a national figure, and he is not likely to be intimidated by either protesters or critics. But that fight was about something consequential. This one is only about tribalism and a petty will to power.