Here & Now

GOP Considers Changes in Governor's Authority

Frederica Freyberg:
By Wednesday afternoon, Governor Walker conceded the race by press release that read in part, “Thanks to Tony Evers for his gracious comments on our call today. I offered the full support of my staff and our cabinet as he begins the transition process. Finally, thank you to the voters of the great state of Wisconsin. It has been my honor to serve as your governor for nearly eight years.” Within hours of the governor’s concession, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos floated the idea of convening a lame duck session of the legislature. A session that would explore and possibly approve changes to current authorities entitled to Wisconsin’s governor. Republicans caucused on the matter Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald joins us now. Thanks for being here.

Scott Fitzgerald:
You bet. Good to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is this about reducing the powers of Governor-elect Tony Evers?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I think it’s being mischaracterized. I think what we’re really talking about is codifying some of the rules that currently are part of Wisconsin law into statute. They’re things that Republicans feel real strong about. And it’s certainly I think something we had been talking about if in fact Governor Walker were to lose re-election. And after talking to some of the members in our caucus, they said, “Yeah, we think that is a good idea.” I think it’s prudent. It’s not certainly I think capturing or taking away anything from Governor-elect Evers. I think it’s once again kind of underscoring what we think is important.

Frederica Freyberg:
Codifying like what?

Scott Fitzgerald:
There’s a number — I mean, it’s not the longest list in the world. I think it’s probably about a dozen items.

Frederica Freyberg:
Like?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Of things. Probably photo ID is the best one. That’s something that’s had overwhelming support among Wisconsinites. Again, we just had a statewide election in which there were very few issues related to that. But that’s something that was never really addressed by the Republican legislature and is still in rule. So that’s a good example of an item that I think we’d like probably take up.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let’s see what Robin Vos said. He said, “Governor-elect Evers made a generous offer to work together, so he should not have a problem with the legislation that may be considered. The reforms are intended to keep both sides at the table to reach a consensus.” Would this include things like appointments?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Well, the makeup of some of the boards, I think is one of the items specifically that we want to take a look at. I think there hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to that. But, you know, Governor-elect Evers made some campaign promises and I think probably the one we’re most worried about is that he’s going to disassemble the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and replace it with the old Department of Commerce. That’s a mistake. I think it’s a huge mistake. When I get an opportunity to meet with him, hopefully we’ll be able to convince him not to do that.

Frederica Freyberg:
In response to all of this, Governor-elect Evers tweeted this. He said, “Let me be clear. The Republicans and Speaker Vos should stop any and all attempts to play politics and weaken the powers of governor’s office in Wisconsin before I take the oath.” He says, “This is a complete violation of the separation of powers in our system. Wisconsin voted for a change from the years of naked partisanship and divide-and-conquer politics. This must end.” What is your response to that?

Scott Fitzgerald:
Pretty strong. I think since then he’s probably walked it back a little bit. Listen. Most of us have known Tony Evers for 25 years that have been in the legislature for any length of time. We’ve worked with him as superintendent. We’ve worked with DPI on a number of different, pretty, you know, sweeping proposals, like school choice. And I think, you know, we’ll find kind of our rhythm here. It’s going to take a while. But in the eight years that I was in the legislature when Governor Doyle was there, we worked things out and I think — I think that’ll happen.

Frederica Freyberg:
So is Governor Walker on board with this and in talks with you and was he part of that kind of discussion before the election?

Scott Fitzgerald:
No. I haven’t talked to Governor Walker about that. I haven’t talked to Governor Walker since the election yet. But that’s a conversation certainly we’ll try and have with him soon and see kind of what his view is on some of these proposals. But, again, I think until we kind of work through this and are able to actually define it, you know, I don’t want people to over-react, because I think they’ll be underwhelmed when they see some of these items. It’s really, again, about codifying rules in statute.

Frederica Freyberg:
Going forward with this kind of divided government, which is a place that you’re not used to being in for the past eight years, can we expect gridlock at the capitol?

Scott Fitzgerald:
I think things will slow down. You know, it was pretty easy for a state senator, an assemblyman to kind of come up with a bill, run it through their house and kind of move it over and then, boom, it was on the governor’s desk.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right.

Scott Fitzgerald:
You know, I think there’s going to be some Republican legislators that are going to be surprised just how slow that process becomes for them at each juncture. People are saying, “Is the governor going to sign this? Probably not.” Well, then maybe it’s not worth doing. So I think there’s going to be some give and take. But the big areas, I think K-12 education, probably transportation are a couple of the areas we know that aren’t necessarily partisan. And as a result of that, I think that’s kind of where the common ground is going to be.

Frederica Freyberg:
Interestingly, though, K-12 and transportation, new reporting out today just talks about how it would take $2 billion just to continue kind of agency spending right now. So that’s likely to be kind of a push and pull.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Well, that’s Governor-elect Evers’ number. Do I think we’ll hit that number? No. So that $2 billion figure is confined within the idea that that’s what his budget will look like. Hopefully there will be some give-and-take before he rolls something out in February so those types of huge discrepancies won’t exist.

Frederica Freyberg:
We leave it there. Scott Fitzgerald, thanks very much.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Thank you.