Here & Now

Veto Pen Used in Signing State Budget

Frederica Freyberg:
A first look tonight at how midweek Governor Tony Evers announced he made 78 partial vetoes to the Republican-drawn two-year state budget. They included action that increases school spending by $65 million, saying he objects to the “continued drastic underfunding of Wisconsin’s public school children” but saying even his hikes don’t go far enough. He says the plan is a down payment on what he calls the people’s budget. He could have vetoed the entire thing, but says that would have been more of the same divisiveness and petty politics. For their parts, Republican leaders describe the vetoes as minimal, a reflection they say, of a good Republican-crafted budget.

Tony Evers:
Today I am signing a much better version of the Legislature’s budget, with the understanding that we are nowhere near where we should be and there’s lots more work that we need to do. We worked hard to make this budget more fiscally responsible and that includes adding a record nearly $300 million to our state’s rainy day fund. The bills we will sign today deliver on my campaign promise to deliver a 10% tax cut for working families, including $500 million in overall tax cuts targeted to working middle class people in our state.

[applause]

Scott Fitzgerald:
The budget targets state investments more responsibly and spends $2 billion less than the governor’s original plan. I’m relieved to know that schools throughout the state will know what resources are available to them as they begin putting their budgets together for the upcoming school year, including a massive increase in special education funding.

Frederica Freyberg:
WPR Capitol Bureau Reporter Laurel White has covered the budget from start to finish and she joins us now with details. Thanks for being here.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
First out of the gates, what will the Evers’ veto boost to K-12 mean dollar-wise for schools?

Laurel White:
So for schools, it’s about $63 per pupil in each of the next two years of the state budget, which is a little bit more than even the Wisconsin Association of School Boards asked for earlier this week. They wanted $25 more. They said that would help them meet the rising cost of inflation. So the governor went above and beyond there for them.

Frederica Freyberg:
We heard Majority Leader Fitzgerald applaud the certainty for school districts, almost like he was glad the governor made these hikes.

Laurel White:
Yes. So part of the conversation about potential changes to the state budget or an overall veto of the budget was pushing negotiations into the fall. And the ramifications of that are school districts aren’t going to know how much money they’re going to have, what increases there if any. So the governor taking the action he did today set up that certainty and I think that’s what Fitzgerald was nodding to.

Frederica Freyberg:
And even though the governor increased that spending to K-12 even above what the school boards wanted, he still calls his increases insufficient and continues, as you know, to call for Wisconsin to expand Medicaid and he wants that gas tax. In fact, he made a pointed veto in the transportation budget against a study on tolling, saying that actually that study would simply show that a tax gas is what is necessary for funding for transportation. What else did the governor do on transportation in his vetoes?

Laurel White:
So this is one that folks might remember kind of coming up late in budget negotiations last week. There was a provision that would have allowed Tesla vehicles to be sold directly to consumers in Wisconsin without a car dealership intermediary. That was pegged to one particular Republican state senator who might have been iffy in his vote on the budget, Senator Chris Kapenga from Delafield. The governor clearly wasn’t happy with that addition to the budget. He vetoed that. He said that he didn’t think that sort of policy change should be included in the budget without more kind of debate and deliberation.

Frederica Freyberg:
So I wonder what the Senator Kapenga thinks about that, having been offered that, among some other things, for his ”yes” vote to push this budget through.

Laurel White:
Right.

Frederica Freyberg:
So on the work requirements for FoodShare, this is another area that the governor took out his veto pen on. He cut funding for basically the administration of that program, presumably meaning that the ability to enforce that program, the provisions of that, would be stymied. Speaker Vos to that kind of thing and that veto said, “Governor Evers seems intent on trapping people on welfare.” He seems decidedly more unhappy with this budget than Senator Fitzgerald.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. I think Speaker Vos really came out with kind of an aggressive and pointed comment on that particular element of the governor’s vetoes. You know, he zeroed in on that of the 78 vetoes and really expressed some concern. Now, I think it’s interesting to note that the governor’s office said that this won’t completely stymie implementation of those work requirements. There will be some that are still in place but it certainly takes away — it’s more than $20 million from implementing those. Speaker Vos is concerned. Another high-profile Republican that’s concerned, Representative John Nygren, who co-chairs the state budget committee. He released a similar statement.

Frederica Freyberg:
And Speaker Vos is one that has repeatedly called the expansion of Medicaid the expansion of welfare. So this is a place where he, as you say, is kind of focusing some of his attention. Now, all the Democrats in the Legislature voted against the budget, which was, again, signed today. Scott Fitzgerald tweeted, “I have never seen so many ‘no’ votes lined up at a podium for a bill signing before.” Is there any lingering sense among any legislators or others that Governor Evers should have vetoed the whole thing?

Laurel White:
I certainly haven’t heard that since the governor released his veto message. I think Democratic lawmakers are really more in the camp now of saying look at what we were able to accomplish because we have a Democratic governor. They’re sort of framing this as the Democratic governor moving the needle on the Republican-controlled Legislature and getting Republican lawmakers to approve more funding, different funding for different programs, focusing an income tax cut on low-income individuals, things like that.

Frederica Freyberg:
Does the Republican Legislature have the two-thirds votes needed to override any of these vetoes?

Laurel White:
No, they don’t. We know that Republicans obviously have large majorities, particularly in the Assembly, but they don’t have the two-thirds majority to override any of these vetoes unless Democrats come onboard. And I think that would be pretty unlikely.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah. So I know that Governor Evers was speaking to this being, again, kind of an insufficient budget, in his mind, and looking toward September, looking toward his next priorities. What were some of those?

Laurel White:
So Governor Evers is already talking about reintroducing the Medicaid expansion as stand-alone legislation. Obviously, that would face a really steep climb in the Legislature. He’s also talking about a nonpartisan redistricting commission in Wisconsin. Obviously that’s particularly timely because of the Supreme Court decision last week. He says he’s going to push really hard for that. And he also mentioned medical marijuana. That was something he included in his budget proposal as well as decriminalizing small amounts of recreational marijuana. Assembly Speaker Vos has said he might be open to medical marijuana in Wisconsin. So I’m expecting that to be a big debate in the fall.

Frederica Freyberg:
So medical marijuana might be a go but I would suggest that expanded Medicaid would not or redistricting.

Laurel White:
Probably not. I think those face tougher odds.

Frederica Freyberg:
Right. Laurel White, thanks very much.

Laurel White:
Thank you.