Here & Now

What’s Next for the State Budget?

Robin Vos:
The Wisconsin budget is a good budget for the entire state.

Gordon Hintz:
This budget is one of missed opportunities.

Jennifer Shilling:
We can do better. We, in Wisconsin, deserve better.

Scott Fitzgerald:
This is a responsible budget for Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
The biennial state budget, it’s all over but for any changes of the veto pen by Governor Tony Evers.

Clerk:
All members vote in the affirmative with the exception of senators —

Frederica Freyberg:
Both houses of the Legislature passed the budget this week. The Republicans in the majority hailing the nearly $82 billion spending plan.

Robin Vos:
We can live within our means. We can fund our top priorities like education and healthcare and transportation, and we can still cut taxes.

Scott Fitzgerald:
Overall, we’ve taken the parameters given to us by the governor and turned his out of control spending plan into a responsible budget for Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
Democrats assailed the Republican version for not including the expansion of Medicaid, a key provision in the Evers budget.

Jon Erpenbach:
The idea that the Republicans say no to the $1.3 billion in expanding Medicaid, knowing full well that that is the lynchpin of this budget, everything in Governor Evers’ budget was built around Medicaid expansion because it freed up so much money.

Jennifer Shilling:
We believe as Democrats that there is a better budget that could be developed that does invest in our local schools that improves access to affordable healthcare.

Frederica Freyberg:
Even as their leaders described it as responsible, some Republicans balked at what they call too much spending and borrowing, included in their own plan. In the state Senate, the majority could only lose two votes to secure passage, and they did. Senator Steven Nass and David Craig voted no, along with Democrats. A third Republican senator, whose no vote would have tanked passage, swung to a yes after the Assembly made changes, including a provision that would allow Tesla electric vehicles to be sold directly to customers in Wisconsin.

Chris Kapenga:
I still drive by gas stations in my Tesla and I laugh.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republican Senator Chris Kapenga called a press conference to acknowledge his love for the cars as purely a hobby, saying the budget provision would not result in a personal financial gain.

Chris Kapenga:
I have not met with Governor Evers yet in this session but I do plan to do so and specifically I want to talk about this provision and its importance to the state.

Frederica Freyberg:
Having secured the vote, majority leaders called for Evers to approve their plan.

Scott Fitzgerald:
The Legislature has done its part. Now it’s time for the governor to do his and sign this bill into law. Thank you, Mr. President.

Frederica Freyberg:
Governor Tony Evers is now reviewing the version of the budget passed by both houses. Joining me to talk about the governor’s options going forward, WPR Capitol Reporter Laurel White. And Laurel, thanks very much for being here.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is the timeline for the governor to take action on this budget?

Laurel White:
So once the governor officially has the document on his desk, he has six days excluding Sundays to act on it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Coming up pretty soon then. Everybody talks about the Wisconsin governor having some of the strongest veto powers in the nation. How so?

Laurel White:
So the governor has what’s called a partial veto in Wisconsin. So in addition to his ability to veto the entire document, he can take words out of a bill. He can also take numbers out of a bill. So that’s kind of an unusual power in addition that he has.

Frederica Freyberg:
Republicans say that they spent time trying to make the document veto-proof. What did they do to do that?

Laurel White:
So they did two things actually. The first was limiting the size of the budget document itself. The budget that the governor introduced earlier this year was about 1100 pages. The document that Republicans approved this week is about 500 pages. So I think the thought process there is the governor has less material to work with, therefore, he has fewer options for making changes. The other thing that they did was actually change some language in the budget. They changed a couple phrases from “shall not” to “cannot,” for example, “shall not exceed” to “cannot,” things like that to just kind of veto-proof it.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in other words, the governor, if it was “shall not,” could strike out either “not” or “shall,” —

Laurel White:
Exactly.

Frederica Freyberg:
Whereas “cannot,” you can’t go anywhere with that. Now there was a time in Wisconsin when governors could strike out individual letters called the Vanna White veto. There was also the Frankenstein Veto. Why did these things change and how recent were those changes?

Laurel White:
So the Vanna White veto was actually done away with in 1990 through a constitutional amendment. So to amend the state Constitution, it has to pass the legislature a couple times. I has to go to a statewide referendum. So essentially lawmakers and the voters of Wisconsin decided that that Vanna White veto where they can take some letters out to create new words was just a little bit too much power, a little bit too much flexibility there for the governor. Like I said, that was 1990. And then just a few years ago, in 2008, they actually took away the Frankenstein veto as well. And that’s a veto that took out words to create new sentences. So you could take out specific words in two separate sentences to create a new sentence and that’s something obviously the governor can’t do anymore as well.

Frederica Freyberg:
The governor’s office is now going through this budget presumably with a fine tooth comb. What are areas he is likely to look at for vetoes?

Laurel White:
So the governor has been playing it pretty close to his chest in terms of what changes he wants to make to this budget. He said all along he wasn’t going to comment until he actually had the document on his desk. What we know for sure is that the governor can’t add anything into the budget that isn’t already there. That’s not part of his veto power. So we’re not expecting him to, for example, add any money for K-12 education that Republican lawmakers didn’t approve. There’s about a $900 million difference there.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yeah, so, I mean I know through the course of kind of the budget deliberations and debates, that clearly the Democrats were hammering repeatedly on the failure of the Republican document to expand Medicaid. I’m just wondering if a partial veto power has anything to do with his ability there.

Laurel White:
Well, you know, again, the governor can’t add anything in to the budget that isn’t there to begin with. And it’s a difficult thing because say he did want to increase funding for something, he would have to take funding away from something else using his veto power, and in most instances, the things that Republican lawmakers approved were smaller increases than the governor wanted, things like Medicaid, K-12 education, transportation. So we’re not expecting to see some of those major priorities that the governor had in those regards make it in to the budget this time around. The only way the governor could get something like the Medicaid expansion in theory would be to veto the entire document and send it back to square one.

Frederica Freyberg:
And what would happen then?

Laurel White:
So what would happen then is, I think we would be expecting a pretty lengthy delay in the state Legislature. Speaker Robin Vos just said today that if the governor vetoes the entire document, he wouldn’t expect the Legislature to come back until October to re-start negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he believes that process would be incredibly tricky for lawmakers and for the governor. He said essentially the governor isn’t going to get anything better than he has right now, so he should just sign it.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Laurel White, we leave it there. We’ll be watching. Thank you very much.

Laurel White:
Absolutely. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
For more on Wisconsin’s history of having the strongest veto powers, visit our partners at WisContext.org.