After proposing the budget in February, the governor will have one more chance to make his mark on the legislation with his veto pen. WPR’s Shawn Johnson discusses what an Evers veto might look like and how Republicans are responding.
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Wisconsin Could Face First Budget Veto
Frederica Freyberg: Will Governor Tony Evers veto the Republican budget for K-12 spending? In tonight’s capitol insight, we check in with WPR Capitol Bureau Chief, Shawn Johnson. Shawn, thanks for being here.
Shawn Johnson: Hey Fred.
Frederica Freyberg: First of all, what is Governor Evers’ reaction to the Republican spending plan for the K-12?
Shawn Johnson: I think he’d say that he’s less reacting to what they put out on the table this week and more continuing to push his own plan. So he’s still talking about the $1.4 billion in new money he wants to put into schools and he’s still talking about the $600 million that he wants to invest in special education out of that $1.4 billion. So he’s not saying much about what they did, only to say that he thinks the budget process is a long way from finished and he hopes to reach a deal with Republicans before it’s all over.
Frederica Freyberg: That’s what he says, although it seems to me speaking with people like Senator Luther Olsen, who’s Republican Vice chair of that Joint Finance Committee, it doesn’t sound like they’re up for that renegotiation, although I suppose anything’s possible as the weeks go on.
Shawn Johnson: Yeah, I don’t know where it’s going to go exactly. I mean, the Republican response to Evers saying we can still talk about this or we can reach a deal seems to be, no, this is the best you’re going to get and if it got any better, it would be so marginal it wasn’t worth it.
Frederica Freyberg: So with that said, what is the expectation, if any, that Governor Evers would take his veto pen to this?
Shawn Johnson: So it depends what kind of veto pen you’re talking about, right? The governor of Wisconsin has one of the most powerful partial veto pens in the country. He can veto out individual words and numbers, he can get very creative with that veto pen. So that’s why the office of the governor has a lot of power in Wisconsin. Largely because of that pen when it comes to these two year budgets. If you’re talking about vetoing the whole thing? It’s extremely rare. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever happened before. Talking to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Legislative Reference Bureau, they said since the state started going to this executive budget back in 1931, there’s been no budget that a governor has just outright vetoed as far as they know. So it’s not only rare, it’s never happened before.
Frederica Freyberg: Is that really something that people are talking about in the halls of the Capitol?
Shawn Johnson: It happens when a budget comes up. A governor threatens to throw out the whole thing. I mean, he’s not the first governor to do that. And so then everybody is just kind of left with the question, given how rare it is, would the governor really do it? And so in this particular case, Governor Evers campaigned on increasing spending by $1.4 billion on education. It is sort of the center piece of his budget. And so he has this question answered. Is a budget that’s $900 million less good enough?
Frederica Freyberg: So this partial veto that he has, though, he can change numbers, he can make revenue uppers in this budget.
Shawn Johnson: Not so much. It’s hard to put money back into the budget. There’s a lot of things a governor can do to change a budget, but putting money back in isn’t really one of them. So that’s the limitations of his partial veto when it comes to this.
Frederica Freyberg: Now earlier on, Republicans were talking about splitting the budget into two to somehow mitigate a governor’s veto. What is that all about and is that still out there?
Shawn Johnson: As far as I know, that is something that is still out there. So what they would do is split it into one bill that has all the appropriations and then one bill that has all the, I mean, you could call it policy but all the language that talks about what the state is going to do. The budget is an enormous document. There’s a lot of language. And so what happens is, a governor can only use that partial veto pen on a budget when there’s — when it’s an appropriation. You take those appropriation out, then he loses some of that power. By the way, the Legislative Reference Bureau says they’re not aware of that ever happening before either.
Frederica Freyberg: All right. Well, this is Wisconsin. Shawn Johnson, thanks very much.
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