(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s governor is officially on the record against the constitutional amendments that would change how some federal dollars are spent in the state.
Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement the constitutional amendments on this month’s ballot are a “takeover by the Republican Party.”
“The language is obviously elaborately very, very confusing,” Evers said.
The pair of amendments would give Wisconsin lawmakers some say in how billions of dollars in federal money is spent on some occassions.
Right now, the governor gets to spend some money as he sees fit. Republicans say there needs to be some oversight, especially after how the governor spent over $4 billion in COVID relief money on local economic development projects that included thousands for minor league baseball teams, theaters and community groups. Critics say some of the money also went to places like Planned Parenthood and other of the governor’s political allies.
Evers, on Tuesday, defendant how he spent that money,
“Because of those investments that we made our economy is strong. We have the lowest unemployment, or very close to the lowest unemployment ever. We have more people working than ever. People are going to bars and restaurants again. The investments that we made were wise investments,” the governor added.
But Evers is not the only Democrat coming out against the proposed limits on the governor’s power.
“There’s no way that I would think that giving sole responsibility to the Legislature to make these decisions to where we’ll be able to benefit many communities across the entire state of Wisconsin,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said.
The push from Evers and Crowley comes a day after former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson endorsed the constitutional amendments, saying they will force cooperation between the governor and legislature.