(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Assembly speaker says Republicans do not want to go months past the deadline for a new state budget, but he says they may have no choice.
Speaker Robin Vos on Thursday told reporters that Republicans are waiting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court before crafting a new spending plan.
“We have a governor who wants to be an emperor, right?” Vos said. “We had a situation where every two years we have an argument about how much we should fund Medicaid, how much we should fund schools, should we give raises to employees? And now the governor is saying we should just make permanent appropriation so he can make all the decisions himself.”
Vos said Republican lawmakers first need to know whether the liberal-majority court will allow Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year school funding veto to stand. And, secondly, need to know if Evers’ “string veto” will stand.
“This idea of a string veto, where you pass a bill that has no appropriation in it and because it could touch the finances someday, all of a sudden it’s line-item vetoable,” Vos said. “That means we have a very hard time passing legislation that has any potential to touch the budget until we know if he has the ability to change it with his creative veto. So we’re kind of stuck in many ways.”
Vos said it is not the Republicans’ preference to delay a new state budget until after the end-of-June deadline.
Evers used his line item veto powers in the current state budget to erase a few numbers, and a dash. That turned a two-year school funding increase into a 400-year school funding increase.
The state Supreme Court said during its October hearing on the case that the governor’s 400-year veto seemed “extreme” and “crazy,” but the justices didn’t hint as to how they may reign that power in.
The high court has accepted the “string veto” case, but has not yet heard arguments.
