(The Center Square) – Wisconsin voters will be able to end the governor’s partial veto power on the November ballot and a poll released on Tuesday indicates that voters believe the power goes too far.
The Marquette Law School Poll asked registered voters if they believe that governors should be able to significantly change the effect of legislation with a partial veto and 61% said that gives the governor too much power while 39% believe that is an appropriate amount of power for a governor.
The University of Marquette Law School poll asked 850 registered voters about their preferences from March 11-18.
The proposed constitutional amendment comes after Gov. Tony Evers used the current veto power to erase numbers and a hyphen to change the year “2024-25” to “2425” in a school appropriation in the budget bill.
That meant a $325 per student per year funding increase for the next 400 years was allowed and later upheld in a 4-3 ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
“Wisconsin governors have long had the power to cast a partial veto of budget legislation,” the poll asked voters. “This allows them to strike out individual words or sentences, in some cases significantly changing the effect of the legislation. Do you think this is an appropriate power for governors to have, or does it give too much power to governors to change the intent of the legislature?”
