Who knew Tony Evers was that clever?
Did Gov. Tony Evers really one-up Wisconsin Republicans? “Gov. Evers screws over Wisconsin taxpayers for next 402 years!” one of our go-to news sources headlined.
“If man is still alive!” as Zager and Evans might sing.
Worse than the curse of the Bambino!
To a $325 per pupil increase the legislature intended for only the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years (those being the years of the next biennial budget), Evers used his partial veto power to eliminate a few digits and a hyphen. That altered the language to keep increasing state shared revenue until the year 2425. Republican legislators budgeted another $1 billion for schools, but Evers had wanted $2.6 billion.
The governor also gutted the Republicans’ $3.5 billion tax cut, leaving only $175 million of relief for the poor, doncha know! (Mainly because they pay so little income tax to begin with!) That leaves a very tempting $3.3 billion kitty! But the Democrat could not (or did not) veto the $32 million cut to the university system designed to slay diversity, equity, and inclusion propagandizing. Stay tuned for a reworked, supplemental budget. The Policy Werkes advises everyone not to unbundle their undies. It is only a two-year budget and the next legislature can undo the change. Republicans in the State Senate have the votes to override but the Assembly is three shy. At worst, a Republican governor can right the ship in four years.
Is Tony’s veto even legal?
Sounds like the WI Institute for Law & Liberty will contest its legality. WILL writes:
It is not clear that this partial veto should withstand judicial scrutiny. In Bartlett v. Evers, Justices Rebecca Bradley and Daniel Kelly made clear that a partial veto is proper only to separate the several proposed laws into one appropriations bill, while Justice Hagedorn and now Chief Justice Ziegler found that it could not be used to “unilaterally create new policies never passed by the legislature.” These were attempts to interpret the Constitution’s statement that a bill may be approved in whole or in part and represent a judgment that the bill may not be turned into something else. Taking an increase in revenue limits passed for a biennium and turning it into a compounding increase over 402 years (or, as a local media outlet put it, essentially in perpetuity”) may run afoul of both of these opinions.
In addition, Art. V, sec. 10(1)(c) of the Constitution provides that, in exercising a partial veto, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill ….” The provision may be held inapplicable because a digit is not a letter, but a court may hold that rejecting digits and a hyphen to create a new time horizon is the functional equivalent.
— WI Institute for Law & Liberty
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Those of us with long memories remember when Democrats gnashed their teeth when Tommy T. performed the Vanna White veto. How we laughed!
6 responses to “Screwed for 402 years!”
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I suppose when you’re already 400 years old (or at least look like you are), planning for the next 402 years doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Dave:
You must remember when TGT was in full veto mode carving up a budget when the Green Bay Press Gazette ran a front page headline, “Thompson’s pen is a sword”, but a typesetter (obviously not a Tommy fan) conveniently reduced the space between “pen” and “is”. Tommy got a kick out of it, and even had little plastic swords as campaign swag. I have one someplace along with a copy of the headline.
Makes me think of the Green Bay (I think) newspaper headline after Tommy slashed through the budget with his veto pen. They just forgot to proofread it to make sure all the spaces were present. They were not. “Thompson’s Penis Sword.”
Does Tommy have a penis or is it like a frightened turtle?