Evers a target for widely used veto power
State governors increased spending 31 times since ’91
MADISON - Republican lawmakers want to make an example out of Tony Evers after Wisconsin governors in both parties for decades have used their powerful veto pen to override the Legislature by increasing spending levels in state budgets.
Governors used vetoes to increase state spending above levels set by lawmakers 31 times since 1991 and increased bonding seven times during that time, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.
Republicans are proposing to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to bar Evers and future governors from issuing such vetoes after Evers steered $65 million more in funding to schools in the state budget than what lawmakers approved.
Though the move has been uncommon over the last 28 years, Evers is not alone in making it.
One proponent of the amendment — former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson — used partial vetoes to increase spending or bonding authorizations 13 times, including adding $54 million in property tax relief in 1991, despite arguing Tuesday he hadn’t ever done so.
Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle used the practice 16 times — more than any of the four former governors. In one case, Doyle increased funding for schools by $330 million in 2005.
That veto largely prompted lawmakers and voters to amend the constitution in 2008 to bar the kind of partial veto Doyle used, which strung together parts of two or more sentences to create a new sentence.
Republican Gov. Scott McCallum increased spending six times and bonding once — including to eliminate a provision that would have required state government to delay an aid payment to schools in order to keep from spending $115 million in that budget.
Gov. Scott Walker, also a Republican, used the measure once to veto a provision that required him to reduce state borrowing for building projects by $250 million.
The 2008 constitutional amendment made the way some of the former governors increased spending or bonding impossible today but Walker and Evers were successful in doing so in 2013 and last week.
Lawmakers in 2003 unsuccessfully proposed an amendment to prevent a governor from increasing the dollar amount of an appropriation but not since.
Republican Sen. David Craig of Big Bend acknowledged Wednesday it was Evers’ $65 million veto that triggered
him to propose an amendment to the constitution but said his reasons were not tied to Evers’ political party.
“The structure of the way that the governor did this veto certainly triggered something in me that hasn’t been triggered in the past, but I fully expect we’ll have a Republican governor one day, and am I hamstringing that Republican governor? Absolutely I am,” Craig said in an interview.
Craig said Evers’ veto illustrated the need to clarify what effect a veto should have.
“You look at the case law that has developed on the issue and clearly the intention of the courts has been (to) limit the line item veto to decreasing spending,” he said. “At the end of the day we’re talking about the governor extending obligations for taxpayers.”
But Democrats say the proposal — which does not require the approval of the governor to pass — is meant to further limit policy-making by Evers at a time when Democrats have little chance of regaining power in the Legislature anytime soon.
“Because (Republicans) don’t like the decisions made by Governor Evers, they are aiming to go as far as amending the constitution,” Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said. “The principles of how government operates in our democratic system of checks and balances and separation of powers should not be up for debate just because you don’t like the decisions made.”