Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tough-on-crime bills

Republican plan doesn’t include funds for new state prison.

- Patrick Marley

MADISON - Republican­s who control the Legislatur­e plan to pass a package of tough-on-crime bills but aren’t going to fund building a new prison.

As the legislativ­e session wraps up, GOP leaders are also looking to cut taxes or reduce state debt, but haven’t settled on a final plan. The Legislatur­e’s two top leaders said Wednesday they are considerin­g cutting income taxes, property taxes or personal property taxes paid by businesses.

They have agreed on taking up the crime package and plan to pass the measures before they end their session next month. The proposal could face vetoes from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has called for cutting the state’s prison population in half over the coming years.

Two years ago, the Assembly passed a similar plan to lock up more offenders and spend $350 million on a new prison. That proposal died when the Senate didn’t take it up.

This time, Republican­s in the two houses plan to toughen criminal penalties, but they won’t be bankrollin­g a new prison, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester told reporters.

“We are going to wait and see whether Governor Evers signs the bill,” Vos said. “I think we need to at least get this bill passed first. Then we’ll come back and have a discussion — and I think we do — (about) whether we need to have an additional prison.”

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau said the Senate would likely pass the crime bills, despite cost concerns from some Republican­s.

“I have members that will hold the members’ feet to the fire on the cost of those, but it didn’t seem like it was so prohibitiv­e that we can’t tackle them,” Fitzgerald said.

The bills would result in sending more people who violate the terms of their probation to prison; put more juveniles who commit crimes behind bars; and limit when inmates can be released from prison early.

Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz called the plan ridiculous and costly.

“The correction­s policy of Republican­s ... has been to double down on the policies that are ineffective, don’t work and are expensive,” the Oshkosh Democrat said.

The state’s prisons are already overpopula­ted and the bills would make them even more crowded. They were designed to hold about 17,800 adult inmates but now house about 23,500.

The push for the legislatio­n comes after Republican­s in other statehouse­s and Congress have headed in another direction. President Donald Trump signed a criminal justice reform bill in December that had the backing of House Republican­s and several red states in recent years have embraced efforts to reduce their prison population­s.

Tax plans

Vos and Fitzgerald said they hope to cut taxes after learning the state will take in $818 million more than expected through mid-2021. Under state law, about half that amount will automatica­lly go to the state’s rainy-day fund.

Fitzgerald for months has talked about cutting property taxes but said Republican­s may instead cut other taxes or use the newfound revenue to lower state debt.

“Now I think in this last caucus it was kind of blown open to a bigger discussion about can we do multiple things?” Fitzgerald said.

Vos said Republican­s want to make sure Evers can’t use his powers to partially veto legislatio­n to rewrite their tax plan in a way Republican­s don’t like. He said they’re still deciding what they want to do.

“I think that in general the phrase that Republican­s like to use is, ‘There’s no tax cut that we don’t support,’ ” he said.

4 a.m. bar time

The two leaders said they hoped to make changes to a number of liquor laws with legislatio­n that is in the works that would also extend bar time to 4 a.m. during the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

That legislatio­n is controvers­ial because it would also include a requiremen­t to regulate barns that are used as venues to host weddings.

Vos said he wants to deal with all alcohol-related issues in one bill. Fitzgerald expressed openness to dealing with them with separate legislatio­n.

“It’s like fine-tuning it, trying to get it in the right place and then get members to kind of support the whole package,” Fitzgerald said. “That may be a way we can get this done. Otherwise, we may have to go individual­ly on specific bills. I certainly haven’t said no to anything and I don’t have members lobbying me to tell me they won’t do anything.”

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