$555,000 tab for lawmaker expenses
Session ended early as pandemic took hold
MADISON - Wisconsin taxpayers paid more than half a million dollars to cover work expenses for state lawmakers in 2020 when they stopped passing legislation in April amid a global pandemic, unemployment crisis and a reckoning over the treatment of Black Americans.
Former Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald claimed nearly $20,000 in meals and lodging — $7,250 more than any other lawmaker and in the same year he successfully campaigned for a new job in Congress.
Another $6.9 million was spent by Wisconsin residents in 2020 on the 132 lawmakers’ annual salaries, according to records obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel under the state’s public records law.
The amount of expenses covered by taxpayers for lawmakers’ meals and lodging — $555,000 — is $241,000 less than what was covered in 2018, the last year lawmakers adjourned early to launch a campaign season.
“It feels pretty grimy to be collecting per diem and continue to collect paychecks when people in the state of
Wisconsin were in desperate need of assistance and leadership and direction,” said Democratic Rep. Jimmy Anderson of Fitchburg, the only lawmaker who did not take any expense payments in 2020.
“Yeah, it feels incredibly grimy to me.”
Lawmakers earn $53,000 a year and may claim expenses for days they work at the Capitol in Madison.
In election years, lawmakers typically adjourn in the first few months of the year and use the rest to campaign.
But their usual absence was heavily scrutinized in 2020 when multiple once-in-a-generation crises hit the state at once and lawmakers passed one bill in April in response.
“It’s been a very frustrating year for a small-business owner — we feel abandoned, to be honest with you,” Tavern League of Wisconsin President Chris Marsicano, who owns The Village Supper Club in Delavan, said in February about state leaders and Congress. “Some have tried to help us, but others have just ignored us.”
Four claimed $10,000-plus
Four state lawmakers claimed more than $10,000 in expenses for work at the Capitol: Senate Minority Leader Janet Bewley, D-Mason; Sen. Fred Risser, DMadison; Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point; and Fitzgerald, R-Juneau. (Like Fitzgerald, Risser did not seek reelection and is no longer in the Senate.)
Of those four, Bewley, Erpenbach and Fitzgerald’s average daily expenses were $115.
Risser, who lives across the street from the Capitol, claimed nearly double the number of days as the others at 240. Lawmakers like Risser who live in or near Madison are eligible for about half as much in daily expenses as those who live outside Dane County.
Unlike most workers, lawmakers do not have to provide receipts or otherwise show what expenses they incurred to claim the payments, which are known as “per diem,” the Latin phrase for “by the day.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in an interview said the Assembly passed more than 100 bills before adjourning in April and he personally talked to about 1,500 constituents during 2020 and sought to address several hundred issues they raised. About 150 had questions and concerns about being unable to get timely unemployment benefits, he said.
Vos says he has a policy of calling back residents of his district. In comparison, Vos called back 216 constituents in 2018, according to his office.
The Rochester Republican said the tradition of ending the legislative session early in a campaign year prevents a dubious situation where lobbyists use campaign donations to persuade lawmakers to pass or kill bills just before an election.
“In Wisconsin, there’s always been a really bright line between the policymaking time (and the election),” Vos said.
The amount Vos claimed in expenses in 2020 was about $4,300 less than his claimed expenses in 2018, while Fitzgerald’s expenses increased by nearly $5,000.
Fitzgerald claimed nearly as much as he did in 2019, when lawmakers were in session throughout the year and writing the current state budget.
In all, 15 lawmakers claimed more in expenses in 2020 than in 2018, records show.
“My per diem number was down because I was in the Capitol less,” Vos said, attributing the fewer number of days in the Statehouse to the pandemic. “Some people went up and that makes me wonder more just from a standpoint of we were in the Capitol less ... they might have done a ton of constituent work (in the Capitol) and that’s fine, too.”
Kelli Liegel, spokeswoman for Fitzgerald, said Fitzgerald was “frequently in the State Capitol working to find solutions for Wisconsinites hit hard by the pandemic” even though Fitzgerald did not bring the Senate to the floor for eight months.
“Both within and outside the Senate Chamber, Congressman Fitzgerald was coordinating with county, state and federal officials to protect public health and safety, and provide sorely needed relief. He is proud of the Majority for managing these issues at a challenging time,” she said.
Liegel did not answer which officials Fitzgerald coordinated with nor provide examples of relief Fitzgerald worked to provide.
Bewley, who claimed $11,730 in expenses for 102 days in the Capitol, said taxpayers and voters should not measure the amount of work lawmakers do by how often they pass legislation. Bewley’s expenses dropped in 2020 by about $5,700 compared with 2018, according to state records.
“That’s only one measure and in some ways, not a very good one,” Bewley said. “The reality is that the vast majority of what I do happens off the Senate floor.”
She said a large part of her job is meeting with local municipal leaders and officials, students, talking to constituents and attending meetings of state boards.
“This is not a traditional 9-5 job and probably shouldn’t be looked at through that lens,” she said in an email.
Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, said the amount of constituent work in 2020 was unique, trying to connect Wisconsin residents with COVID-19 resources and resolve issues with obtaining unemployment benefits.
“The biggest thing that was consuming was after the April bill was just dealing with trying to do everything you could in your position to serve your constituents and answer their questions,” Hintz said. “To be honest with you, a lot of it was helpless … there were some things the state should do and be more proactive on, but we were never going to have the resources of the federal government.”
GOP rebuffed calls to return to session
Throughout 2020, Democrats urged Republicans to come back into session to address the pandemic. Republicans rebuffed them, saying there was little to be done.
“There is nothing that government can do,” Republican Rep. Joe Sanfellipo, the chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, said in October.
The same week, Republican Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills, who was then the co-chairwoman of the Legislature’s budget committee, largely agreed.
“We don’t need to come in because we gave (Gov. Tony Evers) all the flexibility that he needs,” she said, even as Republican lawmakers went to court to limit the Democratic governor’s powers regarding COVID-19.
Since the new session started in January, Republicans have taken a different approach.
They passed legislation to temporarily extend benefits to the newly unemployed, began overhauling the unemployment system’s decrepit computer system, and provided legal protections to businesses and schools sued over the pandemic.
Anderson, the lawmaker who did not take expense payments in 2020, said the Legislature last year should have provided more financial, housing and medical help to people affected by the pandemic and improved the state’s unemployment system because many claimants were waiting months for benefits.
“There are a million things we could have done and it hurts me to think how many people were left in the cold because the Legislature didn’t do its job,” he said.
Anderson said he disagreed with arguments that lawmakers deserved their pay and expense payments because they performed other duties last year, such as fielding calls from constituents.