Wisconsin, Michigan GOP enact lame-duck limits
MADISON, WIS. >> Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan enacted last-minute limits on Democratic power Friday, with outgoing GOP governors in both Upper Midwest states signing measures protecting their priorities before leaving office in less than a month.
Democrats derided the moves as desperate power grabs, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder downplayed the scope of their actions while defending their rights to do it.
“There’s a lot of hype and hysteria, particularly in the national media, implying this is a power shift. It’s not,” Walker said before signing bills that weaken powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general and limit early voting to two weeks before an election.
The push in both states mirrors tactics employed by North Carolina Republicans in 2016.
Snyder signed measures to significantly scale back citizen-initiated measures to raise Michigan’s minimum wage and require paid sick leave for workers, finalizing an unprecedented Republican-backed legislative maneuver that opponents blasted as shameful.
To prevent minimum wage and earned sick time initiatives from going to voters last month, GOP lawmakers approved them in September. That allowed them to more easily alter the measures with simple majority votes rather than the three-fourths support that would have been needed if voters had passed the proposals.
The tactic — never done before — was pushed by the business community as necessary to avoid jeopardizing the economy. But it was criticized as an unconstitutional attack on voters’ will at a time Republicans in Michigan are trying to dilute the powers of incoming elected Democrats.
Snyder signed the bills in private and issued a statement calling them a “good balance” between what the ballot drives proposed and what legislators drafted initially.
“They address a number of difficulties for job providers while still ensuring paid medical leave benefits and increased minimum-wage incomes for many Michiganders,” he said.
Walker traveled 130 miles from his Capitol office to sign the bills in Green Bay, a more conservative city far from the liberal capital of Madison where protesters converged on the Capitol to voice opposition to the lame-duck legislative session two weeks ago.