Walker will veto some Republican-led legislation

Outgoing governor says he doesn’t believe signing lame-duck bills would make Evers a weak successor

Gov. Scott Walker said Tuesday he will likely veto some measures passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature but signaled he generally supports the package.

The legislation, Walker said, would not make Tony Evers a weak governor.

For the first time since lawmakers passed the measures and amid calls from Democrats and some Republicans to veto all of them, Walker said he doesn’t agree with the criticism of the legislation that shifts powers from the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office and gives it to the Legislature.

“For all this hype and hysteria — much of which I think is driven by fundraising for political purposes — the bottom line is there is not a fundamental shift in powers, no matter what happens with this legislation,” Walker told reporters in Waukesha on Tuesday. “Read it. Just read it. There is not a fundamental shift out there.”

Walker in a lengthy Facebook post Tuesday defended the proposals, saying Evers “will still have some of the strongest powers of any governor in the nation if these bills become law.”

Walker said in the post Evers “will have the power to veto legislation and he will have some of the broadest lineitem veto authority of any governor in

the nation,” among other powers.

“None of these things will change regardless of what I do with the bills passed in the state Legislature last week,” Walker wrote.

Walker did not point out that some of the measures giving the Legislature more power are similar to those he has vetoed in the past for intruding on his authority.

He said he would not act on the lameduck bills until he could unveil a new incentive package for Kimberly-Clark, with the goal of keeping a Fox Valley paper-making plant open and saving hundreds of jobs.

Britt Cudaback, spokeswoman for Evers, said Walker should “do the right thing and veto this (lame duck) legislation.”

“The people of Wisconsin demanded a change on Nov. 6. Governor Walker knows this and needs to decide whether he wants the final act of his legacy to be overriding the will of the people,” Cudaback said.

Walker doesn’t yet have the bills passed by lawmakers during an overnight legislative session that ended the morning of Dec. 5. Walker in his Tuesday post also listed the criteria he’s using to determine whether to sign the legislation once he receives the bills.

In doing so, Walker signaled support for the measures.

“Does it improve transparency? Will it make it easier for people to know what is going on in their government?” Walker wrote. “For example, one of the bills calls for a report on people who receive a pardon by the governor. It seems reasonable that the public should know if a convicted felon is pardoned of his or her crime.”

Walker also suggested he supported measures that would allow the Legislature to have a say over how incoming Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul spends money from legal settlements, a decision currently up to Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel’s Department of Justice.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said Walker was trying to downplay the effects of the legislation.

“No matter how Gov. Walker tries to spin it, the lame-duck proposals undermine the will of Wisconsin voters and consolidate more power in the hands of Republican politicians,” Shilling said in a statement.

The legislation would limit early voting to roughly two weeks before an election, despite a similar limit being found unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2016, and give the Legislature more power over decisions currently made by Walker and Schimel alone — including picking the head of the state’s jobs agency, which oversees the $3 billion taxpayer-funded incentive package for Foxconn.

Asked if he believes limiting early voting to two weeks before an election is the right thing to do, Walker said, “Early voting is great, it just should be uniform.”

Walker’s openness to providing more say to the Legislature over state agencies comes after rejecting similar measures

“The governor’s staff was briefed by legislative leaders as to their plans but were not involved in negotiations over the extraordinary session legislation.” Tom Evenson Walker spokesman

in his last state budget that would require state agencies to report to the Legislature.

In vetoing the measures, Walker said the language would put an unfunded mandate into state law and would “encroach” on his office’s “responsibility to manage state agency programs within the statutes and funding levels set by the Legislature.”

Walker also advocated against reshaping state government in the final weeks of an outgoing governor’s term in 2010 when he asked then-Gov. Jim Doyle not to act on a number of measures, including making permanent appointments, and asked the Legislature not to approve public employee union contracts.

Now, Walker has appointed Department of Administration Secretary Ellen Nowak to the Public Service Commission and Attorney General Brad Schimel as a Waukesha County judge.

Walker over the weekend issued a series of tweets responding to criticism over what Democrats have characterized as hypocrisy, saying the appointments are comparable to what he asked Doyle to refrain from making because Doyle’s were civil service positions.

He also defended his 2010 request not to approve state employee contracts, which would have delayed implementation of his collective bargaining measure known as Act 10.

“In 2010, I asked them not to move on state employee contracts that would bind the new gov and Legislature for years. In contrast, we stopped new Requests for Proposals (RFPs) after the election so the new administration could start over with the process before issuing contracts,” Walker said.

Democrats and a number of Republicans have called on Walker to reject the legislation passed by lawmakers last week, and some have said to think about his legacy in calling for vetoes.

Walker over the weekend responded to that criticism, tweeting 21 times about factors that will contribute to his legacy as governor.

“OUR LEGACY - More people are employed in Wisconsin this year than at any other time in the history of our state,” Walker said in his first in the series of tweets.

Walker also is considering the package of legislation as he downplays his role in writing it.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau said Walker “came up with some ideas on how things should be handled” and said Walker’s chief of staff, Eric Schutt, “has been a big part of all of those discussions” about the legislation.

But Walker spokesman Tom Evenson characterized Walker’s role much differently.

“The governor’s staff was briefed by legislative leaders as to their plans but were not involved in negotiations over the extraordinary session legislation,” Evenson said by email.