Wisconsin Governor’s Unusual 400-Year Funding Veto Incites Ire in a State Known for Inventive Cuts

The governor of Wisconsin endeavored to secure a school funding increment for an astounding 400 years via a controversial partial veto, inciting fury from his Republican detractors. This move constitutes a novel instance of the inventive utilization of the exceptional gubernatorial powers granted in this state.

Wisconsin’s legislative provisions allow its governors to modify specified laws by adjusting words and characters as they deem necessary. Governor Tony Evers modified a hyphen and the digit “20” to amend the termination date of a $325 per student spending increment from 2025 to 2425.

By making these deceptively straightforward modifications, Evers established four centuries of unchangeable funding enhancements unless they are annulled by a court or intervened by a future governor and legislature.

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“Everyone is going to cause an uproar,” remarked former Democratic Governor Jim Doyle, “but he’s got them cornered.”

Wisconsin’s governors possess the country’s most extensive partial veto authority since they can modify virtually any part of a budget bill, including erasing figures, punctuation, and words in expenditure bills, which can sometimes result in new laws unintended by the legislature.

The partial veto exercised by Evers extends a school funding increment into the future by an extraordinary 402 years, which exceeds the duration of the United States’ existence by 247 years.

“Certainly, it’s ingenious,” commented Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist and former staffer of ex-Governor Tommy Thompson.

Such creativity is not unheard of, however.

The tradition of redefining state budgets through the use of partial vetoes is a long-standing strategic game between the governor and legislature in Wisconsin, with lawmakers striving to draft bills mostly safe from creative vetoes. Even the most outrageous vetoes rarely get overridden due to the requirement of a two-thirds legislative majority.

During a recent WISN-AM interview, Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos expressed his determination to challenge Evers’ 400-year veto, albeit acknowledging the difficulty.

Vos denounced Evers’ four-century veto as an “unprecedented new method to exploit the taxpayer,” adding that it was a move no prior governor could have imagined, nor anyone who believes in Wisconsin’s fairness.

In 2017, ex-Republican Governor Scott Walker utilized his veto authority to prolong a state program deadline from 2018 to 3018, an action now known as the “thousand-year veto.” He also postponed another program’s start by six decades.

Republican Thompson was infamous for his “Vanna White” veto usage, a term coined after the Wheel of Fortune co-host, known for flipping letters to reveal phrases. Thompson set a record for the most partial vetoes in a single year with 457 in 1991. Evers has made 51 this year.

Thompson declared he would never criticize a governor for exercising their partial veto right.

Amid disbelief over the Evers veto, Thompson asserted, “Well, he did it.”

Kristoffer Shields, Director of the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University, commented on Wisconsin’s uniquely potent partial veto, which enables the governor to alter the legislature’s intent, as Evers did. He plans to reference the recent Evers veto in his teaching on executive power.

Many Wisconsin residents are likely surprised by the governor’s capacity to make such a move, Shields noted. This awareness could potentially lead to changes.

Wisconsin’s partial veto power originated from a 1930 constitutional amendment. It has, however, been diluted over time, particularly in response to vetoes by Thompson and Doyle.

Constitutional amendments passed in 1990 and 2008 stripped the ability to alter individual letters to create new words—the “Vanna White” veto—and removed the power to discard words and figures from two or more sentences to form a new one—the “Frankenstein” veto. Several court rulings have also restricted the veto power.

Rick Esenberg, director of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, anticipates a legal challenge to Evers’ 400-year veto.

“This is an absurd way to legislate,” Esenberg argued.

In 2020, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Esenberg’s group and overturned three of Evers’ partial vetoes. Still, most justices didn’t provide explicit guidance on the parameters. Two justices noted that partial vetoes shouldn’t be employed to enact new policies. With the court transitioning from conservative to liberal control in August, the future interpretation of veto power remains uncertain, a topic that has historically attracted both bipartisan support and disapproval.

Amid legal queries about the veto’s validity, conservatives are capitalizing politically by arguing that Evers’ expanded spending authority will lead to skyrocketing property taxes.

“The veto would cause property taxes to explode over the next 400 years,” Republican Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August warned in a statement. “Taxpayers should keep this in mind when they receive their tax bills in December.”

Former Democratic Governor Doyle, who issued nearly 400 partial vetoes over his eight-year tenure, commended Evers for effectively reinstating an automatic school spending increase initially implemented in the 1990s, which was removed by his successor, Walker, and the Republican-dominated legislature.

Doyle lauded Evers’ move as “masterful, highly significant, and wholly expected,” adding, “I’m sure they’re regretting overlooking this minor detail.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about 400-year funding veto

More about 400-year funding veto

• Wisconsin Governor’s Partial Veto Power
• Historical Use of Veto Power in Wisconsin
• Wisconsin Education Funding
• Overview of Executive Power in the United States
• Discussion on Partial Veto and Its Implications