The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld an unusual veto by Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) where he changed language in a bill to secure education funding for 400 years.
In July 2023, Evers vetoed select words, numbers, and hyphens in the state budget to extend an increase in spending per student by $325 meant for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years to 2425. The action was decried by Republicans, with a lawsuit filed in the state Supreme Court arguing it was unconstitutional to modify language in a veto by “striking individual digits in an enrolled bill to create a new year.”
On Friday, the state’s high court ruled 4-3 that the veto was lawful, with all of the liberal justices in the majority.
“We uphold the 2023 partial vetoes, and in doing so we are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing. However, our constitution does not limit the governor’s partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable,” the majority opinion said.
The three conservative justices dissented and blasted the liberal majority as allowing the governor to create a new law without the legislature considering the actions.
“How does a bill become a law? According to the majority, one option looks like this: The legislature passes a bill in both houses and sends it to the governor. The governor then takes the collection of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks he receives from the legislature, crosses out whatever he pleases, and—presto!—out comes a new law never considered or passed by the legislature at all,” the conservative dissent said. “And there you have it—a governor who can propose and enact law all on his own.”
Evers called the decision “great news for Wisconsin’s kids and our public schools,” discussing what his veto accomplished and noting his Republican predecessor used the line-item veto during his tenure.
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The Wisconsin GOP denounced the Friday ruling as “judicial activism” rather than “justice.”
“Wisconsinites expect more from their Supreme Court,” the Wisconsin Republican Party said in a post on X.