July 18, 2023
The line-item veto is one of the most powerful tools a governor can wield. While it comes in different versions, it typically means that the governor can strike out specific portions of a bill without vetoing the entire bill. In some states, this is regulated more tightly than in others, but nowhere does the line-item veto have a more colorful history than in Wisconsin.
There, governors have previously been able to use the ‘Frankenstein veto’ to delete enough words to create entirely new sentences from the remainder, and the ‘Vanna White’ veto, by which governors could strike out individual characters to change the meaning of a sentence.
Both the Frankenstein and Vanna White vetoes were so controversial that Wisconsin voters eventually approved constitutional amendments banning them. As Wisconsin’s legislative Republicans found out, however, these amendments are not foolproof.
A key loophole in the amendment banning Vanna White vetoes allowed Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to protect Wisconsinites. Mr. Evers, a champion for education and fairness, used the massive power of his veto pen to guarantee school funding increases for the next 400 (yes, you read that right) years and to largely dismantle a tax cut for the rich while protecting gains made for working families.
He also used his pen to protect the citizens of Milwaukee, one of the nation’s most financially strained cities.
Now, the two-year budget adopted by Wisconsin legislators has been made far more equitable in manners that largely cannot be touched.
School funding, forever
Mr. Evers knows the value of education. As a former teacher who eventually was elected to be Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction, a cornerstone of his governorship has been protecting public education and consistently proposing significant funding increases to ensure that today’s children are prepared for tomorrow’s world. In 2018, his credentials helped him to victory over the unpopular Republican Gov. Scott Walker, whose draconian education policies took Wisconsin backwards.
Wisconsin Republicans passed a far more moderate funding increase than the one Mr. Evers had proposed, but thanks to some clever strokes of his pen, he was able to guarantee funding increases for hundreds of years. The Vanna White amendment’s loophole that he took advantage of allows him to remove specific characters within one sentence at a time.
The original line in the budget granted a funding increase of $325 per pupil “for the 2023–2024 school year and the 2024–2025 school year.” By the time Mr. Evers had finished, that read, “for the 2023–2024 school year and the 2024–2025 school year,” or, read without the edits, “for 2023–2425.”
This type of maneuver is not new. Mr. Walker had used the same tactic to allow a moratorium on referenda for school spending on HVAC projects to last for 1,000 years.
Now, the $325 in additional funds per pupil is largely symbolic, and is not enough for school districts in dire straits as they continue to climb out of the hole of the Walker years. In addition, in 400 years, $325 will be worth a lot less than it is worth today. Still, the funding increase will help struggling school districts more than they would have been helped by a mere two-year funding increase.
“I was extremely excited because we have been shortchanging our educational system for years, especially with the colleagues that I have now. It seems to be when it comes to our children, which should be our most important resource, there is always a compromise,” said Democratic Senator LaTonya Johnson of Milwaukee. “Seeing [the governor] invest more in education didn’t surprise me.”
Cutting tax cuts
On a broader note, Mr. Evers was also able to gut a massive Republican priority – tax cuts for the wealthiest Wisconsinites that do nothing to help working people. Under his watch, what had been a $3.5 billion tax cut was reduced to a measly $175 million, or a 97% decrease. Now, the bottom two tax brackets, those who actually need it, will see real relief, while the top two will continue to pay their fair share thanks to the veto pen, and Wisconsin can be more fiscally sound.
“Especially what he did to those upper income brackets – that was applaudable,” stated Ms. Johnson. “I was extremely proud of our governor, because for too long, the focus from our Republican colleagues has been helping those individuals that are the wealthiest in our communities, with the illusion that that money is somehow going to trickle down to the rest of the state.”
The extra funds that can be raised by maintaining the top two tax brackets will ensure that, come the next budget cycle in two years, the state will have a projected surplus of $3 billion in general funds.
Speaker Robin Vos has already vowed that he will have the tax cuts passed again in a standalone bill, but that voodoo economics package will simply be vetoed in full by Mr. Evers.
Protecting Democratic values
The governor’s vetoes were also able to defeat two culture war priorities.
Support for gender-affirming care provided with state Medicaid funds was set to be blocked, but the governor and his pen stepped in to protect those human rights.
Moreover, in a major fight with Mr. Vos, Mr. Evers protected 188 diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions in the University of Wisconsin system. Previously, Mr. Evers had threatened to veto the entire budget over this provision. These positions are meant to help uplift the student body and, no matter what lies emanate from Republicans, they are anything but divisive. Now, students will continue to have access to these resources and those who provide them.
Helping Milwaukee
Milwaukee is the second-most financially strained city in the country. The situation is so dire that real questions the city’s leaders must ask when drafting budgets are if the city can afford to maintain its fire engines and libraries.
However, as strong as the threat of a veto may be, it was not enough to push for more help for Milwaukee – possibly its greatest flaw. This is not the only thing that the governor has done to help the struggling city. The threat of financial insolvency pushed even some of the most intractable Republicans to finally do something, with Mr. Evers using the mere threat of a veto to help get something done.
“The City of Milwaukee isn’t like larger cities who have different revenue sources. We only had one, which was property taxes, and basically shared revenue. We had to get permission in order to get a 2% sales tax,” explained Ms. Johnson, who serves on the Joint Committee on finance, which reviews all appropriations and revenue-related matters.
Sometimes, this frustration with Republicans who take the ‘funding for me, not for thee’ attitude can boil over. Ms. Johnson expressed this frustration in colorful language on the Senate floor, pointing out that Republicans who do not live in cities should not pretend to understand how cities should be run while they also express a racially tinged view of cities.
Now, she said, “When they were talking about how devastating this will be for the City of Milwaukee, which was supposed to be what the conversation is centered around, my colleagues could only talk about how that crime will trickle down to the suburbs and the rest of the state. There was nothing about what this would mean for the City of Milwaukee.”
The scalpel beats Republicans
Wisconsin voters made the right choice when they re-elected Mr. Evers last fall. With a critical check on the legislature remaining in place, government works a bit better for the people it is supposed to serve.
Ms. Johnson said, “Words cannot express just how important it is to have a Democratic governor, because he has stood in the gap against some of the most egregious bills that were geared to hurt, low income communities and communities of color…If Governor Evers wasn’t there, it would be so much worse for Wisconsin, and so much worse for our lower income residents.”
In what is the most closely divided and also heavily gerrymandered state in the nation, Wisconsinites, who prefer 50-50 or 51-49 margins in statewide elections, are forced to cope with Republican gerrymanders giving that party a Senate supermajority and a near supermajority in the Assembly.
The key word, however, is ‘near,’ because without an Assembly supermajority, Wisconsin Republicans will be unable to override any of the governor’s vetoes. This preserves them and the help they give to Wisconsinites.
There are also threats of a court case, but those have yet to materialize in any real case and such a case would be extremely weak.
The blunt instrument of a full veto turned out to be less useful than the scalpel of the line-item veto. Now, Wisconsin will be spared the drama of a budget veto, which would wreak havoc on funding for state agencies while throwing the legislature into even more chaos – and the governor can make an impact where it matters more.
The Wisconsin State Capitol. Carol M. Highsmith / Public Domain
By Charles Horowitz
Policy Reform Now 
Leave a comment