Coming soon - budget tricks and tactics to abound at the Capitol

It's not just dollars and sense that go into a state budget, and it's not just debates in public that happen. With that in mind, there is a Wisconsin State Journal article saying there is “no progress” in budget talks between Dem Governor Tony Evers and the GOP-controlled State Legislature as of this time.

The article spent a lot of time on K-12 education issues, and I’ll talk about that some later this week, ahead of Thursday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting that’ll have votes on those topics. But for now, I wanted to take a step back and discuss what steps might happen as the Legislature passes the budget, which the article indicates will happen some time next month, and what happens as the bill lands on the desk on Governor Tony Evers.

To start with, Assembly Speaker Robbin’ Vos told attendees at this weekend’s Republican state convention one thing that certainly won’t be in the budget will be Medicaid expansion.

"It will be over our dead bodies," @repvos says of taking the Medicaid expansion.

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) May 18, 2019

Actually, it’ll be over the dead bodies of thousands of Wisconsinites that had to wait for adequate coverage, Robbin’. Way to keep it classy and in perspective, Napoleon.

The stances of Vos and the rest of the Republicans are likely in conflict with what Evers told the State Journal last month.

“We have to make sure we have affordable and accessible health care, we have to make sure we have increases in resources for our education system, and fix the damn roads,” Evers said.

And all 3 of those topics are likely to come up in Joint Finance in the next couple of weeks. But then we found out this afternoon that Vos and other WisGOPs are considering a method to make major changes to the budget bill, and not just on the funding side.

GOP legislative leaders are considering splitting the budget into two bills — one that would outline spending and the other containing policy — in an attempt to get around the guv’s partial veto authority.

Gov. Tony Evers has the most powerful partial veto authority in the country, but can only use it on legislation that includes appropriations. Splitting the budget into two bills would mean Evers couldn’t rework policy Republicans want to include as part of the plan and would be forced to either sign the full bill or veto it.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told WisPolitics.com he likes the idea of splitting the budget into two bills, but was still studying any possible downsides and said no final decision has been made about whether to send one bill or two to Evers...

An Evers spokeswoman said it was the first the guv’s office has heard of Republicans considering the option and didn’t have an immediate comment. But Dem Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a member of the Finance Committee, said Republicans seemed to be “begging” Evers to veto the budget.

When Reagan Youth never grows up.

Naturally, Vos is whining that Evers won't negotiate with him (translation - "We're not talking with Evers because he won't give us everything we want."), and that is why the WisGOPs are considering this tactic.

It seems to exploit a loophole in Wisconsin veto laws. The Legislative Council described the governor’s partial veto powers this way a few years ago.

· Although the Governor may exercise the partial veto only on bills that include an appropriation, nonappropriation parts of appropriation bills may be partially vetoed.
· The part of the bill remaining after a partial veto must constitute a complete, entire, and workable law.
· The provision resulting from a partial veto must relate to the same subject matter as the vetoed provision.
· Entire words and individual digits may be stricken; however, individual letters in words may not be stricken.
· Appropriation amounts may be stricken and a new, lower amount may be written in to replace the stricken amount.
· The Governor may not create a new sentence by combining parts of two or more sentences of the enrolled bill.

The part I bolded is where this "split it in 2" strategy comes in. Basically, this would involve the GOP Legislature passing one bill with all the money for various intiaitives, then uses a second bill to lay out what those agencies can and cannot do. Which forces Evers to go "all or nothing" on what those policies are, and could hold funding changes hostage to the policies that would explain what the money is intended for. It could be used cynically to get other policy changes and concessions that is closer to what the GOP wants (and with the ALEC crew, you can bet they will try).

In addition, Evers is constrained in what he can add back in terms of funding if extra money isn’t there in the first place, so if funding is less than what is under current law, then Evers could restore us back to what we have today, but no more. Likewise, it may prove difficult to move money around between different priorities, because while one item could be vetoed, that money can’t be used to add to an item that hasn’t had its funding reduced (as I read it). And if the GOP throws some tax cuts in that Evers deems to be unneeded, I’m not sure how that added money could go many places other than into the “bank” for other bills that have to be passed at a later date.

Interestingly, the State Journal article indicates that there is another method Evers could take on that would make the appropriations a two-part process.

In 1991, then-Gov. Tommy Thompson vetoed much of the funding in the second year of the two-year budget, forcing lawmakers to reconvene later to once again take it up, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Now there’s an interesting idea, and would turn the tables on Vos and the rest of the GOP Legislature, and put them on the spot to re-discuss these issues closer to the 2020 elections. And it would give the opportunity to make funding changes that adjust to what may have happened to the state’s fiscal picture and/or services in the time since the budget was passed.

Yes, a lot of this is dry minutae and game-playing. But I have a bad feeling that’s what a lot of this budget debate is going to end up coming down to. And barring significant public pressure, I’m not counting on seeing too much of a change from the messed-up priorities on the funding side that we’ve had to go through over the last 8 years. HOWEVER, the new Governor at least is in a position to keep things from getting worse and cut further, and the ability for Gov Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul to replace GOP hacks in the day-to-day operations and enforcement of our laws is a major boost.

Which wis likely why Robbin' Vos and other GOPs are thinking about playing games like forcing Evers to sign or veto a policy bill that prevents him from carrying out the policy changes that people voted for. And would prevent us from starting to get out of the hole that the last Governor left us in.