Madison —On Monday, attorneys from Wisconsin's largest business lobbying group requested the state Supreme Court to overturn Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' partial veto to boost education funding for 400 years.
The Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Litigation Center petitioned for two taxpayers. The liberal-controlled Supreme Court will determine whether to hear the issue before lower courts, where cases usually begin.
In July, Evers partially vetoed the state budget, increasing K-12 public education revenue per pupil by $325 until 2425. Evers removed the “20” and hyphen from the $325 rise for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years to make the final date 2425, more than four centuries away.
Wisconsin governors, Republican and Democratic, have traditionally reshaped the state budget with extensive partial veto power. It's a game between the governor and Legislature to write bills that avoid inventive vetoes.
The lawsuit claims Evers overused his veto power and acted unconstitutionally. “The law is clear,” said WMC Litigation Center Deputy Director Nathan Kane. “Only voters and their elected legislators can raise taxes.”
After the lawsuit, Evers' spokesperson Britt Cudaback said, “Republicans and their allies will stop at nothing to take away resources from our kids and our public schools.” She did not address litigation claims that the governor's actions were unconstitutional. The 1930 constitutional amendment gave Wisconsin some veto power, but it has been eroded by past governors' vetoes.
Voters passed constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that eliminated the “Vanna White” veto and the “Frankenstein” veto, which allowed voters to strike individual letters to create new words. Many court rulings have limited the governor's veto power, drawing bipartisan support and criticism for decades.
In 2020, the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned three of Evers' partial vetoes, but a majority of judges did not clarify what was permissible. Two justices ruled that partial vetoes cannot create new policy. The current complaint claims Evers' partial veto is forbidden under voters' 1990 constitutional amendment.
“No Wisconsin governor has the authority to strike individual letters or digits to form a new word or number, except when reducing appropriations,” WMC Litigation Center Executive Director Scott Rosenow stated. The complaint seeks the court to overturn Evers' partial veto and rule that the state constitution prohibits the governor from striking digits to establish a new year or removing words to lengthen the Legislature's approval.
The Wisconsin Assembly did not override the veto after the Senate did in September. Without Democratic cooperation, Republicans cannot override a veto in the Assembly despite their two-thirds Senate majority. Republicans proposed a constitutional change in January to prohibit the governor from partially vetoing tax or fee increases.
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