MADISON, Wis. — Lawmakers in the Wisconsin Senate were back on the floor Tuesday as the Republican majority passed nine overrides of vetoes by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Though a supermajority in the Senate made it simple to pass, the effort is likely to fail if attempted in the Assembly and leave a lot of money tied up in Madison.
Two-thirds of lawmakers from both chambers of the Legislature are needed to successfully override the governor. However, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards — as Republicans are two votes short of the threshold in the Assembly, assuming no Democrats flip and all members are present.
Several bills were on the calendar Tuesday, including the framework to spend $125 million to combat PFAS contamination across the state.
“There’s only one reason to sit on those dollars, and that’s polluter protection,” Minority Leader Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said. “Get the dollars out of the door. You could’ve done that yesterday, you could’ve done that last week, you could’ve done that months ago. You could do it today.”
The governor is concerned the bill doesn’t do enough to hold polluters accountable, while Republicans said so-called “innocent landowners” could be on the hook for contamination they didn’t cause.
“This is a political chess game for the Democrats and the governor,” State Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, responded. “You are playing with people’s lives, and their investments, and their families, and it’s time to stop.”
Other measures that faced an override include $15 million for grants to help rural hospitals, a bill requiring the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to set population goals for wolf management, as well as a proposal to tweak teacher apprenticeships.
“Do not veto this bill. If you veto this bill, we will not be able to distribute the money. And of course, a week or so later, the governor stood in the way of a lot of people in this state and vetoed the bill,” State Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, explained of his pleas to the governor as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee.
Republicans said they don’t see “any other pathway” forward, while Democrats summed the attempt up to an election-year stunt.
“Either the Assembly will not come in at all, and this will have been an entire charade, or the Assembly will come in and sustain the veto,” State Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, explained.
The override effort came just a day after Gov. Evers filed a countersuit against the Republican-controlled Legislature over not releasing almost $50 million for a K-12 literacy program.