This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/voters-will-decide-if-legislators-get-say-over-federal-spending/

Separate constitutional amendment on veto power also advances

Wisconsin voters will decide on primary day, Aug. 9, whether the state Constitution should be amended to give back to the Legislature final authority on the allocation of all major federal funding coming to the state.

The state Senate added a ballot question in two parts when it passed Assembly Joint Resolution 6 on the last day of its session Tuesday. All 22 votes in favor of the amendment question were Republican and all 10 opposing it were Democrats.

The vote completed a process that began more than two years ago when Republican legislators began questioning how and why Gov. Tony Evers was spending more than $5 billion allotted to the state in federal COVID-19 “emergency” funding.

State Rep. Robert Wittke, co-author of the resolution, said a public vote on federal spending authority could not come at a better time. The Evers administration has, under some pressure, disclosed that $1.3 billion of the money made available more than three years ago has not yet been released for spending by the state, Wittke (R-Racine) said.

That unspent money has accrued $114 million in interest that Republican legislators say should be deposited in the state’s general fund but which has not, he said.

“It’s time for the citizens to decide how they want this money to be managed,” Wittke told the Badger Institute. “This was supposed to be emergency money. But the state has through 2026 to spend the money.”

The Badger Institute contacted staff for Gov. Evers requesting comment but did not get a response before deadline.

Badger Institute President Mike Nichols testified in support of the constitutional amendment after the Institute launched an investigation that has, over the past two years, uncovered tens of millions of dollars in waste and fraud, questionable spending priorities, and an overall lack of transparency and accountability for the spending by the Evers administration.

“It is clear the federal government made no reasonable calculation for how much state and local governments actually needed to weather COVID. And it appears the governor of Wisconsin, who has sole authority to dispense this funding, has done minimal assessment of the need for much of it,” Nichols wrote in his testimony.

This lack of assessment includes the governor’s practice of “cost swaps,” moving money originally allocated for one purpose to another purpose without having to explain why, Wittke said. 

As we first reported in April 2022, the Legislature passed identical joint resolutions critical of the unilateral discretion given to Evers and other governors in spending the funding from the two major pandemic spending bills, the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The Legislature also passed bills adding legislative oversight and accountability for the spending. Evers vetoed all of them. 

After the Badger Institute reported that the Evers administration had not accounted for nor audited most of the federal pandemic billions, Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) told the Badger Institute, “This administration is just not sharing the information with us.”

Our research determined that during the Great Depression, a more comprehensive and longer lasting economic crisis, the state Legislature turned over sole authority for the dispensing of federal relief funding to the governor.

Voters on Aug. 9 have an opportunity to redress the imbalance for all future federal spending. They will be asked to answer two questions: 

Question 1: “Delegation of appropriation power. Shall section 35 (1) of article IV of the constitution be created to provide that the legislature may not delegate its sole power to determine how moneys shall be appropriated?”

Question 2: “Allocation of federal moneys. Shall section 35 (2) of article IV of the constitution be created to prohibit the governor from allocating any federal moneys the governor accepts on behalf of the state without the approval of the legislature by joint resolution or as provided by legislative rule?”

Satisfying preliminary steps toward amending the state Constitution, both legislative bodies have passed resolutions calling for a statewide amendment vote consecutively in the past two sessions that also included an election cycle. The amendments now take effect if voters approve them.

The governor cannot veto or rescind the final resolution.

Supporters of the resolution were unable to secure its passage in time to put the amendment questions on the April ballot, Wittke said. The August primary was the next available slot, at a date where the ballot would be less crowded than a November ballot that will include a vote for president, he said.

“I’m relieved and excited getting this through the Senate,” Wittke said. “It comes at the right time.” 

The two-part amendment federal spending oversight wasn’t the only bill about constitutional amendments that passed the Legislature this year. On Tuesday, the Senate passed another constitutional amendment, outlined in Assembly Joint Resolution 112, that would prohibit governors from using a partial veto to create or increase any tax or fee. 

Evers, in a move that made Wisconsin a national laughingstock, last summer struck out parts of a bill to lock in increases in school spending for the next 400 years without further legislative action. The move, dubbed by the Badger Institute as the Vampire Veto, prompted legislators to propose the latest move in a years-long effort by lawmakers to limit Wisconsin governors’ unusually broad veto power.

The amendment, which earlier this year passed the Assembly, is not yet headed for voters, however: It must pass again in another session before it can be put to a referendum.

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

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