Toon: Snidely Skullduggery in Madison

Leaders in Wisconsin's Republican-run legislature want to use the coronacrisis to extort additional powers from Governor Tony Evers.

Recognizing the high costs of fighting the coronavirus, the Federal government made additional Medicaid funding available to states. In Wisconsin, the 2018 lame duck law [so called because it was rushed through the Republican lame duck legislature and signed by lame duck Republican Governor Scott Walker after Wisconsin elected Democrat Tony Evers over Walker] blocks Governor Evers from taking steps to accept this aid money without getting approval from the state legislature.
Also, the Federal government is newly offering to pay 100% of the cost of the first week of unemployment benefits for state residents. Currently, Wisconsin does not allow people to get benefits for the first week of unemployment, so both the Governor and the Legislature would have to sign off on the change to get the additional funding.
Governor Evers released an economic package that would gather both the additional Federal Medicaid dollars and the extra unemployment benefits. Republican legislative leaders ignored his proposal and released their own plan.
The alternative proposal included capturing both those sources of extra dollars, but also included a provision that would give the legislature’s budget committee – controlled by Republicans through a decade of gerrymandering election maps – unilateral power to make budget cuts during this crisis, without the approval of other legislators or the Governor.

If the Republicans pass their version of the bill, Governor Evers will be faced with the choice of signing this power grab into law or vetoing acceptance of the Medicaid and unemployment benefit funding. He can't use his line-item veto because this is not a budget bill.

If this power grab is ever signed into law, don't expect the budget process to return to normal after the coronacrisis is over. The Budget Committee's Absolute, Non-Overturnable Line Item Veto will become a permanent part of Wisconsin politics, enabling a select group of legislators to starve urban public schools, destroy public health care, scrap unemployment benefits, and any of a myriad of antisocial Republican pet projects at will.

Meanwhile, I am happy to report that enough of the Wisconsin electorate braved the risk of coronavirus to defeat the Republicans' candidate for the state Supreme Court last Tuesday. Results were tabulated yesterday, and Jill Karofsky overcame the Republican smear campaign to unseat Daniel Kelly, 55% to 45%.

There will still be a 4-to-3 right-wing, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce lobby majority on the court, so don't expect the Supreme Court to be a check on legislative overreach any time soon. Barring creation of a vacancy, the next Supreme Court election will be in 2023.

The race to succeed Chris Abele as Milwaukee County Executive resulted in a near tie. Having only five polling places in a city of 600,000 had to have made a big difference there, and a recount is certain. The new county exec's term is set to begin April 25.

The school funding referendum in my local school district passed by a margin of only five votes out of 33,491 cast. This really highlights how important it is to keep aware of local issues and to get out and vote.

In the presidential primary, Joe Biden won over Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. But, really, who cares about that right now?