NEWS
Doyle vetoes legislative oversight
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by John Buchel
Monday, March 3, 2003
Gov. Jim Doyle used his veto power Friday to kill a bill that would provide for legislative oversight of tribal gaming compacts.
Republican legislators became enraged upon learning the gaming compacts Doyle touted in his Feb. 18 budget presentation as huge sources of new revenue for the state were being negotiated in perpetuity. The legislature rushed a bill through which would necessitate the legislature’s approval of any compacts arranged by the governor, who is now the only governmental entity with the power to negotiate with the state’s tribes.
The new compacts would generate $237 million for Doyle’s two-year budget plan and play a main role in keeping Doyle’s budget balanced.
“It is my strong desire to stand with Democrats and Republicans and sign a budget that is balanced for the first time in decades, does not raise taxes and funds education,” Doyle said in a statement after issuing the veto.
Republicans in the legislature are now considering whether to try and gather the two-thirds majority vote to override Doyle’s veto.
In the meantime, Sen. Tom Reynolds, R-West Allis, and Rep. Carol Owens, R-Oshkosh, have sent a letter to President Bush asking him to take action to prevent the compacts Doyle negotiated from being implemented forever.
“What the letter says is it asks the president to contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” Owens said. “The Bureau of Indian Affairs has a lot of the final say over compacts negotiated.”
Owens said she wrote the letter with Reynolds in objection to the perpetuity of the compacts. Doyle has said his contracts could be complete renegotiated after 25 years, but Republicans insist the agreements would be permanent.
“Our objection is not to the agreements, it’s that they are negotiated in perpetuity,” Owens said. “They say there is a mechanism to renegotiate. But for that mechanism to work, both sides would have to be in agreement, and that would never happen. One man should not take away the rights of our children and grandchildren to govern.”
If the legislature could gather the needed majority, Doyle’s veto would be overridden, and the legislative approval of tribal contracts would become law.
Owens said the necessary majority could and would be obtained “if the legislature has any sense.”
Some Republicans see Doyle’s veto as a significant slip in the continually deteriorating non-partisanship relations between Doyle and the Republican-held legislature.
“Gov. Doyle said he wanted to work together and be open, but that’s not how things are going to operate from his standpoint,” said Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Bellevue. “Doyle has squandered all the goodwill we had established up until this point. That’s too bad.”
While some Republicans are frustrated with Doyle’s veto and cite statements Doyle made as state attorney general which were heavily in favor of legislative oversight, others feel it is not a partisan issue, but a question of checks and balances.
“The language that allows for legislative oversight was in a bill before, but [former Gov. Tommy] Thompson also vetoed it. Governors just do not want the legislature to have that kind of oversight,” Owens said.
Owens said the legislature did not attempt to override Thompson’s veto, because they knew they couldn’t gather the needed majority, but said she thinks the votes are there this time around.
In his statement following the veto, Doyle quoted Thompson’s veto statement, which listed extensive bargaining delays as a reason to disallow legislative overview.
“I will use all my executive authority — including my veto power — to keep Wisconsin on the path to fiscal responsibility,” Doyle said.
