The Badger Herald: Opinion: Reviving the monster

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Reviving the monster

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By Badger Herald Editorial Board
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:00 a.m.

2 Vote 0 Votes

Gov. Jim Doyle signed his name to the state’s 2007-09 biennial budget Friday, bringing to an end an arduous process that had consumed the Legislature’s energies for a longer period of time than all but one previous budget in state history.

Given the lengthy and contentious nature of the Legislature’s negotiations, Mr. Doyle promised to be judicious with his line-item veto power when signing the budget. For the most part, he kept his word, vetoing fewer items than he did two years ago.

Casting a pall over the signing, however, was the governor’s continued use of the so-called Frankenstein veto, a powerful extension of the normal line-item veto granted to the Wisconsin governor. With some creative striking of particular words and numbers in the budget, Mr. Doyle managed to nearly double the allowable municipal property tax levy increase and eliminate the levy limit for technical colleges.

Mr. Doyle claimed raising the property tax limit was necessary to compensate for the Legislature’s failure to raise the state’s shared revenue allocations. We have no reason to believe he is not sincere in his belief that raising the limit is sound policy.

The problem, though, is that the Legislature did not intend to change the levy limits. Thus by using his Frankenstein veto, Mr. Doyle created law out of thin air, substituting his desires for those of the Legislature through sheer trickery and word play. This is an ability that subverts the legislative process, and it needs to be stopped.

A proposed amendment to the state Constitution would do just that by prohibiting the governor from piecing together parts of multiple sentences to create new sentences in appropriation bills. Though the amendment was approved by the Assembly and Senate last session, only the Assembly has approved it this session. It needs approval by both houses in two consecutive legislative sessions in order to go out for a public vote.

The culprits behind the delay are the Democratic Senate leadership. While they may be happy with the end result of Mr. Doyle’s Frankenstein veto this time around, it must be noted that they are likely to find the usage of the veto by a future Republican governor to not be nearly as palatable.

Hence, the Senate should do the right thing and move toward killing the Frankenstein veto. To be clear, the constitutional amendment does not eliminate the governor’s standard line-item veto ability. Mr. Doyle used this power responsibly Friday in striking down, among other items, a silly provision that would have allowed grocery stores to distribute free shots of hard liquor.

We’re sure more than a few Halloween revelers donned Frankenstein garb Friday. It’s a shame the governor was able to do the same.

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