The $1.1 billion state-budget repair bill has acquired over 60 non-budget items as stowaways — a trend representatives say is becoming common in the Wisconsin state Legislature.

The bill contains wording from 63 separate bills that did not pass the Legislature in the regular season.

The Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican-led Assembly drafted different versions of the budget-repair bill and in doing so added larger policy issues and other proposals into loopholes within each bill.

Kelly Flury, spokeswoman for Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, said adding wording from prior legislation is a common practice, especially when committees run out of time during hearing sessions.

“Robson passed a bill to ban the sale of mercury thermometers in Wisconsin, and it passed the Senate,” said Flury. “However, the Republicans inserted it in the budget-repair bill.”

State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, also said implanting non-budget bills into the budget-repair bill is common and has been happening for decades.
“I guess you could say the good side of this is it is the only way bills can get recognized,” Pocan said.

Pocan said due to gridlock among the governor, the Republicans and the Democrats, it is difficult to pass bills when no one can agree at the bargaining table.

“People put a policy into the budget package, and they have a better chance to pass those bills because it’s an up-and-down vote,” Pocan said.

Pocan and Flury both said the negative side to this is bills do not get full scrutiny of a public hearing or public input.

Rep. Al Ott, R-Forest Junction, said many times policies in the bill are used as bargaining chips to resolve differences between the Republicans and Democrats.
Ott, chairman of the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, attached two agriculture terrorism bills to the budget-reform bill.

“The two bills passed both houses except for the last vote in the Senate because they ran out of time,” Ott said.

He placed the two bills in the Assembly’s version of the budget adjustment in hopes to get it passed.

“It’s the only way to do it,” Ott said. “If you can get it attached, the chance for the governor to sign the bill is good.”

Ott said attaching policy bills to budget proposals needs to be controlled, but that some form of it will always continue.

“I think it is virtually impossible to not have some policy in the budget to further clarify the use of spending,” Ott said.

Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said pork spending is “bad public policy” and action should be taken to stop the legislature from using budget-reform bills as bargaining chips for non-budget material.

“Both houses play the game of trying to stack the deck in order to have their own version of the bill prevail,” Suder said.

This is a backdoor approach to pass legislation that would never have “seen the light of day” in the past, Suder said. He said the use of such “bad politics” should be investigated and avoided in the future.

“We should make certain we only deal with fiscal items in budget-reform bills,” he said.