A restriction on the governor?s veto power will be put in front of Wisconsin voters this April in a referendum, after passing the Assembly last week. A bill also passed in the Senate to increase Wisconsin?s minimum wage from $6.50 to $7.25.
The constitutional amendment, passed 94-1 in the Assembly, would prevent the governor from recombining words to form new sentences using his partial veto power. Proponents of the change have dubbed that power the ?Frankenstein veto.?
The partial veto power of Wisconsin governors is unique among other states, according to Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison.
?I?ve been trying to change partial veto power of the governor now for about 20 years,? Black said.
Jack Jablonski, spokesperson for Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, who was a co-author of the legislation, said the amendment was important because it improves tax-and-spend accountability.
?In the ?05-07 state budget, the governor vetoed all but 20 words out of 752 and created a new sentence,? Jablonski said, ?It cost the state half a billion dollars last time around.?
However, Carla Vigue, spokesperson for Gov. Jim Doyle, said the governor has used the veto power to stop Republican legislators from ?slashing $400 million from schools.?
?It?s an important tool for governors when legislators take such extreme measures,? Vigue said. ?It?s important for governors to protect the citizens of Wisconsin.?
Rep. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, said the amendment is good government in general, supporting the balance of power among the branches of Wisconsin government.
?The bottom line is, no matter who is in the governor?s office, it serves our state well if this veto doesn?t exist,? Parisi said.
This legislation passed with a 33-0 vote in the Senate this session, and passed the Assembly last session as well. Wisconsin voters can make the amendment law with a majority voting in favor on the referendum April 1.
Minimum wage increase passes Senate
A bill that would raise Wisconsin?s minimum wage by 75 cents and would automatically increase the wage according to inflation in the future passed the state Senate Jan. 15.
While Democrats control the Senate, Republicans hold a majority in the Assembly and have traditionally opposed increases in the minimum wage, making the bill?s future uncertain.
?The goal of the legislation is to help some of our hardest-working people keep up with rising costs that we all have,? said Carrie Lynch, spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker.
Lynch added indexing the wage with inflation would help workers who struggle to keep up with expenses such as rapidly rising gas prices.
?Workers will no longer have to wait for political battles to be fought for them to get a raise, this will give them a modest increase each year instead.?
Opponents of the legislation like Jill Jenkins, chief economist for the Employment Policies Institute in Washington, D.C., said it could hurt workers by hurting businesses.
Jenkins said 47 percent of those affected by the increase are young people who don?t support themselves, and only 12 percent are single-income families, and therefore the increase is poorly targeted to help low-income families.
?Unfortunately there is a very small group of people who do end up stuck [at minimum wage],? Jenkins said. ?These are the people who, no matter how nice an employer is, there?s no way they can keep paying the worker $7.25 for only $6.50 of labor.?
Jim Bender, communications director for Assembly Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, said increasing the minimum wage is not part of the Republican economic package this spring and is unlikely to come to the floor.
