Over the last two weeks, Governor Evers has vetoed a series of common sense bills. These included public safety bills, legislation to empower parents in education, and election clean up recommendations from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. A few highlights:
Fighting Crime
“Hear no evil, See no evil” isn’t an effective crime strategy. Enforcing the law, and supporting law enforcement is. Judging by his vetoes, Governor Evers has it backwards.
Unlike many other states, Wisconsin does not have an anti-riot law. In our area of the state, we know how important an anti-riot law is, but Governor Evers vetoed
Senate Bill 296, which would have defined a riot and increased penalties for rioting. He also vetoed
Assembly Bill 776, which would have increased penalties for damaging historic landmarks, statues, plaques, etc.
Evers even vetoed bills to stop the epidemic of retail theft.
One bill, would have strengthened penalties for “flash mob thefts,” where a group steals thousands of dollars or merchandise, but do not steal enough individually to qualify for a felony. He also
vetoed a mandatory minimum sentence for three felony retail theft convictions within 5 years.
Supporting Law Enforcement
With law enforcement under attack all over the country, it’s more important than ever that we support our police officers. Unfortunately, just as Governor Evers vetoed the
“Fund the Police” bill, he vetoed these too:
He
vetoed creating more police academies. He
vetoed more training reimbursement for police officers. He
vetoed recruiting and retaining police officers and
vetoed requiring Milwaukee to spend a portion of its ARPA funding on police officers.
Empowering Parents
In a particularly cruel
veto, Governor Evers vetoed allowing children in choice schools to skip a grade if they are advanced learners. He claimed it would increase property taxes – it wouldn’t, and the local family who brought it to my attention suffers.
Wisconsin’s reading scores are suffering - but Evers
vetoed a bill which would have required Wisconsin teachers to use best practices to teach reading. He also
vetoed legislation which would have required consistency in scoring school report cards. We know that Evers opposes anything other than a public school, so I wasn’t surprised when he vetoed bills
expanding charter school authority,
creating new charter schools, and
lifting caps on school choice.
Legislative Audit Bureau Election Recommendations
Last fall, the Legislative Audit Bureau recommended a series of changes to ensure elections are run smoothly, and in accordance with the law. The Legislative Audit Bureau is a non-partisan entity, and its recommendations are usually accepted without question. The recommendations weren’t controversial, weren’t partisan, and were common sense. Just like all Audit Bureau does all the time.
Unfortunately, Governor Evers vetoed the three bills with the Audit Bureau’s recommendations.
Check for yourself to see if anything was controversial.
Later this week, I will discuss some of our accomplishments this session.