>> Getting to the point of voting on a state budget
turns out to be a difficult affair. The legislature's
Joint Finance Committee was to go into session this
morning, but has now pushed that off to 8 p.m. Wisconsin
Public Radio Capitol reporter Anya van Wagtendonk
joins us now from the Capitol with what's
happening. Hi, Anya. Thanks for being here.
>> Hey, thanks for having me.
>> So what is happening? >> Not very much. As you
say, they were meant to go into session earlier this
morning, and we have kind of waited around and heard, as
they have moved that start date quite a bit. Or that
start time, I should say. And so what that tells me is
that they are meeting in closed caucus. So things are
certainly happening. They are just not happening in a
way that we can see it. So we're waiting to see kind of
what agreements they bring to the table.
>> Could they actually cancel tonight's session?
>> I suppose that's possible. You know, I think
everyone's kind of running around a little bit, trying
to figure out exactly what's going on. A lot of texting
of sources and other journalists and, you know,
people that we know inside of lawmakers offices. And I
think the answer is no one really knows what's going
on. But I spoke with one reporter who's been covering
the budget for a lot longer than I have, and he said,
essentially, you know, if you can dream up a scenario,
it is possible. And so really, it's possible
anything could happen tonight. It could go very
late or things could get kind of shifted around.
>> Does this have to do with holdouts? Republican members
of the Senate as holdouts? >> Yeah. You know, again, we
don't know exactly what sort of the push and pull is. But
we have seen a lot of different scenarios kind of
unfolding over the last couple of weeks. So first we
saw legislative Republicans and Governor Tony Evers
talks between them kind of break down. Then they
returned to the table. Then discussions between Senate
Republicans and Assembly Republicans kind of came to
a standstill. There were some barbs being traded on
social media among Republicans over the
weekend. And so all of that is kind of within this loop.
We know that Governor Tony Evers has certain things
that he will not sign a budget without. Republicans
have said, you know, they access to meaningful tax
cuts. And so all of this is kind of swirling around. And
I think as we get close to that, that fiscal year
deadline, we're really starting to see things play
out. >> But meanwhile, they have
some very big ticket items to decide on tonight. And
potentially through the weekend.
>> Yeah, that's right. They have both a long list of
things in general. There's I think, 50 items on the
agenda for this, this meeting that has been
noticed. And then as you mentioned, some of them are
really significant. Notable the University of Wisconsin
system. Those are notable in part because they are
Governor Evers big priorities. He has said he
will not sign a budget that doesn't have meaningful
investment in either of those. And so what that ends
up being is a little bit of leverage for Republicans to
kind of get him to the table on those on those tax cuts.
But that also means that, you know, that there is, as
we mentioned, in the breakdown between Senate
Republicans and Assembly Republicans, a lot of push
pull around the amount of spending that the Democratic
governor would want. >> How does the slimmer
Republican majority inform how this budget session has
gone? >> Yeah. So that also really
speaks to, again, some of those chamber disputes that
are going on. So essentially there are enough Republican
votes in the Assembly. And ordinarily how this could
work is that Republicans just vote for the Republican
budget. And then the governor could go through
and kind of use his veto pen, the Democratic
governor. But in this case, in the Senate especially,
it's an 18 to 15 majority. So a much slimmer majority.
So if Republicans lose two votes, they don't have a
majority there. And it's actually looking like they
have lost two votes. There are two outspoken Republican
senators who have said they just can't support the
amount of spending that their Republican colleagues
are proposing in the Joint Finance Committee. And so,
because of those slimmer majorities, that means
either Republicans sort of need to get their folks in
line or give them concessions, or they need to
bring Democrats to the plate. And the way to bring
Democrats to the plate is to kind of offer a more
palatable options to Democrats. And so, again, we
don't exactly know all that's going on between
closed doors, but that's a huge part of the dynamic
that's at play. >> Was really about less
than a minute left. How does a ruling out of the state
Supreme Court around Evers vetoes play into this budget
process? >> Yeah, I think that's been
a big part of the conversation, because
breakdown of trust again, between Democrats and
Republicans in terms of how the governor has used his
veto pen in the past. And so what that did was kind of
give a little bit more clarity to the use of his
veto pen. And so at the end of all of this process, we
will at some point get a budget to the governor's
desk. And now there's just some clarity on how he can
and can't use that. >> And do we expect that
budget to get to his desk next week?
>> You know, it takes a while to write a budget. So
even just that labor of that will take a little bit of
time. So I am not terribly optimistic in that sense,
but I'm not in the prediction making business.
really appreciate you joining us, Anya van
Wagtendonk Wagtendonk from Wagtendonk Wagtendonk from