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 Capital
reporter Anya Van Woutendon
joins us now from the Capitol with
what's happening.
Hi Anya, thanks for being here.
Hey, thanks 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, 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.
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 people that
we know inside of lawmakers'
offices. And I think the answer is
no one really knows what's on,
but I spoke with one reporter who's
been covering the budget for a lot
longer than I have, and he said
essentially, 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 will not give up
their access to meaningful tax cuts.
And so all of this is kind of
swirling around. And I think as we
get close to 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 meeting
that has been noticed.
And then as you mentioned, some of
them are really significant.
Notable among those is child
care and 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 credit 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
their Republican budget, and then
the governor could go through and
kind of use his partial 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 the Democrats
to plate is to kind of offer
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.
With 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 there'd
been a real 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 partial 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.
All right. Well, we really
appreciate you joining us.
Anya Van Wante Wagon
Donk from Wisconsin Public Radio.
Thank you.
Sorry I butchered your name there at
the end.
Everyone does. I should have offered
a pronuncer at the top.
I don't know if you want to...
I have one.
I wrote one.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's a mouthful
You're great.
Thank you.
Really great and thank you so much
for hanging with us through this
whole day and thank you for
your service into the night.
That's very kind.
Thank you. Although they could
cancel,
right? I mean.
Am I allowed to say I wouldn't mind?