Bizarre veto triggers 400 years of funding for Wisconsin public schools: report

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers just secured 400 years of funding increases for Wisconsin public schools, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel— by crossing out a tiny part of a line in a state budget sent to his desk.

Specifically, Evers took a section that authorized a funding increase for the "2024-25" school year, and vetoed the digits "20" and the hyphen, along with a few of the words before and after — changing the bill so that it now says the funding increases are authorized through the year "2425."

"The surprise move will ensure districts' state-imposed limits on how much revenue they are allowed to raise will be increased by $325 per student each year until 2425, creating a permanent annual stream of new revenue for public schools and potentially curbing a key debate between Democrats and Republicans during each state budget-writing cycle," reported Molly Beck and Jessie Opoein. "Evers told reporters at a press conference in the Wisconsin State Capitol on Wednesday his action would 'provide school districts with predictable long-term increases for the foreseeable future.'"

"The veto was one of more than four dozen the Democratic governor made to reshape the $99 billion two-year state budget Republicans passed last week," noted the report. "Among the vetoes was the majority of the centerpiece of Republican lawmakers' budget plan: a $3.5 billion tax cut that focused relief for the state's wealthiest residents."

In some states, governors have what is known as a "line-item veto," allowing them to approve bills as a whole but veto specific lines they don't approve of — a practice often used to block funding for a specific program, or prevent a specific tax cut or tax increase.

But in Wisconsin, line-item veto power is taken to an extreme — thanks to the extremely broad way the power was written in the state Constitution in 1930, the governor can cross out not just lines, but specific words, numbers, and punctuation, effectively allowing them power to rewrite the bill to mean something completely different. In 1973, Gov. Patrick Lucey made an appropriations bill do the exact opposite of the legislature's intent by vetoing the word "not" from the phrase "not less than 50 percent."

Voters have passed referendums limiting this power somewhat, prohibiting the governor from vetoing letters from words to change them into new words, or creating new sentences by attaching the first half of a sentence to the second half of another. However, Wisconsin's line-item veto still allows the governor to delete words within a sentence, even if it changes the meaning.