MADISON, Delete. (WMTV) – The first COVID-19 bill passed by the Wisconsin legislature was dead on arrival as soon as it reached Governor Tony Evers’ office.
The governor’s office immediately said that Evers had no intention of signing the legislation. Moments after the measure, called Assembly Bill 1, passed the senate around 1 a.m., the Evers administration released a statement promising that the governor would veto it.
“Wisconsinites know a compromise when they see one, and this is not it,” Evers stated in his initial statement, noting that his administration and Senate Republicans had previously reached a deal to see it fail in the Assembly.
Assembly chairman Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) fired back at the governor.
“It seems that Governor Evers cares more about his own power than the people of Wisconsin,” they wrote.
The two also said people who experience food insecurity would be disadvantaged by the veto.
“It is sad that Governor Evers is playing games at the expense of underprivileged people by endangering $ 50 million in food aid if the court eliminates the illegal public health emergency,” they said.
Within hours, Evers had fulfilled that promise. Within two hours, he issued a statement affirming the veto. In it, he focused specifically on how the bill would have limited the Department of Health Services’ ability to limit the size of meetings.
To win the Assembly’s support, lawmakers began adding items Evers previously said he would oppose, including a provision prohibiting employers from getting their employees vaccinated, another point Evers made in this veto.
“While [the compromise version] not contained every provision that each party would have liked, it would nevertheless have moved Wisconsin forward in addressing many issues, including flexibility for unemployment benefits, ”Evers wrote in his veto.
The compromise law included an extension of the increased unemployment benefits due to expire this weekend, with the governor’s office noting that the compromise law would have waived the week-long wait for new applicants. Ahead of the announced veto, Senate Major Leader Devin LeMahieu tweeted that if Evers didn’t sign AB1, unemployment recipients would lose $ 1.3 million a week in increased unemployment benefits.
The Senate had convened an extraordinary session on Friday morning to vote specifically on the proposal after it had been passed by the Assembly the previous day. The bill did not receive enough support to override a governmental veto.
“Unfortunately, the Republicans again chose to put politics before the people, abandoned that compromise and passed a bill that they knew I would not sign,” said Evers.
A spokesman for Evers’s office told NBC15 that the governor does not have the power to use his right of veto over this legislation to scrap only the elements he opposes. He must pass the entire bill or reject it altogether.
In his statement, Evers encouraged lawmakers to send the bill to his office so he could officially dismiss it.
He also criticized the legislature for taking so long to submit a bill to him. Lawmakers had not passed a COVID-19 bill in ten months.
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