Evers Vetoes Gun Sanctuary Bill

With a pair of end-of-the week vetoes, Gov. Tony Evers rejected bills Friday afternoon that would have postponed redistricting for local elections and hampered attempts to enforce federal firearms laws in Wisconsin.

The redistricting bill, AB-369, would have delayed new maps for county board districts and ward boundaries until after the 2022 spring elections. New city aldermanic district maps wouldn’t take effect until 2023 elections, and county board maps not until 2024 elections under the bill.

Republican lawmakers who introduced the measure said that it was needed because census data needed to draw new district maps was delayed beyond the July 1, 2021, deadline due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his veto message, Evers said the delay that the legislation prescribed was too long, and “would result in local elections occurring for one or two more years under old district lines that were created as part of the same process which resulted in some of the most gerrymandered congressional and legislative seats in the country” — a reference to the state Legislature maps that the GOP lawmakers drew in secret in 2011.

A simpler alternative, said Evers, would have been to waive the July 1 deadline and help municipalities expedite redistricting.

“To deny Wisconsinites from having lawfully reapportioned local districts, even temporarily, is unjust and undemocratic,” he concluded.

The firearms bill, AB-293, would have made it a crime to enforce or try to enforce some federal firearm laws and also require Wisconsin gun manufacturers to stamp “Made in Wisconsin” on their products. The author, State Rep. Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi), said in an Assembly GOP news press conference in June that the measure would make Wisconsin “a Second Amendment sanctuary state.”

Evers stated in his veto message that by its attempt to nullify federal law, the legislation would violate the U.S. Constitution. It would also risk violating due process rights for Wisconsin residents and could “pose a detriment to public and community safety,” he wrote.

The governor noted that he had called a special session of the Legislature on gun safety in October 2019 to foster “common sense solutions that will both respect and uphold rights while keeping our communities safe.” The Legislature’s leaders gaveled the session in very briefly and out again without acting.

With double-barreled vetoes Evers rejects gun ‘sanctuary’ bill, local redistricting delay was originally published by the Wisconsin Examiner.