Evers Budget Removes State Senate Power to Block His Political Appointees
His attempt to overturn lame duck laws passed in 2018 criticized by Republicans.
Gov. Tony Evers delivers the State of the State address Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed state budget seeks to strip the state Senate of some of its power to block his political appointees from serving on state boards and in state agencies.
A Republican senator says the change would remove the chamber’s ability to vet Evers’ picks, as more than 180 appointees await confirmation.
The change in Evers’ voluminous state budget proposal would repeal a lame-duck law passed by Republicans after Evers defeated former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2018. One of those changes was a new power blocking governors from renominating political appointees who are rejected by the Senate. The law also explicitly prevented those appointees from serving in provisional roles after they’re rejected.
In a post to the social media site X Monday, state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said Evers’ repeal “essentially gets rid of the Advice & Consent of the Senate.”
“If the Senate rejects a nominee, no worries,” Wanggaard said. “They can still serve!”
Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback responded with a post accusing Republicans of “lying about what the governor’s budget does and doesn’t do.”
“This is a repeal of the 2018 lame-duck provisions Republicans passed because you were mad about losing to a Democrat,” Cudaback said.
Since Evers took office in January 2019, Republican senators have fired a number of his appointees from various roles overseeing state boards. In February 2024, they fired former Democratic Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton from the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority and Board without citing a cause.
Around the same time, the Senate fired an Evers appointee to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission who had been working in the role for nearly four years awaiting confirmation.
Data compiled by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau shows more than 180 of Evers’ appointees are still awaiting confirmation by the Senate.
Republicans say provision coming out of the budget
In an interview with WPR, Wanggaard said the 2018 change was about adding “teeth” to the Senate’s process for vetting political appointees. He said it’s expected that Evers will pick people who support his political positions, but it’s the Senate’s responsibility to interview them to make sure they are serving “for the right reasons.”
“So, we still have the leverage over that person, just to make sure they’re going to not make it political,” Wanggaard said.
When asked about why the Senate is waiting to confirm so many appointees, Wanggaard said it’s up to leadership to decide when to hold the confirmation hearings. He said there are some appointees he’d like to confirm, like Jared Hoy, who has been serving as state Department of Corrections secretary since May 2024 without a confirmation vote.
Wanggaard said waiting on confirmation has benefits, like giving senators a chance to “get a record of what they do” while serving in their roles.
Republican leaders in the Wisconsin Legislature have already said that Evers’ budget proposal is “dead on arrival.” Wanggaard said the change to the appointment process “will be stripped out, for sure.”
The back-and-forth over appointments is part of an ongoing power struggle between Republican lawmakers and Evers over how state government is run.
Evers budget seeks to remove state Senate power to block his political appointees was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Van Wanggaard might have a leg to stand on if the Senate actually did its job to confirm appointees. It is not “usual practice” to see how an appointee acts in his or her role before deciding on whether to confirm. The senators are supposed to have enough intelligence and judgment to be able to develop questions that would lead them to discern how someone would make decisions or act as a department secretary or board member before that person begins. If the current senators are unable to carry out this task, they should be replaced by someone more capable.
On another note, the regular response of Republicans is to say that Governor Evers’s proposals are “dead on arrival.” What do they propose? Nothing but tax cuts. In this era of uncertainty about federal support, tax cuts for the wealthy and failure to support public education for all are losing propositions for the state. I wish they’d get out of their very little bubbles.