Evers’ Last Appeal to the GOP Legislature

Governor Tony Evers. File photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will give his final State of the State speech on Feb. 17 to a Republican-led Legislature that has 22 days of potential votes scheduled in the next four months.

The last governor who gave a State of the State speech after saying he would not seek reelection, Democrat Jim Doyle in 2010, presented to a Legislature controlled by his fellow Democrats.

It didn’t go well for Democrats that year. Republican Gov. Scott Walker won the first of two terms in the November 2010 election, and Republicans won control of the Legislature and haven’t lost it since then.

Evers, in what is expected to be his last address to lawmakers, is likely to outline his administration’s challenges — including the COVID-19 pandemic that killed more than 16,700 Wisconsin residents — while also asking for changes that he thinks Wisconsin needs and criticizing the policies of President Donald Trump.

Consider, for example, what Evers said about Trump in the governor’s budget message last year: “With so much happening in Washington that’s reckless and partisan, in Wisconsin, we must continue our work to be reasonable and pragmatic. With irresponsible decisions in Washington every day hurting people in Wisconsin, we will need to have state resources readily available to respond to basic and emergency situations.”

Evers and Republican legislators can avoid spending fights this year, since they passed a two-year budget that spends a record $114 billion.

“We had a bipartisan budget where we all got what we wanted,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the most senior Republican leader in the Capitol, said in a Dec. 30 interview with PBS Wisconsin.

So expect Evers to make a final ask of Republican legislators to pass many of his priorities that they dismissed last year. That includes Evers’ request that Wisconsin become the first state to start auditing insurance companies over denying health care claims. “If an insurance company is going to deny your health care claim, they should have a darn good reason for it,” he said.

Evers also wanted to extend “postpartum coverage for pregnant women on BadgerCare to up to one year after giving birth…[A] bipartisan bill to get it done [has] almost 90 legislators’ support. One legislator should not be able to single-handedly obstruct a bill that’s supported by a supermajority of the Legislature.”

The governor’s “one legislator” reference was to Vos, who explained why he opposes that change in the PBS interview. “Right now about half of the births in Wisconsin are unwed mothers, and they’re on Medicaid. We’re already taking care of them and their babies for the entire nine months of the pregnancy, and now up to three months afterward,” Vos said. “At some point the taxpayers have to say, ‘It’s your responsibility to care for the child that you decided to have.’”

Evers is also expected to ask — for the eighth time — that the Legislature expand Medicaid coverage to more middle-income residents, which he estimated a year ago would “expand quality, affordable health care coverage for about 100,000 Wisconsinites.”

That won’t happen, Vos said. “I would much rather focus on lowering health care costs for everyone as opposed to putting a few more people onto welfare that all of us are going to pay for.”

Vos said Republican legislators will draft a constitutional amendment, which could not become law until at least 2028, to prevent future vetoes by governors like the one Evers used to lock in annual increases in state aid for schools for 400 years.

“Gov. Evers also used his creative veto to make sure he had this 400-year guaranteed property tax increase,” the Assembly leader said. “He got his wish. My own property tax is 24% higher. That is not sustainable or affordable.

“If we want to care about making sure people can stay in their homes and afford to live in Wisconsin, we’ve got to have better controls on property taxes,” Vos added.

Vos also said he hopes Republican legislators put new limits on what can be purchased with food stamps. “It’s crazy to have taxpayers paying for junk food when you’re on food stamps.”

Republican legislators are also expected to consider bills legalizing online gaming at tribal casinos and to require that new AI data centers don’t raise electric rates for current consumers and to regulate the centers’ water use.

Legislative leaders scheduled potential votes for six days in January, 10 days in February and three days in both March and April.

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.