Destroying Democracy to Save It: Wisconsin Governor Applauded for Unilaterally Changing Law for 400 Years

“…One of the greatest contradictions in politics today are those who declare themselves “pro-democracy” while seeking to gerrymander election districts, support FBI crackdowns on speech, attack reporters and whistleblowers, and defend censorship. One of the most vocal in expressing his pride in “being pro-democracy” is Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who just used a partial veto power to negate legislative authority in his state.

Evers was given a bill that increased funding for the 2024-25 school years. Using his partial veto authority, Evers crossed out the “20” and the hyphen. In doing so, he changed the law to allow K-12 schools to raise their revenue per student by $325 a year until 2425. It was never intended nor contemplated by the Republican-controlled legislature.

No one is seriously arguing that this was an intended use of the partial veto authority. Indeed, after prior governors used the partial veto to create new words in legislation, it was barred in 2008. However, Evers is now doing the same thing by eliminating digits and punctuation to create new numbers.

Evers has been a recidivist in such manipulation of legislation, issued 51 partial vetos, including three struck down by the state Supreme Court…”