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Communications
April 9, 2021
Edward A. Blazel
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Blazel:
hist131466Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 232, relating to assistance to households and property owners. hist131469Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 233, relating to grants for certain small businesses. Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 234, relating to tourism industry grants.
hist131468Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 237, relating to deposits into the unemployment reserve fund. hist131472Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 238, relating to allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds for local highways and bridges. Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 239, relating to the use of certain federal funds for broadband expansion grants.
hist131471Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 241, relating to retiring public debt and transportation revenue bonds. Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 243, relating to allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds for certain environmental purposes and granting rule-making authority.
Sincerely,
DAVID STEFFEN
State Representative
4th Assembly District
_____________
April 9, 2021
Edward A. Blazel
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Blazel:
hist131494Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 244, relating to top-five primaries and instant runoff voting for the offices of U.S. senator and U.S. representative in Congress. hist131500Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 251, relating to impersonating a public officer, public employee, or employee of a utility and providing a penalty. Sincerely,
STEVE DOYLE
State Representative
94th Assembly District
_____________
April 9, 2021
Edward A. Blazel
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Blazel:
hist131508Please add my name as a co-author of Assembly Bill 54, relating to farmland preservation implementation grants, agreements, and tax credits and making an appropriation. Sincerely,
DIANNE HESSELBEIN
State Representative
79th Assembly District
_____________
April 9, 2021
Edward A. Blazel
Assembly Chief Clerk
17 West Main Street, Suite 401
Madison, WI 53703
Dear Chief Clerk Blazel:
hist131521Please add my name as a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 251, relating to impersonating a public officer, public employee, or employee of a utility and providing a penalty. Sincerely,
JANET BEWLEY
State Senator
25th Senate District
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Transcript of Debate on Senate Bill 183
On Tuesday, March 23, Speaker Vos asked unanimous consent that the Chief Clerk's office transcribe the entire debate on Senate Bill 183 be entered in the journal. The full text of the debate follows:
Speaker Pro Tempore August: We’re on the fourth order of business on today's calendar, messages from the Senate. The Chief Clerk will read the message from the Senate.
Chief Clerk: Message from the Senate from Michael Queensland Senate Chief Clerk. Mr. Speaker, I am directed to inform you that the Senate has passed and asks concurrence in Senate Bill 183, relating to legislative oversight of federal COVID-19 funds.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: We’re on the tenth order of business on today's calendar, gentleman from the 40th.
Representative Peterson (40): Thank you Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Senate Bill 183 be taken off today’s calendar.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The gentlemen from the 40th asked unanimous consent that the rules be suspended and Senate Bill 183 be withdrawn from the Senate message and taken it up at this time. Is there any objection? Hearing none, the clerk will read the title of the bill.
Chief Clerk: Senate Bill 183, relating to legislative oversight of federal COVID-19 funds.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The question is shall Senate Bill 183 be ordered to a third reading? All in favor say aye, all opposed say no. The ayes have it. Gentleman from the 40th.
Representative Peterson (40): Thank you Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that the rules be suspended and Senate Bill 183 be given its third reading.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The gentlemen from 40th asked unanimous consent that the rules be suspended and Senate Bill 183 be given its third reading. Is there any objection? Hearing none, the clerk will read the title of the bill.
Chief Clerk: Senate Bill 183 relating to legislative oversight of federal COVID-19 funds.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: Having been read three times, shall Senate Bill 183 be concurred in? Lady from the 79th on concurrence.
Representative Hesselbein (79): Thank you Mr. Speaker. Why is this bill in front of us today? If you want to run for governor, run for governor. Maybe there's going to be a huge primary on that side of the aisle. I don't know. Um, but if there's one thing that's pretty clear from the speeches today, it’s that the Speaker just isn't into Governor Evers. But I tell you, Mr. Speaker, you should be, because this is just the short list of what Governor Evers and his administration did this past year. They implemented the We're All In grant program, providing nearly $240 million directly to small businesses facing hardship during this pandemic. In phase one, $65 million went to 26,000 small businesses across this entire state receiving $2500 each. In phase two, $130 million to 26,000 small businesses hit hardest by the pandemic receiving $50,000 each. In phase three, it directed to 2,000 restaurants receiving $20,000 each. Examples in my district include the Mustard Museum, Hubbard Avenue Diner, and I know I've talked about Hubbard Diner and their fantastic pies before, Little Strokes Swim Academy and Luna Pet Resort. In live music and entertainment venue grants, $15 million to 96 venues to help with financial stabilization. $131 million in targeted allocations for efforts aimed at addressing health care worker shortages and helping create capacity in Wisconsin hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. $40 million for hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. $30 million for post-acute admissions incentive payments for skilled nursing facilities. $60 million for a long term care direct payment program supplement. The Out of School Support grants of $6.6 million to 42 Wisconsin organizations. There was even a movie theater grant program, $10 million awarded to 54 movie theater operators across the entire state of Wisconsin. There was a $10 million investment aimed at providing economic stabilization for nonprofit organizations, providing critical services to Wisconsinites during COVID-19. There was $5 million awarded for the expansion of high speed broadband Internet. There is tourism relief to accelerate vitality and economic lift, called a travel grant, $8 million awarded to the travel industry. This money was spent all over the state of Wisconsin, in my district and in your district. People needed our help and the governor answered the call. Vote no on this bill. Once again, if you want to run for governor, have at it. Thank you.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: Question is concurrence of Senate Bill 183. Gentleman from the 63rd.
Speaker Vos (63): Since this is probably the most important bill that we're going to take up today, I would ask unanimous consent for a call the house.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The gentleman from the 63rd requests a call of the house under Assembly Rule 83. It requires 15 seconds. Are there 15 seconds? Those who will second, please rise. A sufficient number of seconds having been achieved the Assembly is under the call. The Sergeant at Arms will secure the chamber. Members will return to the chamber. The Clerk will call the roll. (Chief Clerk read the names)
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The Clerk will pause the roll. The gentleman from the 63rd, for what purpose do you seek recognition?
Speaker Vos (63): I ask unanimous consent that the call of the house be lifted.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: The gentleman from the 63rd has requested that his call be lifted. Without objection, it is so ordered. The question is concurrence of Senate Bill 183. The gentleman from the 63rd has the floor.
Speaker Vos (63): Thank you. I could do another call of the house as people choose to leave. I could. So. So what's amazing to me is that we have gotten to the point where something that should be perfunctory, has become somehow a partisan issue. So let's just rewind the clock back to 2009 when we last had a huge amount of federal dollars that came to Wisconsin. It was under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act under President Obama. It was actually a first in a generation. United Democrat legislature, all Democrats in charge of the Assembly, the Senate, the Finance Committee – they basically controlled the whole process. They had a governor of their own party. And one of the things, I didn't vote for a lot that session, but one of the things that I did vote for in the Finance Committee was the requirement that the legislature had oversight of the funds from the federal government. Wasn't partisan. It actually was something that people stood and said the legislature is the co-equal of the governor whether or not I agree with him or her. All across the country, we see more and more power going to the executive branch at the federal level and as I said before it was wrong under President Trump. I don't support executive orders. It's wrong if you have a Republican governor, it's wrong if you have a Democrat governor. Power should not rest in one person's hands. So back then, the gentleman from the 46th, the 54th, the 73rd, the 80th, and the 20th – the lady from the 20th – did what I did, which was to support the idea that we wanted to make sure there was legislative oversight no matter if the governor was in my own party or not. Now, we vote on a lot of bills and many of which are important, some are minor, some are really important, but if you think about the basic function, just try, if I could just ask people for just a few minutes to take off your partisan collar and put on your legislator hat. Think about yourself if you were on the city council or the county board before and you gave all of your ability to make decisions to the other branch of government. That is, in essence, what we have done by allowing a governor, regardless of party, to make all the choices – right or wrong. That should never happen. I looked up the reason that NCSL exists – it’s why I got involved. It is to strengthen the legislature and it is been harder and harder and harder because in states that are controlled by Republicans and Democrats, divided government, power has naturally flowed to the branch which is the most decisive. That is the executive branch. But being the most decisive does not mean that you make the wisest decisions. Which is why the framers intended to balance power so that it could not be in the hands of a king or a dictator. It was a slow, cumbersome process to have to reach consensus. That's what we want. In this situation, we know that other states have actually passed legislation to involve themselves in the decision-making process. Arkansas, all Republican, the Republicans said to their own governor we want to make sure that we have oversight of the funds even though they have a supermajority. Colorado, all Democrat legislature with a Democrat governor. They passed legislation to actually have more oversight. Kansas, a Democrat governor and a Republican legislature – passed. Now other states have different situations than we do. In six states, they actually have a situation where all federal dollars goes to a board that is decided by both branches of government – kind of like our finance process but not the same. In twelve states the executive branch may not receive the funding without authorization from the legislature. Now other states have just decided to include their legislature in the process because it's the right thing to do. Again, Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi and Tennessee. Most of those states the governor didn't have to include them, but they chose to. So why in the world was it good enough in 2009 with a fraction of the dollars that we're talking about today. But somehow because the legislature wants to actually have input, it’s micro-managing. Well, frankly, I believe that the governor's decision to take the money without any legislative involvement is unconstitutional. And let me make a very basic case as a non-lawyer. The Wisconsin Constitution provides “no money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation by law”. Very straightforward. Now if you actually read it, does anybody here know who Bronson LaFollette was? He was our Wisconsin attorney general for much of my lifetime. Do you know what party he was in? He was a Democrat. And do you know what he opined? That this constitutional provision requires that the “state legislature authorizes and appropriates money”. That comes to the state from a federal disaster relief bill. That's the Democrat attorney general. So you can choose to vote with us which is a very robust process where it goes through Finance. It's expedited if you actually have ideas to make the process quicker because the goal is not to slow it down but to give transparency and oversight. I would be open to those amendments. Because instead what you've chosen to do is just reflexively say I work for Tony Evers, not my own district. Now thank you to the five people who said it last time that they didn't work for Jim Doyle, they worked for the people of their districts by having legislative involvement. So we have a chance to fix it. Now if for some reason the governor chooses to veto this bill, we will have no choice but to go to court, because the Constitution is crystal clear and Attorney General Bronson LaFollette was right. The governor doesn't have the right to commit the legislature which is the organization – the constitutional body that appropriates funds. He does not have the right to put us on the hook with the federal government unilaterally. You've probably read about this goofy provision that was put in by the Congress which says that we don't have the right to cut taxes with our own resources if we choose to accept the federal dollars. Now that might have some salience if the legislature and the governor, through statute, both agree to accept the federal dollars. But how is it constitutionally possible that a governor has the right to take money that has strings attached which binds the other chambers, that binds the other parts of state government. It’s wrong. Just imagine if under a Republican governor, because don't forget this money has four years to be spent, four years, that means when Governor Evers is replaced in January of 2023, whoever that Republican governor is can choose to give all the money to causes that they care about. You wouldn't even know where it was going until the money was already spent. I can just imagine the howls and the unbelievable statements that would be made talking about unaccountability and lack of transparency and how could he do this with taxpayer money. So I'm actually bookmarking this debate in my favorites because when this happens in 2023 and the Republican governor gets to spend all this money carte blanche I'm going to look back and say how many of you stood with me when I intend under that Republican governor to bring the exact same bill back because it shouldn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat the legislature should have the ability to have transparency. So how hard would it be for you to help us avoid a lawsuit, stand up for the institution that you were elected to protect, which is the legislature. It's not that difficult. Other states have done it. Other legislators in these very chairs have done it. We should do it. If you have an amendment I would be more than happy to ask you to caucus, come back to us, we will wait because this is the single most important bill that we're going to take up in this floor period. Nothing is more important than making sure that transparency, openness, good government is protected. If you choose to vote no, you will basically be saying what's the point of having a legislature if a governor has the ability to commit all the funds, to commit a future legislature, to commit us to certain policy positions whether we agree with them or not, you are abdicating your constitutional duty to stand up and do what I think we should all be rallying around which is to have the legislature be at least a co-equal branch. At least a co-equal branch. So I hope you will take my offer seriously. I hope you will go back and say here are ways that we could copy the exact language. We could expedite the process. We could make sure that the taxpayers at least know where the money goes because even as of today we have no idea beyond press releases where the money was really spent from the first round of federal dollars. Much less the second round or the third round or whatever future round there might be. So I hope you will take some time. Figure out if you can at least offer an amendment to try to get a way to get to yes because mark my words when we are back here in two years I just know exactly what's going to happen and you will be all in favor of this bill showing that either you really believe in it by voting for it today or it is literally nothing more than a partisan ploy to stand with a Democrat when he's in the office and when a Republican follows him to somehow say it was a big mistake. So please take the time, look at an amendment, come back to us and I promise you I give you my word that we will seriously consider it to see if there's a way we can support it and get this to the governor's desk with a strong bipartisan vote in the way that it should be.
Speaker Pro Tempore August: Gentleman from the 54th.
Representative Hintz (54): Hold on a second. So Wisconsin Republicans actually want to spend federal money now? I mean, c'mon! It's already been like seven years and $2 billion dollars of leaving money on the table. And so all of a sudden now there's this interest. I mean isn't that part of the problem? I mean the reality is lawmakers in Washington realize that there were legislatures like Wisconsin and, you know, they gave money directly to communities and directly to providers, thank goodness. With the input of Senator Baldwin and others probably and definitely tried to do that so we wouldn't have this problem because they knew there were too many states that wouldn't take advantage of, that would penalize their constituents to subscribe to ideology or to try to make the governor look bad. So I mean, in this case, I think there is a really good reason. Because time after time, since the lame duck session, the priority has been to undermine this governor and why would we expect that to be any different in this case? I mean there's very clear differences in terms of the approach, in terms of governing during the Evers administration, but also during the pandemic of what the priorities are. I mean I'm not surprised – you probably will use taxpayer money to sue, right? Because you didn’t get your way. We have very different, you have very different ideas of executive power depending on who is in the executive branch and you don't seem to have recovered from that. In terms of any comparisons to 2009, you had a Democratic governor who wanted to do what was right, you had a Joint Finance Committee controlled by Democrats that wanted to do what's right. In this case, here like well, you know, we've left $2 billion dollars of taxpayer money and penalize their own constituents but, you know, we want to have a say in not spending federal money or doing what we want with it, you know, to undermine Governor Evers. I mean, again, you took away executive power before he was even sworn in because it was him, and my guess is if, unfortunately, we would ever end up in a place with a Republican governor again you'd probably give that power back, because it was never about co-equals, it was about who is in office and who is in power and so in this specific case because of your track record, because of your lack of interest in actually utilizing resources for the public good, why would you, you know, why would you have the keys to micromanage Governor Evers response to the pandemic? Why would we even consider that? I mean, again, it's the executive branch. That's if – you want to be governor, be governor. But a bunch of politicians weighing in on a hearing over spending decisions that have largely been driven by what is in the best outcome for a public health response by state agencies who have people there who work on this, is a way to be done. And this is an executive function. The real question is you'll have the opportunity in the budget to bring in $1.6 billion because they've incentivized and encouraged states. They've made it easy for states that have made the same mistakes you guys have to get it right and then by freeing up taxpayer dollars this budget will be able to do a lot of things that I think we all want to be able to accomplish. So. I don't know that you have the credibility you think you do on this issue and if you didn't have a track record of undermining the governor at all costs, this governor, over the last two years including with the lame duck session, you know you don't get to be in the position you think you're in today.
Representative Spiros: Gentleman from the 39th.
Representative Born (39): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, that was fascinating. I was, I was kind of curious as to what argument the other side was going to make about turning their back on a basic function of the legislative branch. So that was very interesting that last speech. Basically, the legislature, as an equal branch that normally oversees budget operations in appropriations, should just give up on that, turn all this money over to the executive because it might make the governor look bad? And because we disagreed on a policy decision earlier. So if we're not ok with expanding welfare, it means we should just abdicate all of our oversight of money. Is that the argument that was just made? That's exactly what he just said, Mr. Speaker. It's like its ok for us, or at least members of the other side of the aisle, to say we're going to vote against a basic function of the legislature. We're going to continue to give up more and more power to the executive branch, because, oh man, it might make the governor look bad. Or, because we disagreed on policy items regarding welfare expansion. If you look at any basic text on the role of the legislature in our system of government, whether it be at the federal or the state level, it will say things like the role of the legislature is the power of the purse or controlling the state’s purse strings, creating budgets and if you look at our own Wisconsin Blue Book and how it describes the role of the legislature it says specifically no money paid out of Treasury unless the legislature specifically appropriates it. Apparently, that's an exception if it's federal money that comes in and the governor wants to do it and we don't want to make him look bad so we give up our role of appropriating funds. We make sure that that federal money never touches that Treasury and just give up that responsibility if you're listening to the argument on the other side of the aisle. I find that ridiculous. I think this – earlier the gentleman from the 63rd made a good point when he asked us to think about it from a local government perspective. A lot of us come from local government experience. I sat on the city council in Beaver Dam. There is no way I would have considered, you know again that's a nonpartisan office so you don't get clouded by some of this partisan junk that we do here. There's no way I would have considered just giving up that total authority to the mayor. You wouldn't do that on a city council. You wouldn’t do that on a county board but you'll do it here because we don't want to make the governor look bad. That's our big argument from the other side today. The legislature has a responsibility to make financial decisions. That's our main role – one of our main roles as a separate but equal branch of government and just because this is federal money doesn't mean that we stop that role and, in fact, we have specific examples where we continue to do that role. We have right now in the Joint Finance Committee, in a process that's fairly similar to what we're asking for in this bill, federal child care money that came in from the federal government as part of the very same bill that we're talking about. The same federal bill that is getting a review right now – a passive review of the Joint Committee on Finance. This isn't some wild idea that can't be done or has never been done before. We did the same thing a few weeks ago on transportation money that came into the state. Those things are already set up in the statutes to come before the committee. All we're seeing here is let's follow a similar process – not a long elaborate process – not something that's brand new that's never been done before and is specifically, in this case of this appropriation, something very similar was done in 2009, with again, as the gentleman from the 63rd pointed out, a number of you on the other side of the aisle voted in support of that. It's done in other states. We do it now on the things that I've already cited. This is not complicated. This is a simple accepting the responsibility that comes with being a legislature and handling as it's frequently referred to in various different text books that talk about the legislative branch just simply taking care of the purse. The simple appropriations of money and this is a lot of money. The people's representatives, that's us, that's our colleagues in the Senate, should play a role and I encourage all of us to step up, accept our responsibility and vote in support of this legislation.
Representative Spiros: Representative from the 81st.
Representative Considine (81): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Wow. The representative from the 63rd had some interesting things to say but the very first thing he said really struck me. Legislation is a slow and cumbersome process. That's why we're standing here today in opposition to this bill. Because it must be a slow and cumbersome process because your side of the aisle didn't even bring it up until now it's a year since we got the first funds. Why didn't we do something about this in April when we met? Why didn’t we see it then? Why didn't we see it in January? I don't know. It's really slow and it's really cumbersome and so I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, and I would ask the people of Wisconsin: Do you want a slow and cumbersome process during the midst of a pandemic to get the funds that you need to survive? Because I can name hundreds of businesses from my district that would not have survived had you played this game originally. Now I get that part about oversight, I get it, but you know it was interesting. The gentleman from Beaver Dam just talked about it and he laid – almost every time he used the word budget – and the budget process. Well frankly in a pandemic we can't wait for the budget process and the federal government didn't mean for us to wait for the budget process. What they meant for us was to get the hands of that money into the hands of the people of the state of Wisconsin. So that the restaurants who had to close down or almost totally closed down could pay their personnel. So that we could have extra money sent for PPE to the nursing homes of our state. That needed to happen immediately. So that we could contrary to what was said a little earlier about the allegations that we heard in January about how bad Wisconsin was doing on vaccination. It's really interesting, you know, the states that you talked about that led back then? They were giving the Moderna virus which was much easier to get. You know why we were so far behind? Because 95% of ours was the Pfizer which was much more difficult to distribute and much more difficult to get all around to the areas of the state and the minute we got another two or three weeks we were leading the nation, or very close to it, because we had a plan and it was a plan that worked using some of the funds that were made immediately available. I had a whole list of things that I wanted to talk about but I think the gentleman from the 63rd gave us enough. You're right. It's a slow, cumbersome process and your side of the aisle will prove that. It took you a year to bring this to us after billions of dollars were put into our economy by our governor and I'm really grateful that we had a leader that was going to take charge and do the job and get that money into the hands of the people so we didn't have more people die in the pandemic, so they didn't we didn't lose more businesses, so that theater owners have a chance to survive and reopen, so that the tourism business in my area has a chance to get through this and make it back. You know it’s kind of great that they sent that money because I know another engineering firm, I know several engineering firms, that took the PPE and people were condemning them because they took it but they weren't sure they were going to be able to survive. They took it and put it in the bank. Want to know why? Because they are fiscally conservative like I am and they're waiting because they're going to pay it back, they're going to find out what their tax bill is, they're going to have to pay every dime back so you bet they put it in a bank and it sat there. In the meantime, they had a chance to survive and make sure that they could survive and thrive. That wouldn’t have happened if we hadn't gotten that funds to them immediately. So you're right, slow, cumbersome. And I don't – amendments? Let's get this done quickly. What happened with the attorney general and the oversight of his funds and the collection of votes – how many months did we delay millions of dollars coming into our state coffers and you can blame it on something that you didn't know was going to happen, I guess about how you're going to make him report it. That's what the newspaper said but it doesn't make any difference. Hundreds of millions of dollars sat around for a few months while you decided what to do. I'm sorry, the people of the state of Wisconsin couldn't wait a year ago and they can't wait now. This money needs to get into their hands. The vote is no.
Representative Spiros: Gentleman from the 5th.
Representative Steineke (5): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the gentleman from the 81st yield to a question? (Considine yields). Ok so for the gentleman – gentleman from the 81st can you tell me if you have any knowledge (unintelligible) the governor has to spend the money that is coming in in this latest round of stimulus money?
