Frankenstein Veto amendment goes to voters
by River Town staff ¦ New Richmond News ¦ 12 December 2007 When Gov. Jim Doyle called the Legislature into special session Tuesday he wanted them to take up campaign finance reform and insurance coverage of autism. Neither of the measures was acted on by either house. What he got instead was the Senate finally voting on an amendment to the state Constitution that would place further restrictions on his line item veto authority. By a vote of 33-0 Senators passed the measure which has become known as the “Frankenstein Veto Amendment.” This means voters will get a chance to approve the amendment in the upcoming April elections. The amendment prohibits governors from using their veto authority to create new sentences by combining parts of two or more sentences of a bill. The amendment was initially authored by Sen. Shelia Harsdorf, R-River Falls, when Doyle partially vetoed 752 words out of four subsections of the 2005-07 biennial state budget to obtain a 20-word sentence, which in turn transferred $427 million from the transportation budget to the general fund. “I am confident voters will reject the mockery the Frankenstein Veto has made of our state’s budget process,” said Harsdorf after Monday’s vote. “This budget reform will help protect taxpayers, build a better democratic system, and restore voter confidence in state government,” she added. Harsdorf added that if the amendment had been in place during this year’s budget process it would have saved Wisconsin property taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in property tax increases. Prior to 1931, governors could only sign or veto bills in their entirety. In November 1930, voters amended the constitution to permit governors to veto appropriation bills in whole or in part. In April 1990, voters approved a constitutional amendment prohibiting the governor from creating a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill. The current amendment was passed by the Assembly by a vote of 70-25 earlier this year. In other Legislative action on Tuesday, the Assembly adopted the cable TV deregulation bill. The Assembly put off the final vote on the controversial measure which requires hospitals to provide a sexual assault victim information about emergency contraception and provide them with the emergency contraception if they request it. Finally, the Assembly voted 84-12 to rename the state’s holiday tree as the Wisconsin State Christmas Tree. That measure must now go to the Senate, which is not expected to take up the measure before the holiday this year.
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