This case—an original action in the Wisconsin Supreme Court on behalf of a retired art professor and a substitute teacher—seeks to invalidate a partial veto that enabled school boards around Wisconsin to raise property taxes without voter approval for 400 years.
In the 2023–2025 biennium budget bill, the Wisconsin Legislature approved a two-year increase of the school-district revenue limit. Under the guise of a partial veto, however, Governor Tony Evers added 400 years to that two-year increase. As passed by the legislature, this revenue-limit increase would have lasted through the “2024–25” school year. But the Governor struck the “20” and the dash in the phrase “2024–25,” making the increase last through the year 2425.
The WMC Litigation Center made two constitutional arguments against the Governor’s veto. First, it argued the veto, in lengthening a two-year duration to a 402-year duration, did not approve “part” of a bill within the meaning of Article V, § 10(1)(b) of the Wisconsin Constitution. Second, the WMC Litigation Center argued that in deleting a “20” and a dash, the veto constituted a Vanna White veto, a type of veto prohibited under Article V, § 10(1)(c) of the Wisconsin Constitution.
