Wisconsin
Wisconsin's partial veto has stood for nearly a century. The Wisconsin Supreme Court will give it another look.
While dozens of other states have line-item vetoes, Wisconsin stands alone when it comes to the power it gives its governors through what’s known as the partial veto. Now, it’s up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to decide whether it stays that way.
The state’s partial veto dates back to 1930, when concerns about state lawmakers adding multiple appropriation and policy items into what are known as omnibus bills came to a head. The Wisconsin Constitution was amended to give more power to governors to reject those items, one by one.
“Appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law,” the new amendment read.
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According to a study by the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, proponents believed governors needed a check on the new budgeting process. But opponents worried giving governors more veto authority extended the already broad powers of the executive branch.
When he was campaigning for governor, Phillip La Follette said the proposal to expand veto powers “smack[ed] of dictatorship.” The amendment was approved by around 62 percent of voters in 1930, and after he was elected, La Follette became the first governor to use it.
Nine times, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has heard challenges to the partial veto. The case now pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court will make it an even ten.
Evers used partial veto to extend school funding increase for 400 years
The latest challenge focuses on Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto in the last state budget, which extended a school funding increase through the year 2425. It’s the latest of many attempts to restrict a veto power that a federal judge once described as “quirky.”
Evers’ partial veto last summer caught the Republican-controlled Legislature by surprise. By crossing out a 20 and a dash before he signed the state’s two-year budget, Evers authorized school districts to collect additional property taxes to fund a $325 per-pupil increase for more than 400 years. The Legislature intended the increase to expire in two years.
Republican lawmakers were outraged. The GOP-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted to override Evers’ veto, but the Assembly never followed suit.
The challenge the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to hear Monday, which was brought by the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, alleges Evers’ veto violates the state’s constitution. The first legal briefs are due by July 16.
Democratic and Republican governors have used partial vetoes extensively
Evers’ latest veto received national attention, but he was hardly the first Wisconsin governor to push the limits of the unique power.
Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker struck individual digits from dates written in the 2017 state budget to change a one-year moratorium on school referendums aimed at raising taxes for energy efficiency projects into a 1,000-year moratorium. The Supreme Court’s former conservative majority threw out a challenge to Walker’s veto because it was filed too late.
Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle used his partial veto to combine parts of unrelated sentences in the 2005 budget to move more than $400 million from the state’s transportation fund into the general fund. That led to a constitutional amendment in 2008 at preventing future governors from using what became known as the “Frankenstein Veto.”
With his first state budget in 1987, former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson partially struck phrases, digits, letters and word fragments, using what was known as the “Vanna White” veto, to create new sentences and fiscal figures. The Supreme Court upheld Thompson’s partial veto, but in 1990, voters approved a constitutional amendment specifying that governors cannot create new words by striking individual letters.
University of Wisconsin Law School State Democracy Research Initiative Attorney Bryna Godar told WPR governors have gotten creative with how they’ve used partial vetoes, “but we now have this very long standing practice that is really codified in state law.”
Godar said even the constitutional amendments aimed at restricting a governor’s partial veto powers were — in some way — a stamp of approval from the Legislature.
“They didn’t completely do away with this,” Godar said. “If people really wanted that, you could argue that they could have amended the constitution to completely do away with this type of partial veto.”
Godar said it’s possible that current lawmakers don’t want to restrict partial veto powers too much in case the current political power structure of the Legislature and Governor’s office switch in the future.
Until 2020, Supreme Court generally allowed partial vetoes to stand
For as long as Wisconsin has had a partial veto, there have been lawsuits about how governors have used it.
The first came in 1935 and challenged the governor’s partial veto of an emergency relief bill, which approved funds but struck provisions related to how the Legislature wanted the money to be spent. The court upheld the partial veto so long as the remaining language equates to “a complete, entire, and workable law.”
Future courts upheld partial vetoes in 1936, 1940, 1976, 1978, 1988, 1995 and 1997.
Things changed in 2020 when three of four partial vetoes by Evers in the 2019 state budget were struck down by the Supreme Court’s former conservative majority. But instead of a single majority opinion, the court issued what’s known as a fractured ruling. There were four opinions issued by justices that provided different tests for whether a partial veto can be constitutional.
“Those vetoes in that case were pretty in line with what governors from either party have done in prior decades,” Godar said. “They weren’t a significant departure from how this has been used in the past, but the court struck down three of them.”
But not having a “unified majority opinion” in the 2020 case, Godar said the court didn’t offer clear reasoning on how governors can use the partial veto in the future. But that could change in the latest case challenging Evers’ veto.
“I am really curious to see how the court rules in this case,” Godar said. “Because I think they will tell us a lot about what type of partial veto we will have going forward, and if it will continue to be this pretty broad, granular veto, or if it will be more based on subject matter.”
Looking at the big picture, Godar said the question is whether the legislative and executive branches are “striking the right balance” of power.
“And so, it is ultimately up to the Legislature and the people if they want to restrict it more significantly, which they could do in the future,” Godar said.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are pushing for another constitutional amendment in reaction to Evers’ latest veto. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a proposed amendment aimed at keeping future governors from using the partial veto pen to “create or increase or authorize the creation or increase of any tax or fee.”
Before the new language can be added to the constitution, the measure must pass the full Legislature during the next legislative session and be approved by voters in a statewide referendum.
Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shares his biggest spring takeaway
Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield shared his biggest takeaway from the spring following the Badgers’ four-set win over Northern Illinois.
MADISON – Kelly Sheffield has coached All-Americans, national players of the year, national champions and future Olympians in his 13 years as Wisconsin volleyball coach.
So Sheffield’s unique praise of Decelise Champion – a star pin-hitter from Puerto Rico who committed to the Badgers last fall – carries a lot of weight.
“Her highest-end potential is certainly as high as about anybody we’ve ever brought in,” Sheffield said. “She’s got a lot of work to get to where she’s capable of, and that’s on us as coaches and on her to help reach those dreams and goals. But when you’re watching people around her age, she’s different.”
That work is beginning earlier than initially expected after Wisconsin announced that Champion will reclassify from the 2027 recruiting class and join the Badgers as a freshman for the 2026 season.
Champion – currently 16 years old and turning 17 in September – will arrive with a resume that includes experience on Puerto Rico’s senior national team and the elite Italian club Volleyro Casal de Pazzi. That’s all while being strong enough academically to earn a GED degree and the necessary NCAA waiver for a few missing core classes.
“What made it really a lot better is that all of her grades at the different schools she’s been at have been fantastic,” Sheffield said. “She’s an excellent student. Was crushing it at a really, really good academic school in Italy in her third language.”
The timing of the June 12 announcement accounted for the second-last open roster spot for the 2026 season, but Champion and UW’s efforts to make the reclassification possible go back much earlier than that.
“We’ve known she’s wanted to do this since February,” Sheffield said. “We told our team in February that was the plan. And then we didn’t let anybody know publicly until she was done with her season. She just didn’t want to be a distraction for her team.”
Badgers have even more competition at pins
Wisconsin already had plenty of competition at the pin-hitting positions before Champion’s move to the 2026 class.
Grace Egan had a major role on the 2025 Final Four team, and Eva Travis had an impressive spring after transferring from UC-Santa Barbara. Others include Grace Lopez, Madison Quest and the highly-touted freshman duo of Halle Thompson and Audrey Flanagan.
Even with the upcoming addition of one more pin-hitter – and one with such a high potential – UW did not lose any players in the spring transfer portal cycle. Even the idea of someone leaving seemed outlandish to Sheffield.
“If they’re just going to get up and leave because somebody came, I would say that that person is probably chicken s—,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield’s praise of Champion’s proposal obviously does not come with a guarantee of playing time either at the crowded pin-hitting positions.
“I would say, yeah, she does have a chance of being out on the court for us this year,” Sheffield said. “But we’ve also got some other really talented people that play the pins.”
The outside and right-side hitters already on UW’s spring roster will have at least one key advantage over Champion in her freshman season – time.
Egan, Lopez and Quest are returning players (although Egan and Lopez spent their spring recovering from injuries). Travis, Thompson and Flanagan all enrolled in time to spend the spring with the Badgers and impressed in UW’s spring matches.
Champion’s arrival, on the other hand, will follow her participation in an Olympic-qualifying event for Puerto Rico. Sheffield expects that to be Sept. 2, which is the day before fall classes begin and already after UW’s first four matches of the season.
“She’ll be drinking out of a fire hose early on, no doubt about it,” Sheffield said. “Even though she’s been playing with her senior national team this summer, it will be a lot of things coming at her in her secondary language at 16, so there’ll need to be some patience along the way.”
His advice to Champion when she was on campus earlier in June was to “be where your feet are.”
“When she’s with her national team – even though we will have started our preseason, playing matches – don’t worry about us here,” Sheffield said. “Be where your feet are. Be the best you can be for your team there. … Then when you get here, you’re not thinking about your national team.”
Champion’s NCAA eligibility clock starts earlier
Champion’s reclassification comes with the drawback of beginning her NCAA eligibility one year earlier in her volleyball career.
Had she stayed in the 2027 recruiting class, she theoretically would have begun her college career shortly before her 18th birthday and exhausted her eligibility at age 22. Instead, she will begin her college career shortly before her 17th birthday and likely exhaust her eligibility at age 21.
Those scenarios take into account the NCAA Division I Cabinet’s unanimous approval on June 23 of a new eligibility model that will give players five seasons of eligibility in five years. (That replaces the current system with four seasons, redshirts and other waivers.) The NCAA noted that its decision is not final, however, until the meeting concludes on June 24.
“We’re certainly excited to have her this year, but if you kind of think over the course of five years, it’s probably worse for us that she comes a year early,” Sheffield said. “You expect her to be better at 20 and 21 than what she is at 16 or 17. … It really wasn’t something that we were pushing for, but she was ready.”
Of course, volleyball at age 16 or 17 looks different for someone like Champion who has been competing against much older players as a senior national team member and studying halfway across the world from her hometown of Dorado, Puerto Rico.
“When you talk to her, she doesn’t come across as somebody who’s 16,” Sheffield said. “She’s very mature, very easy to talk to, very driven. She’s independent. … She’s had a lot more life experience than most people her age, and that certainly comes across when you’re around her.”
Wisconsin
Cult-classic filmed in central Wisconsin returns to big screen, with enhancements, this weekend
STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAW) – A giant spider isn’t actually invading central Wisconsin this weekend.
But an enhanced, big-screen version of the cult-classic 1975 film The Giant Spider Invasion is crawling back into local theaters — and it’s bringing some central Wisconsin nostalgia with it.
The movie was famously filmed in Merrill and Stevens Point, and the updated 2026 release adds enhancements designed for a modern theatrical experience.
What’s new in the 2026 enhanced version?
Executive Producer J.B. Thompson says the team took the original 1975 film and enhanced it for the big screen in 2026, giving audiences a refreshed way to experience a movie that’s long been a Wisconsin oddity — and a point of pride.
Actor and Producer Dan Davies is featured in newly filmed scenes created specifically for this updated release.
Stevens Point’s role in the original film
While much of the film is associated with Merrill, Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza says Point also played a major role in the production — another reason the film’s return matters to local history buffs and movie fans alike.
Why does this movie still capture attention 50 years later?
Whether it’s the over-the-top creature feature story, the uniquely Wisconsin filming locations, or the nostalgia of seeing familiar places on screen, the group says the film’s staying power is real — even five decades later.
Screenings this weekend
The enhanced version of The Giant Spider Invasion is set for local screenings this weekend in Central and North Central Wisconsin. To purchase tickets for showings in Stevens Point, Marshfield or Waupaca, click here.
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