Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the Legislature should “double down” on asking Wisconsin residents to amend the state Constitution, even after voters rejected two ballot measures in Tuesday’s primary election.
Speaking with the Cap Times, Vos said he wasn’t concerned about the defeat of the two most recent amendments, which would have given the Legislature more oversight over how the state spends federal funding. He chalked up the losses to a lack of scrutiny on claims made by groups opposing the referendums.
“I actually want to double down,” Vos, a Republican from Rochester, said. “I think we need to do a lot more amendments so that the voters ultimately have the chance to make the decision and we don’t go down a different path.”
Constitutional amendments have been prevalent in recent years amid split control of state government, with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in office alongside a GOP-controlled Legislature.
Over the course of 2023 and 2024, voters will weigh in on seven constitutional amendments, the most in any two-year period since the 1980s.
Earlier this year, voters approved constitutional changes that ban local and state officials from accepting private funding to administer elections.
But Wisconsinites reversed course on Tuesday, rejecting the proposals even as supporters saw them as a new and necessary layer of legislative oversight.
The Legislature voted to bring the decision to a referendum after Republican lawmakers balked at the way Evers spent billions in COVID-19-related aid from Washington, D.C.
Critics of the proposals feared the amendments could create unnecessary bureaucracy while allocating federal funds, including money sent to Wisconsin for emergency disaster relief.
Opponents mounted a $3 million campaign to urge a “no” vote, with backers of the amendment spending only a small fraction of that. Democrats have touted the result as a victory and a “repudiation” of the increased focus on amending the Constitution.
“I hope the Republicans got the message, but if they didn’t get the message, then we will organize and defeat them every time they try to undermine democracy in the state of Wisconsin,” Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said at a press conference on Friday.
Republicans have brushed aside the result. Brian Schimming, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said the party worked harder on the April amendments but didn’t feel a need to invest as heavily in August. Instead, he said, the GOP is prioritizing races on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
“The focus of the Republican Party of Wisconsin is to elect Republicans and to do what it takes to get Republicans to the finish line,” Schimming said at a press conference on Thursday. “I’m not the referendum party in Wisconsin.”
Vos said he still would like to advance a referendum on whether Wisconsin should implement a 14-week abortion ban, a proposal that passed the state Assembly earlier this year but went nowhere in the state Senate amid an ongoing legal battle over reproductive rights in the state.
It is not a given that Republicans will maintain control of the state Assembly, as new legislative maps enacted earlier this year give Democrats a pathway to winning a majority of seats in the chamber.
But if the Assembly remains under GOP control, legislators could also push through a referendum to make it a constitutional requirement to present a photo identification to vote. Currently photo ID is state law but is not specifically outlined in the state Constitution, meaning it could be overturned by the courts or repealed by legislators in the future.
In Wisconsin, the Legislature must pass a proposed amendment twice before voters are asked to weigh in. Lawmakers signed off on a voter ID amendment for the first time in 2023 and will need to do so again before it is on the ballot.
“I think we need to keep doing our job to keep putting issues that are important before voters,” Vos said. “And if the Democrats choose to lie about it, we’ll just have to fight it off.”
Andrew Bahl joined the Cap Times in September 2023, covering Wisconsin politics and government. He is a University of Wisconsin-Madison alum and has covered state government in Pennsylvania and Kansas.
You can follow Andrew on X @AndrewBahl. You also can support Andrew’s work by becoming a Cap Times member.
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