If you think Wisconsin's governor has too much veto authority, you'll soon have your chance to speak up.
It's dubbed by State Senator Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) the " Frankenstein Veto ." The River Falls Republican wants you to help her change the state constitution so no governor of this state — Republican or Democrat — can use his partial veto authority to delete words and phrases in order to create brand new sentences by combining the remaining parts.
"On April one voters will have an opportunity to put an end to the Frankenstein veto by voting 'yes.'"
In the 2005-07 budget bill, Governor Jim Doyle started with a 752-word section and chopped it down to just 20 words, resulting in a raid of $427-million from the state's transportation fund — a law which, Harsdorf says, never passed through the legislature.
"The partial veto was never intended to allow a governor to put into place laws that have not passed the legislature. And so this is intended to fix what I believe has been an extreme abuse of the partial veto."
After working for three years, Harsdorf's resolution is now ready for a statewide vote and she's encouraging voters to turnout at the polls April 1st and vote "YES" to finally kill the Frankenstein veto.
NOTE: In order to change the Constitution, the legislature must pass a resolution through both houses in two consecutive sessions. Then it goes to the voters on a statewide ballot.
QUESTION AS IT APPEARS ON BALLOT:
"Partial veto. Shall section 10 (1) (c) of article V of the constitution be amended to prohibit the governor, in exercising his or her partial veto authority, from creating a new sentence by combining parts of two or more sentences of the enrolled bill?"