One of the “lame duck” bills passed by the Wisconsin legislature this week deals with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Governor-elect Tony Evers said during his campaign that he’ll seek to abolish WEDC, and return jobs creation to the old Commerce Department.
Speaker Robin Vos said on Wednesday morning that Republicans had to act, because Evers wasn’t talking to them. “It was a lot through the media. I never got a call. We never talked about it. It was an awful lot of negotiation through the Journal Sentinel, kind of the arm of the Democratic Party,” Vos said. “We really couldn’t get a fair hearing, that’s the problem.”
“I’m not sure what in the world that means,” Evers said later that day, when asked about Vos’ comment that he was negotiating through the media. “He never asked . . . to talk to me a about this legislation to begin with. It would have been great to find out exactly what his plans were to begin with.”
The bill allows WEDC rather than the governor, to appoint the agency’s CEO until next September. The Legislature would also get more say over the agency’s enterprise zone program that hands out tax breaks to businesses.
Governor Scott Walker is expected to sign the entire package of legislation passed by the extraordinary session of the Republican controlled legislature.