The November 2018 election means there will be a partisan changing of the guard in the Wisconsin governorās office -- Republican Scott Walker out, Democrat Tony Evers in. The election results led to a changing of the minds among GOP leaders in the Legislature, where Republicans will continue to hold power in the new term. Republican leaders are moving quickly to undo some of the powers they granted the governor after the 2010 election, when Walker won and the GOP gained full control of the Legislature.
In November of 2010, Wisconsin elected Republican Scott Walker as Governor. (Walkerās predecessor, a Democrat, did not run for reelection.) In the same election, Republicans won control of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature. After taking office in 2011, the Republican-controlled legislature passed laws substantially increasing the Republican governorās power.
In November of 2018, Walker lost his bid for reelection to the Democratic challenger, Tony Evers, and Democrat Josh Kaul also defeated Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel. Republicans, however, retained control over both houses of the state legislature. Following in North Carolinaās footsteps, the ālame duckā Republican legislature immediately (as in āLess than 24 hours after Tony Evers was elected governor,ā and weeks before Evers was to take office) met in special session to pass a package of laws severely restricting the power of the incoming governor and attorney general--including reversing the very same laws it had passed eight years earlier.
Some of the changes affecting the Governor:
Taking away the governorās new power to approve or prevent the adoption of administrative rules
Providing more legislative authority over state agencies
Restricting the governorās power over rules used to implement state laws
Limiting the governorās flexibility in how he runs many public benefits programs, such as his power over state work requirements for benefits like Medicaid and food stamps
Allowing Republican lawmakers to prevent Wisconsin from withdrawing from a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act
Requiring the governor to get permission from lawmakers to make changes to security provisions in the state Capitol, including banning guns or increasing the number of patrol officers
Requiring the administration to track and report if the governor pardons anyone or his aides release anyone from prison early
Some changes for the Attorney General:
Allowing lawmakers to replace the attorney general with private attorneys of their choosing for key cases
Requiring lawmakers to sign off on court settlements
Giving lawmakers instead of the attorney general control of how to spend court settlements
Eliminating the solicitor generalās office that oversees high-profile litigation
And as long as Republican legislators were pushing through laws while they still had a Republican governor to sign them, they also took the opportunity to make it even harder to vote, including:
Limiting early voting to roughly two weeks before an election
Requiring a two-year expiration date on student IDs used for identification at the polls
Limiting the use of receipts as valid voter identification for individuals trying to get a valid ID without a birth certificate
Moving the 2020 presidential primary election to March in order to benefit a conservative Supreme Court justiceās election bid
