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In the Wisconsin Senate’s last floor session of 2025, lawmakers debated and voted on bills that appear destined for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ veto pen. 

One of the bills, which passed the Republican-led Assembly in September and is on its way to Evers’ desk, would prohibit public funds from being used to provide health care to undocumented immigrants. Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, the bill’s Senate author, argued it would protect Wisconsin taxpayers, citing Democratic states like Illinois where enrollment and costs of a health care program for noncitizens far exceeded initial estimates. 

But several Senate Democrats lambasted the proposal as a “heartless” attempt by GOP lawmakers to gain political points with their base with 2026 elections around the corner. Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, hinted at its likely future in the governor’s office. 

“It’s going to be vetoed,” Carpenter said. 

Plenty of bills in the nearly eight years of Wisconsin’s split government have passed through the Republican-controlled Assembly and Senate before receiving a veto from the governor. Evers vetoed a record 126 bills during the 2021-22 legislative session ahead of his reelection campaign and 72 bills during the 2023-24 session. The governor has vetoed 15 bills so far in 2025, not including partial vetoes in the state budget, according to a Wisconsin Watch review of veto messages. The number is certain to rise, though whether it will approach the record is far from clear.

A few Senate Democrats seeking higher office in 2026 said some recent legislation that is unlikely to make it past Evers, from a repeal of the creative veto that raises school revenue limits for the next 400 years to a bill exempting certain procedures from the definition of abortion, looks like political messaging opportunities to ding Democrats. They anticipate more of those proposals to come up next year. 

“For the last eight years we’ve had divided government, but we’ve had a heavily gerrymandered Legislature,” said Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who is among at least seven candidates running for governor in 2026 and voted against those bills on the floor. “For Republicans in the Legislature, there has been no cost and everything to gain from pursuing the most radical and extreme proposals in their party.” 

Evers is not seeking a third term as governor in 2026 and is entering the final year of his current term, which no longer makes him vulnerable to political fallout from vetoing bills. But legislative Democrats, particularly in the Senate where the party hopes to win the majority in 2026, can be forced into difficult decisions in their chambers where Republicans control which bills get votes on the Senate and Assembly floors. 

“It was all this political gamesmanship of trying to get points towards their own base and/or put me or others, not just me, into a position to have to make that tough vote,” said Sen. Jeff Smith, D-Brunswick, of the bill banning public dollars spent on health care for undocumented immigrants. Smith, who is seeking reelection in his western Wisconsin district next year, holds the main Senate seat Republicans are targeting in 2026. He voted against the bill.

Smith said the immigration bill saw “a lot of discussion” in the Senate Democratic Caucus ahead of the floor session on Nov. 18, particularly on where Smith would vote given the attention on his seat. The bill passed the chamber on a vote of 21-12 with Democratic support from Sen. Sarah Keyeski, D-Lodi; Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; and Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay, who are not up for reelection next year but represent more conservative parts of the state. 

“Many people thought the easy vote would be to just vote with the Republicans because it’s not going to be signed,” Smith said. “But I’ve still got to go back and explain it to my voters.” 

A spokesperson for Majority Leader Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about how Senate Republicans consider what bills advance to the Senate floor. Neither did a spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester.

In a social media post after the Senate session, Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, listed “all the things WI Senate Democrats voted against,” which included “prohibiting illegal aliens from getting taxpayer-funded healthcare.” 

Scott Kelly, Wanggaard’s chief of staff, said a potential veto or putting Democrats on the record on certain issues largely doesn’t influence the legislation their office pursues.

“Our job is to pass bills that we think are good ideas that should be law,” Kelly said. “Whether other people support or veto them is not my issue. The fact that Democrats think this is a political ‘gotcha,’ well, that just shows they know it’s an idea that the public supports.”

Not all of the bills on the Senate floor on Nov. 18 seemed aimed at election messaging. The chamber unanimously approved a bill to extend tax credits for businesses that hire a third party to build workforce housing or establish a child care program. In October, senators voted 32-1 to pass a bipartisan bill requiring insurance companies to cover cancer screenings for women with dense breast tissue who are at an increased risk of breast cancer. The Republican-authored bill has yet to move in the Assembly despite bipartisan support from lawmakers there as well.

Assembly Democrats last week criticized Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, for blocking a vote on Senate Bill 23, a bipartisan bill to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to new Wisconsin moms. Assembly Minority Leader Rep. Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, in a press conference at the Capitol called the move “pathetic.”

But health care is a top issue for Democratic voters and less so for Republicans, according to the Marquette University Law School Poll conducted in October. Illegal immigration and border security are the top issue for Republican voters in Wisconsin. About 75% of GOP voters said they were “very concerned” about the issue heading into 2026, though only 16% of Democrats and 31% of immigrants said the same.  

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said political messaging votes can have impacts on elections, especially in what will be some of the close Senate races in 2026.

“It’s kind of a messaging opportunity, not really a policymaking opportunity. It’s also maybe a way for Republicans to let off some steam,” Burden said. “They have divisions within their own caucuses. They have disagreements between the Republicans in the Assembly, Republicans in the Senate. They can never seem to get on the same page with a lot of these things, and there are often a few members who are holding up bills. So, when they can find agreement and push something through in both chambers and get near unanimous support from their caucuses, that’s a victory in itself and maybe helps build some morale or solidarity within the party.”

Here’s why Wisconsin Republican lawmakers pass bills they know Gov. Tony Evers will veto is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Senate Chambers in the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

During its last floor session of the year, the Wisconsin Senate passed bills Tuesday that would eliminate the annual $325 per pupil revenue increase for school districts, define abortion to not include treatment for ectopic pregnancies and other emergency medical conditions and block state and local dollars from being used on health care for people not legally in the country.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said she is “dismayed” and “disgusted” that lawmakers were not taking up bills that focused on affordability. She said she is open to working across the aisle on the issue.

“Republicans do not care about affordability, and they have no plan about affordability either,” Hesselbein said. “There are no bills on this calendar that will lower prescription drug costs, increase access to health care, lower housing costs or make child care more affordable.”

Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) noted a few of the more than 60 bills lawmakers were scheduled to take up and questioned whether they addressed pressing matters. 

“Republicans, who determine the issues and bills we focus on, today are addressing things like exempting tobacco bars from the public smoking ban, delaying the implementation of commercial building code rules,” Keyeski said. “While these may be worthy issues to discuss, I would suggest that it does not meet the threshold of emergent need when families are facing dire economic circumstances. GOP legislators are essentially forcing us to sit idly by and watch Wisconsinites suffer.”

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said at a press conference that Democratic lawmakers were just “filibustering” and rejected the claim that Republicans weren’t working to help with affordability in the state.

“We passed a budget which had the second largest tax cut in state history to get money back into people’s pockets for utility bills, for retirees on fixed incomes, for middle class tax cuts. We’re doing everything we can to try to keep things affordable, ending the 400-year veto so taxes don’t go up in the next budget process,” LeMahieu said. “We are very concerned. It seems like Democrats can make these statements, but yet they’re introducing bills that let local governments increase their levies to tax, raise property taxes, and everything else, so it seems a little disingenuous.”

Republicans advance bill to eliminate 400-year veto

The Senate voted to pass a bill that would reverse Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that extended school revenue limit increases for 400 years. 

Lawmakers during the 2023-25 state budget gave school districts a $325 increase to schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. When the bill reached Evers’ desk, he exercised his partial veto power, striking two digits and a dash from the years to extend the annual increases through 2425, to lawmakers’ dismay. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in April that the partial veto was within Evers’ powers.

In response, lawmakers introduced SB 389 to eliminate the $325 per pupil school revenue limit increase beginning in the 2027-28 school year. It passed along party lines. 

“We’re very concerned with the ruling of the state Supreme Court, but what we want to do is to clarify that the original intent of the Legislature in the budget was to increase school funding for the next budget period,” Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield), a coauthor of the bill, said. “He changed the bill in a way that no governor in the history of the state of Wisconsin has changed [a bill], and that’s very concerning for us because the Legislature is where the voice of a people is supposed to take place, and the governor is supposed to look at that and use his veto authority to determine where he stands on that, but he went far beyond what’s ever been done before.”

Democratic lawmakers defended the revenue limit increases, saying it is helping school districts that have struggled without inflationary increases in state funding.

“As fists clench over the 400-year veto, know this, it doesn’t even make up for inflation. What it does is, it provides a minimum increase for what people can expect,” Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said. “Unfortunately, with this vote, it is trying to go back and trying to actually make a horrible budget even worse by saying not only are we giving you zero dollars in general aid increase…, but more than that, we’re also going to bar the local school district from making up for that gap by being able to allow them to vote for an increased property tax.”

Larson said that the law could have been changed during the 2025-27 state budget process and that it is the state’s fault that property taxes are bearing the brunt of the increases.

“Everybody who voted for the budget, in essence, voted for the continuation of the $325 dollars per pupil increase to be passed on to local taxpayers to make up the difference,” Larson said. “If you had wanted to change it, there were two things that you could have done. One, you could have voted to have that ended and substituted with a different per-pupil increase. Second thing is, you could have had the state actually fund those increases using funds from the increasing general aid or using the vast surplus that we have, taking money from the agriculture manufacturing tax credit [or] anywhere else, and you could have actually funded our kids.”

Redefining abortion

The Senate also passed SB 553, which seeks to redefine abortion to exempt treatments for certain medical conditions including the removal of a dead embryo or fetus, an ectopic, anembryonic or molar pregnancy.

Bill coauthor Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Birchwood) said during a press conference that he wanted to remove confusion from state statute, saying he is “pro-life” and hasn’t wanted to stop women from being able to receive the medical care that they need. 

“Women who need medical attention due to situations of stillbirths, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other related issues, can and should receive the care that they need. That has always been the pro-life position,” Quinn said. “This bill before us today does not ban abortions. It does not restrict abortions, it simply clarifies our laws so that both women and medical providers can do what is necessary in those situations.”

Wisconsin has a web of abortion restrictions in place, including a 20-week ban, but confusion soared in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. An 1849 law interpreted as a near-total abortion ban led health care providers afraid of felony charges to deny care to women who faced miscarriage and life-threatening pregnancy complications.

Recently, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, the state’s largest abortion provider, stopped providing abortion care in part due to federal changes.

Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said the lawmakers were trying to distance themselves from “the horrors that we are seeing in states that have banned and restricted abortion.” The Assembly coauthor, Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said in September that she introduced it in part because Republicans are getting “killed” on the abortion issue during elections, although she said she favors a total abortion ban.

“Women being turned away from hospital emergency rooms repeatedly, being left to bleed out in Walmart parking lots. In fact, women are dying because they are denied timely abortion care that could easily have saved their lives, and their children left orphaned,” Roys said. “That’s the reality of what it looks like when you ban and restrict access to abortion in this country.”

Recent polling done by Marquette Law School found that abortion policy has declined as a “most important” issue among voters across all partisan groups in 2025 as compared to 2022, although 50% of respondents still said they were “very concerned” and 23% said they were “somewhat concerned” about the issue. 

Another recent poll found that 78% of voters support protecting health care professionals from criminal charges related to providing abortion care and 72% of voters favor allowing advanced health care providers like nurse practitioners and midwives to provide abortion care.

Roys said she was also concerned that the bill could push physicians to do emergency C-sections rather than terminate pregnancies as a way of addressing health issues. 

“Abortion is a necessary medical procedure that sometimes pregnant people need to save their lives, to preserve their health, to preserve their future fertility, and nothing in this bill is going to change that,” Roys said. “This bill will instead push physicians to force women to have unnecessary C-sections or to induce delivery rather than providing them with abortion. A C-section is much more dangerous. It is much more invasive. It’s major abdominal surgery that takes weeks or months to recover from, and it also impairs a woman’s future ability to be pregnant to have the labor and delivery that she wishes.”

The bill will now go to the Assembly for consideration. 

Restricting health care for immigrants

The Senate concurred 21-12 in AB 308, which would prohibit state, county, village, long-term care district and federal funds from being used to subsidize, reimburse or provide compensation for any health care services for a person not lawfully in the United States. Sens. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) and Jamie Wall (D-Green Bay) joined Republicans in favor. 

Bill coauthor Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) said the bill would ensure that Wisconsin doesn’t begin spending large amounts of money on people who aren’t legally in the country. He noted that other states, including Minnesota and California, have rescinded or paused providing coverage for people not legally in the U.S. 

“[Illinois] did an audit and found that they had spent nearly $900 million on health care benefits for illegal aliens, about a 200% increase, and then in Minnesota, the Legislature, by bipartisan vote, they voted to end the eligibility for illegal immigrants due to questions about their state’s financial well-being, and then, lastly, wonderful, California. Gov. [Gavin] Newsom recently froze enrollment of illegal immigrants into the state’s medical programs, citing California’s $12 billion budget deficit,” Wanggaard said at a press conference. “We’re looking at something that is really a no-brainer.”

Wisconsin already doesn’t allow immigrants without legal authorization to apply for the state’s Medicaid program, BadgerCare.

There are two programs available to those without legal status outlined on the Department of Health Services website: Medicaid Emergency Services, which provides short-term medical coverage for people who have a medical emergency and aren’t eligible for BadgerCare Plus or Wisconsin Medicaid, and BadgerCare Plus Prenatal Plan, which provides health care coverage for pregnant mothers who are not eligible for BadgerCare Plus due to immigration status or being in prison or jail.

Democratic lawmakers accused Republicans of seeking to make a political point and neglecting to address health care costs and accessibility.

“We are not in an affordability crisis because of less than 1% of BadgerCare funds that are used to save lives,” Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) said. “This is cruel, it is a mean-spirited bill that is attempting to score cheap political points off of a group that’s already marginalized enough.” 

Advocates have warned that the bill could have a “chilling effect,” discouraging people from seeking care when they need it.

“Why is this sort of thing even coming up for discussion? Are we that heartless? Have we really lost our vision for this country?” Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) asked. “These are all messaging to somebody’s base. Terrible people who are coming here to work in our factories, in our fields without the proper papers need to be punished… How heartless are we to make political points? Go ahead and make your god dang political points.”

The Assembly passed the bill in September, so it will now go to Evers for consideration. 

Other bills passed by the Senate Tuesday include:  

• AB 165, which would ban local governments from using tax money to create guaranteed income programs without a work or training requirement. The Assembly passed the bill along party lines in April and the Senate concurred in it 18-15 so it will now go to Evers for consideration. 
• AB 265, which would require judges to sentence people convicted of human trafficking to at least 10 years in prison, or at least 15 years for trafficking a child, was concurred in in an 18-15 party line vote. Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns about young victims of sex trafficking potentially facing mandatory minimums if they are forced to participate in trafficking, while Republicans brushed away those concerns. 
• SB 498 passed 17-16 with Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) joining Democrats against it. The bill would place specific freedom of speech requirements into state statute, including barring campuses from restricting speakers on campus, and implement new penalties, including a tuition freeze, if a campus violates any parts of the bill.
• SB 394 would make it a Class I felony to damage or graffiti structures, plaques, statues, paintings or other monuments on public property or that is maintained by the state or any county or municipality. It passed 18-15 along party lines.
• SB 11, which would require school districts to provide an opportunity for certain federally chartered youth membership organizations, including the Girl Scouts, to give students information about their organizations. It passed by a voice vote. The Assembly is scheduled to vote on the bill on Wednesday.
• SB 16, which would make the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association subject to open records and open meeting laws, passed 22-11.

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Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 partial veto increased K-12 public school districts’ revenue fundraising limits by $325 per student each year until 2425, but that doesn’t guarantee property tax increases each year.

Revenue limits set how much a district can increase funding through a combination of property taxes and general state aid. School districts could raise property taxes in order to reach the maximum revenue, or the Legislature and governor could provide more general aid through the biennial budget. The average limit across districts last year was $13,363.

This year, the Republican-controlled Legislature kept general state aid flat. School boards can raise property taxes up to their allowed maximum funding in their annual budgets.

In future budgets, the Legislature and governor could provide enough state aid to cover the limit increase in whole or even exceed it, which would force districts to reduce property taxes. They also could repeal the 400-year revenue limit provision.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Watch Interview with Sarah Shaw, deputy research director for the Wisconsin Policy Forum
• PBS Wisconsin: Partial veto by Evers to extend school funding boost by 400 years upsets opponents
• Legislative Fiscal Bureau: School District Revenue Limits and Referenda

Does Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 budget veto increase property taxes each year for the next 400 years? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.