Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted by paper ballot along party lines Friday afternoon to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish any rule that hasn’t gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law.

Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. There are 27 administrative rules, including one to address the state’s policy on gray wolf management, that Evers submitted to the LRB for publication. Of those, 13 have not been reviewed by a standing legislative committee and are yet to be published. 

It’s the latest step the administration has taken in testing the bounds of the recent Evers v. Marklein II ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The majority found in the case that the state laws giving the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

The statutes cited in the Republicans’ motion Thursday were not included in the Court’s ruling.

“We are following the law and maintaining the fundamental checks and balances of lawmaking,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) said in a joint statement about the motion on Thursday. “The governor is flagrantly disregarding the rule of law and egregiously abusing the power of his office.”

Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said Republicans were defying the law in an email Thursday. 

“Republicans are reaching new levels of lawlessness, whether it’s President Trump trying to take over Washington DC, Republicans in Texas trying to rig maps and elections in their favor, or Republicans in Wisconsin who appear poised to disobey decisions made by our state’s highest court,” Cudaback wrote in an email message. “Republicans are not above the law — they should follow the law like everyone else is expected to.”

The measure passed 6-4. Republicans on the committee, including Vos, Felzkowski, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome), voted for the motion. Democrats on the committee, including Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), voted against it.