A yard sign urging voters to vote 'Yes' on a referendum request for Ashwaubenon School District in 2024 when a record number of schools went to referendum. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

As Wisconsin school districts seek permission this week from voters to spend more than $1.6 billion for operational and building costs, state lawmakers are looking for ways to address the issue of schools’ growing reliance on referendum requests.

Voters across the state are deciding this spring on a total of 94 referendum requests including some in February and many in the upcoming April 1 elections. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, it’s the most ever between January and April in a non-presidential or midterm election year and it’s the continuation of an ongoing trend.

Republicans have introduced three proposals for new limitations on the referendum process in reaction to Milwaukee Public Schools’ successful request last year, with lawmakers saying the proposals would increase fairness and transparency for voters and taxpayers. However, one Democratic lawmaker and other stakeholders said the proposals would limit local control and don’t address the structural financial issues that drive school districts to go to referendum.

Eliminating ‘recurring’ referendum requests

A bill coauthored by Rep. Cindi Duchow (R-Town of Delafield) and Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield)  would eliminate referendum questions that allow permanent operational funding increases and would limit other referendum requests to cover no more than a four-year period.

Duchow said in an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner that she doesn’t think there is a problem with school districts going to referendum and called them the “perfect tool” to allow local residents to make funding decisions. But she doesn’t think funding increases sought through a referendum should be permanent — or, in legislative terminology, “recurring” year after year. 

The referendum option was created for schools in 1993 as a part of legislation that put limits on schools’ ability to raise revenue by increasing property taxes. 

Anne Chapman, research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials Association (WASBO), said in an interview that the idea behind the legislation was that property taxpayers would be protected and the state would take care of school districts financially in return. From 1993 to 2010, revenue caps — the limit on how much districts could raise without voters’ permission — were tied to inflation. The inflationary increases were eliminated in 2009 and state funding has not filled the gap to give schools an inflationary increase. 

According to WASBO, general school district revenues have lagged the rate of inflation for a decade and a half. If funding had kept up with inflation, districts would be getting $3,380 more per pupil in 2025.

Wisconsin schools also only receive funding for about a third of their special education costs and many are drawing from their general funds to keep up with providing expensive federally and state mandated services to students with disabilities. Districts are also dealing with declining enrollment, which results in lower funding for a district as there are fewer students even if fixed costs such as maintaining facilities may not fall.

School officials and advocates have pointed out that many districts are relying heavily on referendum requests to meet costs (even to keep schools open), saying the trend is untenable. Mauston School District is one example as school leaders were considering dissolving the district after two failed referendum requests until voters finally approved a request in February.

Chapman noted that when a referendum fails it can result in a school deferring maintenance, increasing class sizes and cutting staff, AP programs, language, support staff for special education, nurses, librarians, athletics and “all the things that kids need to kind of stay engaged in school.” 

Dale Knapp, director of Wisconsin-based research organization Forward Analytics, said in 2023 that he didn’t “think the lawmakers who created this law envisioned referenda being relied on this much.”

“Maybe the answer after 30 years of the limits is an in-depth review of the law to see how it can be improved to continue protecting taxpayers and ensure adequate funding of our schools,” Knapp said.

Duchow, however, said that the state is providing “plenty of money” to schools.

“If they want a new gym, that’s on them. I’m not here to build you a new gym. The people who live in that community should make that decision,” Duchow said. She also said there are some schools that probably need to consolidate and others that need to close.

While school districts do go to voters to fund building costs, many are also going to referendum for “operational” (and often recurring) costs and as a way to keep up with staff pay, afford educational offerings and pay utility bills.

Duchow said recurring referendum questions are unfair. She said lawmakers in the caucus have been discussing changing the policy for a while. A similar proposal was introduced in 2017.

“We are looking at declining enrollment around this state, and how do we know what we really need 10 years from now?” Duchow said. “The Milwaukee referendum never goes away, so 10 years from now, we have less students in Milwaukee and we need the same amount of money?  We have more technology coming in, which means we probably need less teachers.” 

Duchow said Milwaukee’s $252 million operating referendum, which was the second largest school operating request in state history, was the “catalyst” for her bill.

Republican lawmakers and other state leaders have been highly critical of the request, which the district said was needed to fund staff pay and educational programming and voters narrowly approved. The criticism grew louder after the district’s financial crisis that resulted in the resignation of the superintendent and audits launched by Gov. Tony Evers.

“Enough is enough. MPS is a disaster. We have the worst reading scores in the nation, and all they do is scream they need more money,” Duchow said. “Money is obviously not the answer.”

Even with declining enrollment, the Milwaukee Public School District is the largest district in the state with 65,000 students enrolled, according to the 2024-25 enrollment data from DPI. This is over 2.5 times as many students as the next largest district in Wisconsin, Madison Metropolitan School District.

MPS students are also more likely to face significant challenges. More than 20% of students in the district have a disability, more than 80% are economically disadvantaged and 17.5% are English language learners. Statewide about 40% of students are economically disadvantaged, 15.7% are students with disabilities and 6.92% are English language learners.

Chapman said students with higher needs often incur higher costs for districts. 

Duchow said that putting a four-year limit on referendum requests for recurring funds gives communities the ability to react to changing circumstances and that school districts should justify to voters why they need the funds. She said she would be open to discussing a different limit when it comes to nonrecurring referendum requests.

“It’s also not fair that everybody could vote for that referendum and then decide, hey, this is really too expensive. I can’t afford these property taxes and then they move out, and I’m still there paying the referendum,” Duchow said. 

Duchow said she hadn’t yet spoken with any school district leaders when she was interviewed by the Examiner in early March, but planned to reach out before a public hearing on the bill.

“I’m sure I can already tell you how the schools are going to feel. The schools are going to feel they want their recurring referendum, just like we want your boss to give you a 20% raise every year without you justifying why you should get it,” Duchow said. “That’s what the schools want, too. I don’t blame them. I would, too, but we can’t do that to our taxpayers.”

According to the Wisconsin Eye on Lobbying website, the Wisconsin Education Association Council has registered against the bill, while the Wisconsin REALTORS Association has registered in favor.

Lawmakers have added new restrictions to school referendum requests before. The 2017-19 state budget limited scheduling of a referendum requests to only two per year and only allowed them to be held on regularly scheduled election days.

“It used to be that referendums could be called by a school district at any time, but the Legislature said… we don’t want you to have the option to run so many referendums,” Chapman said. 

Chapman noted in an interview that recurring referendum requests pass at lower rates than other types because it is harder to convince taxpayers. She said voters “know how to handle this” and lawmakers shouldn’t further reach in to restrict district’s options.

“Some districts and some communities want a recurring referendum,” Chapman said. “School districts have the option of asking for recurring and sometimes they do and voters sometimes approve them because they’re asking to fill structural budget holes that are never going to go away. They’re asking for basic operating dollars that they’re going to need in four years.” 

A recent Marquette Law School poll found that Wisconsinites are becoming increasingly concerned with holding down property taxes since 2018 and less favorably inclined toward increasing funding for K-12 public schools. 

Chapman noted that districts also often make nonrecurring referendum requests for recurring costs because they are an easier ask, though this places districts in another difficult position.

“As soon as you go to nonrecurring referendum in this environment with grossly inadequate state funding and state policies to support schools financially, you are now going to be in your own personal fiscal cliff,” Chapman said. “You’re going to have to go again, and probably for more, because your costs have gone up and funding does not keep up with inflation.” 

Bills meant to provide ‘fairness,’ ‘transparency’

Lawmakers, concerned about the MPS referendum, requested a Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo last year that found some school districts in Wisconsin could see a decrease in state aid after the MPS referendum due to the way that equalization aid is calculated.

Equalization aid acts as a form of property tax relief, according to the Wisconsin School Business Officials Association. The amount of aid a district receives from the finite pot of money distributed by the state is determined by a formula that depends on a district’s property wealth, spending and enrollment.

Spending triggered by referendum requests is one factor in determining districts’ equalization aid, and Milwaukee — like other districts with low property wealth per pupil compared to the rest of the state — will receive more state aid per pupil than other districts with higher property wealth per pupil as a result of its increased spending from the referendum.

Chapman noted, however, that all 148 referendum requests for operating expenses in 2024 affect the share of equalization aid districts receive. She also emphasized that it’s not the only factor affecting the amount of aid districts get.

“Some districts have increasing enrollment, which means they’re going to pull more money away from Milwaukee.” Chapman said. “There’s all of these factors that affect every single district, and they intertwine with each other.”

Republicans viewed Milwaukee’s referendum as taking too much from other districts. 

“Is it fair to the students, parents and taxpayers in Waukesha, Madison, Wautoma and others suffer without having the right to cast a vote?” the bill authors Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) and Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) asked in a memo. “Local school referendums should not have a significant negative impact on other districts. Simple fairness demands this type of thinking.”

The lawmakers’ bill would exclude any district referendum request worth more than $50 million from being considered when determining equalization aid. The effect of the bill would be that districts that pass a large referendum would have their aid eligibility reduced, leaving local taxpayers to pay more of the cost. The bill would only apply to districts below a certain property wealth value.

Chapman said the bill would penalize districts for being larger and having lower property wealth and is an example of lawmakers trying to micromanage local entities.

A final bill introduced by Allen and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) would require that tax impact information be added to ballots. Currently, referendum ballot questions are required to include the dollar amount of the increase in the levy limit.

Under the bill, referendum questions would also need to include the estimated interest rate and amount of the interest accruing on the bonds, any fees that will be incurred if the bonds are defeased and a “good faith estimate of the dollar amount difference in property taxes on a median-valued, single-family residence located in the local governmental unit that would result from passage of the referendum.” 

Proposal criticisms

Freshman Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said he wasn’t inclined to support a ban on recurring referendum requests given the inconsistency in state funding. 

“We go through this sort of toxic [state] budget cycle every two years and districts have to levy, and they don’t even know what to plan for, so recurring referendums are obviously a response to that,” Phelps said.

Phelps said the question of fairness is relevant when talking about the referendum process, but the framing of the Republican proposals is misguided, given the state’s over $4 billion budget surplus.

“It is not fair to taxpayers that, depending on what school district you live in, you might have an astronomical property tax bill just to keep that district running. That’s not fair,” Phelps said. He said the state of Wisconsin is “underfunding public schools and not using the taxes people already paid.”

Derek Gottlieb, an associate professor at the University of Northern Colorado and senior research director for School Perceptions, an education research firm, said Republicans appear to be “operating on behalf of the taxpayers across the state who have voted no on school referendums and yet lost and so had their taxes raised anyway.”

“Suddenly, because so many [referendum requests] are passing, homeowners, taxpayers who don’t want to have their taxes raised are saying that this is unfair or we shouldn’t have to have our taxes raised just because everybody in our community wants to raise our taxes and Republicans are coming to the defense of those folks,” Gottlieb said. 

According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, while the number of requests continues to rise, approval rates have started to decline with the 66.2% approval rate in 2024 being the lowest in a midterm or presidential election year since 2012.

Gottlieb said some of the concerns raised by lawmakers are valid. For example, he said the current terms used to describe referendum questions are “obscure” and unclear.

“Why not just say a permanent referendum and a temporary referendum?” he asked. “You could do a lot to increase the transparency of what people are voting on if you made that little language change.” 

Gottlieb also said that he does have “sympathy” for those who don’t think there should be permanent funding requests, but acknowledged that this would have consequences for districts because it removes predictability in planning.

However, he said he doesn’t agree that the potential for people to move out of a community or into a community in the future should be the deciding factor in funding decisions. 

“That’s a basic feature of any community anywhere,” he said. 

The argument that “it is not a legitimate exercise of public governmental power to make a decision for a community, given the fact that the community will change in the future…is ridiculous,” Gottlieb said. “If that were the case, it would make all public decisions fundamentally illegitimate.”

The increasing number of referendum requests, Gottlieb said, is a sign that revenue limits are set too low, at an amount that is unacceptable to community members. He noted that when operational referendum requests fail, the schools typically cut theater arts, advanced placement coursework, second language instruction, foreign language instruction and other programs that aren’t required by the state.

Chapman called the proposals a “BandAid” on the issues districts are facing that “isn’t even really fixing the problem.” 

“[If] legislators really wanted to protect taxpayers and make sure schools have what they need, they would do something like keep revenue limits inflationary [and] significantly improve the funding for special education, which would help every single kid,” Chapman said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

The rally in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol was a chance for speakers to share their experiences of going to referendum. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

Prentice School District, a rural district in the northern part of Wisconsin, will ask voters on April 1 to raise their property taxes and provide the district $3.5 million over the next four years for operational costs. It’s one of the smaller requests among the over 80 ballot measures — totaling $1.6 billion in requests — that will go before voters across the state next month.

Denae Walcisak, a member of a team campaigning to pass the referendum, drove three and a half hours from the Northwoods to attend a Friday rally at the Capitol organized by the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN). She spoke about her district’s third time trying for a yes and described the lengths community members are going to for students in her district.

Her dad, who is a school board member, put off knee surgery for almost a year, Walcisak said, while he donated his time and money to fill in as a school bus driver in the rural district and to transport students to field trips and games. 

“Teacher organizes fundraisers for the art club to pay for basic supplies… Our band teacher also teaches sixth grade reading. We have a part-time elementary gym teacher who is 82 years young. Our tech ed teacher bought a welding machine for his students with his own money… My son needs speech therapy. The school has tried twice to hire this year, but who wants to take a job at a school whose future is uncertain?” Walcisak said. 

Even with the funding from the referendum, Walcisak said the district will continue to just scrape by. She called for more funding from the state. 

“The lack of funding is affecting our whole community and our way of life. I ask you from the people of Prentice, please don’t let us fade away,” she said. 

The rally marked the end of Public Schools Week, an annual recognition of Wisconsin’s public schools and a time advocates use to call for supporting and investing. Gov. Tony Evers issued a declaration on Monday reminding Wisconsinites that public education is a right and that public schools need support and investment from elected officials. 

The rally in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol was a chance for speakers to share their experiences of going to referendum — the stress of repeatedly asking for them and consequences of failure — and to call for the state to make greater investments in schools. 

WPEN Executive Director Heather DuBois Bourenane said the use of school referendums is an “overwhelming,” “expensive” and “incredibly disequalizing” way of funding schools. A scroll with the names of every school district that has gone to referendum since the last state budget was rolled out and suspended from the third floor of the building, reaching down to the ground floor.

“Not all of these referenda passed… Some of them had to go more than once, and still didn’t pass. Some of them had to go again and again and keep asking for less,” DuBois Bourenane said. “When we fund our schools like this, our gaps get wider and wider.” 

State Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for a second term in office against school choice advocate Brittany Kinser, said the underfunding of Wisconsin’s schools has reached a “critical point.”

“With the next state biennial budget, we have a chance — a real chance — to finally catch your school districts up and to give them what they need to thrive,” Underly said. 

The pleas from rallygoers come as the budget writing process picks up in the state Capitol. Evers introduced a state budget proposal last month that would invest an additional $3 billion in K-12 education, and Republican lawmakers, who have said Evers’ proposal costs too much and therefore isn’t serious, are preparing to write their own version. 

Jeff Pressley and Joni Anderson, members of the Adams-Friendship School Board, and Tom Wermuth, the district’s school administrator, spoke to the repetitive and divisive nature of the school referendum process.

“We’re on the treadmill for referendum endlessly. We live literally paycheck to paycheck or referendum to referendum,” Pressley said, adding that the state’s funding formula is the problem with school funding.

The state’s complex school funding formula takes into account a combination of state, federal, and local aid. Of the funding, local property taxes and state aid are the two largest sources of revenue for schools, but school districts are restricted in how much they can bring in by state revenue limits. 

Revenue limits were adjusted for inflation until 2010 and since then, lawmakers have only sometimes provided increases. Currently, school districts receive a $325 increase annually in their per pupil revenue limits. 

Referendums are a way for districts to exceed their revenue limits, and schools have begun relying on them increasingly to meet costs. Last year, a record number of school districts went to referendum. 

“The funding formula in the state of Wisconsin worked significantly better from 1993 to 2010. During that time period, school districts were provided inflationary increases to the revenue limit…” Wermuth said. “Right now, we’re operating on a $3 million a year referendum. We’re in the second year of a four-year, non-recurring referendum… even with our referendum, we’re about $1.2 million dollars behind inflation. Like most districts, we can’t get off that treadmill.” 

Pressley said lawmakers have made school boards and districts the “villain” by forcing districts to have to go to voters to meet costs. 

“We have a lot of retired people on fixed incomes. Almost 50% of our funding for our schools comes from local property taxes. So, who’s the bad guy? It’s not the people in this building, it’s the people at the school district because you raised our taxes,” Pressley said. 

Wermuth said he practically isn’t an educational leader anymore. 

“I am a financial expert. I study spreadsheets and cannot get off selling referendums to the public,” Wermuth said. He added that the process is “incredibly divisive” and that “at some point in time, the tolerance is just not going to be. It’s not going to exist, regardless of what we try to do.” 

Freshman Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) said that the problems facing school districts aren’t “unsolvable.” She said the state’s estimated $4 billion budget surplus could be used to help fund school districts, that the state could tax its wealthier residents to help afford costs and stop funding private school vouchers at the expense of public schools. She said that the recent budget proposal from Gov. Tony Evers was a good starting point as it includes raising the special education reimbursement to 60%, increasing per-pupil revenue and investing in student mental health services, universal free school meals and literacy education. 

Cruz called on people to continue to speak up for better school investments — even as Republican lawmakers are likely to throw out all of Evers’ proposals. 

“There is an appetite to fully fund our schools, and when the proposal comes back to not do that, you need to continue to show up, and use your voices to advocate for our kids,” Cruz said.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Gov. Tony Evers speaks to a group in Port Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 25, about highlights in his proposal for the state's 2025-27 budget. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

PORT WASHINGTON — Holding forth for a crowd of more than two dozen people gathered upstairs from a local coffee shop, Gov. Tony Evers recapped his budget pitch Tuesday for a friendly audience.

The governor highlighted his proposals to hold down or cut taxes for the middle class, increase school funding with particular attention to special education, and make a sustained investment in child care providers.

Evers is touting his budget for providing $2 billion “in tax relief — and it’s all everyday stuff,” he said.

Boosting state investment in public education and in shared revenue with local governments, he added, will in turn make it possible for school districts and municipalities to hold the line on property taxes.  

Evers also made a pitch — to willing ears — for the budget’s $480 million in child care support.

“That is something that, if you agree with me, you really have to work on this issue,” he said.

The governor’s 2025-27 budget  is replete with big proposals, just like each one he’s proposed since taking office in 2019, including provisions for new agencies and vows to invest in sectors that have long complained of underfunding.

And as with  each of Evers’ budgets, the Republican leaders of the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee dismissed the governor’s proposals the night he announced them and promised to follow up by stripping all of them from the budget draft on the first day of deliberations. Every biennium since Evers was elected in 2018, they have then built the budget “from the base” — in other words, from the spending plan as enacted in the last budget cycle.

Last week they announced minutes after Evers’ budget address they would follow the familiar script.

Reaching out to voters, supporters

Tuesday’s round table with local officials, small business owners, teachers and residents of the Ozaukee County city was the second in a series that Evers began on Monday with stops in Wausau and Superior.

Evers opened the session with a brief account of his recent visit to Washington, D.C., where he and other governors met with President Donald Trump, and where “people are on pins and needles” amid the drastic changes taking place in the federal government since Trump took office.

The governor emphasized the impending tariffs Trump has vowed to impose — 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico, among others — are “going to be a big deal,” potentially costing the average Wisconsin consumer $1,200 a year.

With that image as the scene setter, Evers went down a partial list of his budget’s tax proposals. He’s proposed eliminating the sales tax on medicine, utility bills, and cash tips for workers such as restaurant servers and others who are paid gratuities. Tips added to a credit card payment would not be included.

Part of the budget’s claim to $2 billion in tax relief reflects putting more state funds into education, shifting the burden for funding schools off local taxpayers.

“We will be investing heavily in public education, and that includes about $3.15 billion for K-12 schools, $800 million for University of Wisconsin System and a $60 million increase in the technical college system,” Evers said. The K-12 education money includes increasing the state’s share of special education funding, now about 30%, to 60%.

His proposal also would nearly double the personal exemption under the state income tax to $1,200 from $700.  For low- and moderate-income state residents who qualify, the state would increase the earned income tax credit. Additional tax relief is aimed at veterans and surviving spouses.

Referring to a recent blockage in federal funding that hit Head Start providers across Wisconsin and nationwide before payments resumed, Evers questioned whether the 60-year-old federal child care and early education program for low-income families might meet an early demise.

“I’m not sure Head Start will survive the federal government” under the Trump administration, Evers said. “And that would cause things to be much, much more difficult” when it comes to child care.

Child care: ‘We’re going to lose providers’

Evers recapped how federal pandemic relief funds enabled Wisconsin to bolster child care providers under the Child Care Counts program. The monthly payments enabled providers to increase wages for child care workers without raising the fees parents pay for child care, but the last payments will end this summer.

“That money is gone, and now we have an industry that is struggling,” Evers said. “If we don’t do something proactive to support them — directly support them — we’re going to lose providers.”

But so far, he added, “I’m not sure the other side gets it.”

Laura Klingelhoets, who owns and is administrator of a child care center in the community of Belgium about 10 miles north of Port Washington, said staffing remains her biggest challenge.

Klingelhoets recalled a recent conversation with a father. His teenage children “can go to work,” he told her. “My toddler cannot go to work. I need the help now — and I need you to stay open.”

Bob Steffes, vice president and general manager at Allen Edmonds, the high-end shoe manufacturer that has its factory in Port Washington, offered Evers one example of how the struggle for child care hits employers:  “We lose about 30% of our female [employees] that get pregnant,” he said.

Dana Glasstein teaches English as a second language and said she has seen “a lot of interrupted learning” for students who miss classes or put off taking them because they can’t get needed child care.

Klingelhoets said she’s had conversations with legislators on the Joint Finance Committee. “I have been very respectful in some of that lobbying,” she said, “but I have been told right to my face that women should not work — they belong at home, and child care isn’t a necessity in our state.”

School funding, lead pipes

Evers’ plan to increase the state’s contribution for special education would add “almost $3 million in our general fund for schools,” said Michael McMahon, superintendent of the Port Washington-Saukville School District. The district will hold a referendum April 1, asking voters to increase their property taxes to fund a new elementary school, replacing one built 70 years ago, McMahon said. The $59.4 million ask also includes money for deferred maintenance. 

“We’ve been taking care of our facilities,” McMahon said. “We just have had to defer that to make sure we’re putting teachers in front of kids and keeping programming.”

Provisions in Evers’ budget proposal would replace sources of lead, from old paint in buildings to lead water pipes. It contains $100 million for renovations removing lead paint in schools, home and child care centers, $7 million to replace lead water lines for home-based child care providers, and $200 million to replace homeowners’ lead service lines.

In Port Washington about 800 lead water service lines need to be replaced, said Dan Buchler, the city’s water utility director. At $7,000 a line, the cost is the responsibility of property owners. 

“We’re putting a huge burden on them,” Buchler said. “Just because you live in a house that has a lead line, you didn’t put that line in the ground. It’s not your fault.”

Urging voters to prevail on their lawmakers

Meeting with voters and urging them to let lawmakers know their concerns has been a standard political tactic for the Democratic governor as he’s confronted Republican majorities in both chambers of the Legislature.

“We need to have people engage with the [budget] bill,” Evers said in a brief interview after the session. “It’s important that people understand that.”

How this year’s budget deliberations unfold could offer a glimpse into the impact of the new legislative maps enacted in 2024 that are more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and resulted in a smaller gap between the parties in both houses after the November election.

“Some of Evers’ proposals frequently poll quite well, but a statewide audience has generally been irrelevant to the majority of GOP legislators who represent solidly red districts,” said John D. Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University who has analyzed poll results and the state’s legislative maps, in an email message.

“However, since the 2024 redistricting, Republicans from safe districts no longer make up a majority of either chamber,” Johnson said. Evers may be “hoping that the Republicans representing swing seats will feel pressure to support popular policies he proposes.” Or perhaps, he added, Evers’ tactic could simply be “a rhetorical move made with an eye to the general election in 2026.”

The same dynamic works the other way, Johnson noted: “Of course, the flip side of this is that Republican legislators regularly try to pass bills they believe to be popular but which they know Evers will veto.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE