Dems Decide Not to Submit Their Amendments

The Wisconsin Assembly approved the Joint Finance Committee’s version of the state budget today with one “technical amendment.” That amendment includes 27 different items, most of which are anything but technical.

At least two of the measures in the amendment (Assembly Amendment 3 to the JFC substitute amendment) are new non-fiscal policy items (and many others amend non-fiscal policy measures in the bill). One of the new ones precludes local governments in Wisconsin from adopting or enforcing ordinances or resolutions that regulate or impose any fees on real estate brokers. Another new non-fiscal policy measure provides an additional method for chiropractors to be approved for a license.

One of the items (#26 in the Legislative Fiscal Bureau summary) is labeled “LFB/LRB technical corrections.”  That particular part of the amendment does exactly what a “technical amendment” is supposed to do – it makes corrections that bring the amended bill into alignment with what legislators thought they had previously approved. But when it comes to the substantive changes in the other 26 portions of the amendment, to refer to them as “technical” is an Orwellian way of describing the product of many hours of behind-the-scenes negotiations. (Technical amendments don’t need to be negotiated privately and don’t require an 8-page summary.)

In essence, calling Assembly Amendment 3 a “technical” amendment was one of the ways to convey the message that the majority party wouldn’t allow any “substantive” amendments to pass; only the “technical” amendment would be approved. It’s often the case that the only budget amendments that pass are one or two developed by the majority leaders or caucus, but I can’t remember any other budgets where the majority party was so overtly insistent upon the notion that the floor debate would have no effect on the outcome. The GOP leaders have essentially been saying that the behind-the-scenes deals – which went into crafting both the “technical” amendment and the omnibus motion approved by the budget committee during the middle of the night – would be the last word in both houses regarding the substance of the budget bill.

Despite the fact that majority party leaders made it clear that no “substantive” amendments would pass, I was very surprised that Democrats in the Assembly decided to vote on final passage of the bill without offering the 200 or so amendments they had prepared.  Usually the minority party likes to offer and vote on scads of amendments, partly because it’s the only role that most of those legislators have in the budget process, and partly because they generally like to get lots of roll call votes to use during campaign season.

The flip side of the practice of getting roll call votes on amendments is that some of those votes might be problematic for certain members of the minority party. And perhaps more importantly, roll calls on some of the Democrats’ amendments could be useful for Republicans in swing districts who are allowed to vote for those amendments. When the majority party has a very comfortable margin, it can defeat all amendments but give a free pass to some of its members who represent more centrist districts and might want to be able to provide hard evidence that they didn’t like some parts of the bill.  I suspect that was a significant factor in the decision of the Democrats to essentially have just one “up or down” vote on the bill.

I think the process will be considerably different in Senate on Thursday, and I hope there is a robust debate on the budget in that house.

Jon Peacock